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Proceeding of the International Conference on Social Science, Economics and Art 2011
Hotel Equatorial Bangi-Putrajaya, Malaysia, 14 - 15 January 2011
ISBN 978-983-42366-5-6

Proceeding of the
International Conference on Social Science, Economics and Art

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2011

ISC 2011

Cutting Edge Sciences for Future Sustainability

Hotel Equatorial Bangi-Putrajaya, Malaysia, 14 - 15 January 2011

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Malaysian Education System Reform: Educationists Perspectives

Nurul-Awanis, A.W., Hazlina, A. H., Yoke-May, L. Zariyawati, M.A
Graduate School of Management, Universiti Putra Malaysia. Tel:+60122341186 , Email: nabaw1970@yahoo.com

Abstract By year 2020, Malaysia is determined to become a knowledge-economy nation. Malaysia invests in the education and training for workforce quality, economic productivity, and global competition. Hence, to fully realize these goals, the country is keen to develop its human capital development which can respond to changes in the 21st century workplace. Education in Malaysia is an ongoing effort towards further developing the potential of individuals in a holistic and integrated manner. Recently, the Education Ministry and Members of Parliament has proposed to abolish UPSR and PMR from the present system of public examinations in the Malaysia Education system. This is part of the government efforts to restructure the learning system that is seen as too examination oriented and failed to provide a holistic education. Much interest has been generated since the proposal to abolish UPSR and PMR was made. This study attempts to investigate the input of educationists towards the abolishment in the Malaysian public examination system. KeywordsTeacher, Education System, Awareness.

I. INTRODUCTION As in many Asian countries, assessment and examinations are viewed as highly important in Malaysia. Often, public examination results are taken as important national measures of school accountability. Yet, too much emphasis on assessment and examination may constraint or distort the implemented curriculum and produce unintended consequences. The educational administration in Malaysia is highly centralised with four hierarchical levels; that is, federal, state, district and the lowest level, school. Major decision-and policy-making take place at the federal level represented by the Ministry of Education (MoE), which consists of the Curriculum Development Centre, the school division, and the Malaysian Examination Syndicate (MES). However, the ultimate authority in education is parliament; policy issues that have wider consequences are referred to the cabinet before final decision-making. At the state level, the 14 state education departments coordinate and monitor the implementation of national education programmes, projects, and activities for the MoE. The district education offices act as effective links between the school and the state education department. The current formal education system is based on the British schooling system. The Malaysian education system

provides 11 years of basic education to every child in the country. The educational structure is 6-3-2, that is, 6 years of primary education, 3 years of lower secondary education, and 2 years of upper secondary education. Since independence, Malaysia strives towards universal primary and secondary education. In the 1960s and early 1970s, much effort was emphasized into the quantitative expansion of the school system with many financial resources allocated to building new schools and training school teachers. While in the past, the education system only provided for 9 years of basic education, a recent reform in the early 1990s has extended the basic education from 9 years to 11 years. Instead of sitting for a selective public examination at the end of the lower secondary level (i.e., Form 3) and only about 50percent of the Form 3 students proceeding to Form 4, today all the Form 3 students get promoted to Form 4. This has changed an elitist school system into a system that provides for mass education. Malaysian education system is guided by the National Education Philosophy which states: Education in Malaysia is an on-going effort to produce Malaysian citizens who are knowledgeable and competent, who possess high moral standards, and who are well responsible and capable of achieving high level of personal well-being as well as

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being able to contribute to the harmony and betterment of the family, the society and nation at large. (MoE 2001, 16) Like most Asian countries (e.g., Gang 1996; Lim and Tan 1999; Choi 1999); Malaysia so far has focused on public examination results as important determinants of students progression to higher levels of education or occupational opportunities (Chiam 1984). In a study conducted by Marimuthu, Mukherjee and Jasbir (1984), the examinationoriented education system governed the learning behaviour of nearly half the students in their study. They reported that the primary function of schooling was seen as a passport to employment and the certificates are seen as controlling entry into privileged jobs. As a result, the emphasis by students, teachers and parents is on performing well in public examinations, which are considered the only valid measures of academic attainment. Other affective characteristics such as values and attitudes, which are important elements in the development of a wellrounded individual with respect to intellectual, emotional, spiritual, and physical development according to the national philosophy of education, are irrelevant in this context. The dominant form of assessment in the Malaysian education system is external centralised public examinations. The Malaysian education system requires all students to sit for public examinations at the end of each level of schooling. There are four public examinations from primary to postsecondary education. These are the Primary School Achievement Test (UPSR) at the end of six years of primary education, the Lower Secondary Examination (PMR) at the end of another three years schooling, the Malaysian Certificate of Education (SPM) at the end of 11 years of schooling, and the Malaysian Higher School Certificate Examination (STPM) or the Higher Malaysian Certificate for Religious Education (STAM) at the end of 13 years schooling (MoE 2004). Many efforts were directed to the improvement of the quality of education. The national school curriculum underwent many reforms in the 1960s and 1970s. Nearly all these curriculum reforms were under strong Western influence and many of these reforms did not produce the results expected and so, starting from 1982, the school curriculum was totally revamped right from Primary 1 up to Form 5. Recently, the Education Ministry and members of Parliament have proposed to abolish UPSR and PMR from the present system of public examinations in the Malaysia Education system. UPSR evaluates students performance in reading, mathematics, and science. Whereas, PMR form as a diagnostic evaluation of student learning. This is part of the government efforts to restructure the learning system that is seen as too examination oriented and failed to provide a holistic education. Much interest has been generated since the proposal to abolish UPSR and PMR was made. This study attempts to investigate the input of educationists towards the abolishment in the Malaysian public examination system.

II. EDUCATION SYSTEM REFORMS The New Primary School Curriculum, often referred to as Kurikulum Baru Sekolah Rendah (KBSR), was implemented in 1982 because of dissatisfaction with the old primary curriculum which was thought to be too subject content-biased, emphasise too much rote-learning, to be too examination-oriented and excessively dependent on textbooks (Lee, 1993a). The new curriculum is aim to introduce new emphases in the objectives and content, new teaching styles and new types of instructional materials, all of which are aimed at improving the quality of primary education. The underlying philosophy of KBSR is a child-centred curriculum which recognises the importance of individual differences, individual achievement, and emphasizes the overall development of the child (Azizah, 1987). KBSR emphasizes the acquisition of basic skills and knowledge through a direct variety of instructional materials, and practises a variety of pupil groupings. It also recognises the need to cater for different levels of ability amongst the pupils by means of remedial and enrichment programs and to practice continual assessment of the childs progress. The KBSR was implemented progressively and the full cycle took 7 years from 1982 to 1988. In 1988, the Integrated Secondary School Curriculum (referred to as KBSM) was introduced as a continuation of the curriculum reform efforts at secondary level. The emphasis of the new secondary school curriculum is on integration which stresses the teaching of language and values across the curriculum (Abdullah & Kumar, 1990). New subjects like Moral Education (for non-Muslim students), Islamic Studies (for Muslim students) and Living Skills were included in the integrated curriculum. Another distinctive feature of KBSM is that students are no longer streamed into Arts or Science streams. The new curriculum has done away with early specialisation allowing students to choose subjects from different groups of electives. These curriculum reforms raised issues and controversies. The ratio of students who opted for science subjects to those who chose non-science subjects has dropped to 22:78 in 1993 (Ministry of Education, 1994). This has brought about great concerns on the part of the government for fear that the vision of Malaysia becoming an industrialised country may be jeopardised by a shortage of scientific and technical human resources. As a result, the Ministry of Education undertook measures to try to get the children interested in science and mathematics at an early age. Science was reintroduced into the primary school curriculum in 1993 as a separate and distinct subject. The implementation of KBSR and KBSM has also created implications that needed serious attention. Curriculum development in Malaysia has been highly centralised. Although the new curricula have been developed by a central agency, the implementation has been decentralised with agencies at both state and district level. However, the centralised control and hierarchical structure of the Malaysian educational system is not conducive to decentralization (Lee, 1993a). Even though teachers, school heads, and school administrators were given a lot of autonomy to implement the new curricula, they seemed to be

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shackled by the traditional practice of waiting for directives from the top rather than making independent decisions (Azizah, 1987). They would rather rely on specific instructions from above so as to avoid the risk of being accused of doing something wrong. Thus, the centralized system seems to have results in dysfunctional consequences where teachers became unresourceful and over-dependent on the ministrys directives and handouts (Noor Azmi, 1988).

It is clear that curriculum change is a complex process and while there are many resource and support factors that appear to influence change, it is apparent that any successful reform will need to take into account teachers beliefs about the intended, the implemented, and the attained curriculum. If teachers hold beliefs compatible with the innovation then acceptance will be more likely to occur. The mismatch between curriculum goals and teachers belief systems is a factor that affects current curriculum change in education. IV. DATA & METHODOLOGY

III. EDUCATIONISTS PERCEPTIONS ON EDUCATION SYSTEM REFORM In education reform, there is frequently a mismatch between the intended, the implemented and the attained curriculum (Cuban, 1993). The intended curriculum is the one prescribed by policy makers, the implemented curriculum is the one that is actually carried out by teachers in their classrooms, and the attained curriculum is the one learnt by students (Howson & Wilson, 1986). Part of the mismatch is due to the fact that teachers and students work on more limited goals than those proposed by curriculum developers, teacher educators, writers of syllabuses, and textbook authors (Handal, 2001). In the context of a school based curriculum development project, Clarke (1997) identified 12 factors that appeared to influence the change process: (a) the reform movement in general; (b) the principal and school community; (c) internal support personnel;(d) the spirit of collegiality, collaboration, and experimentation; (e) the grade level team of teachers; (f) innovative curriculum materials; (g) the in-service program; (h) external support personnel; (i) the researcher acting as a participant observant and critical friend; (j) outcomes valued by the teacher; (k) day-to-day conditions under which teachers work; and (l) teacher knowledge. Anderson and Piazza (1996, p. 54) argued that teachers, who must be the agents of change, are products of the system they are trying to change and proposed that teachers feelings, beliefs, and values that are opposite to constructivism are a barrier to reform in education. According to Martin (1993a, 1993b) curriculum implementation approaches that do not consider teachers beliefs have a temporary life. These reforms were often disseminated using a traditional approach in which teachers were presented with a prepared product and a rigid set of procedures to follow. The major cause of failure of these programs was their negligence in failing to take into account teachers pedagogical knowledge and beliefs as well as the contexts in which these teaching behaviours occurred (Knapp & Peterson, 1995). In other words, curriculum change in the last several decades relied on the simplistic assumption that teachers will, machine-like, alter their behaviours because they were simply told what was good for them and for their students (Grant, Hiebert, & Wearne, 1994). Current approaches to curriculum implementation need to rely on more realistic assumptions about teachers beliefs, recognising that it is difficult to change teaching styles because changing practices demands a process of unlearning and learning again (Mousley, 1990).

Primary data was gathered through questionnaire-based survey. The questionnaire was divided into two sections with the intention to extract information regarding teachers on government intention. The first section comprised of questions related to teachers awareness and their perception on the abolishment of UPSR and PMR examination. Meanwhile, section two comprised of demographic information. V. FINDINGS From the descriptive analysis obtained in Table 1, majority (72.73 percent) of the respondents do not agree with the governments intention to abolish UPSR and PMR examination. Only 27.27 percent agrees with this. We further analyze our data by looking at respondents age and education level. According to Panel B in Table 1, the percentage of respondent disagreeing with the governments intention are 72.73 and 82.35 for less than 35 years old and 35 years old and above respectively. Panel C shows almost similar result for teachers who hold a Degree or Diploma certification. These findings can be clearly shown in Figure 1. T ABLE I DESCRIPTIVE S TATISTICS ON AGREEMENT WITH GOVERNMENTS INTENTION
Yes 27.27% Category < 35 years 35 years and above Category Diploma Degree Panel A: Overall No Total

72.73% 100.00% Panel B: Age Yes No Total 27.27% 72.73% 100.00% 17.65% 82.35% 100.00% Panel C: Education Level Total Yes No 33.33% 21.05% 66.67% 78.95% 100.00% 100.00%

Fig.1 Agreement with Governments Intention to Abolish Examination

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As shown in Table 2, respondents preferences on the education system are reported. The overall respondents preferred that these examinations to be maintained, with a percentage of 70.00. This result is concurrent with the result obtained earlier that they disagreed with the governments intention to abolish the UPSR and PMR examinations. Referring to Panel B in Table 2, teachers aged less than 35 years and 35 years and above both reported almost the same percentage in abolishing or maintaining these examinations or neither. In Panel C, teachers with a Diploma certification reported a higher percentage of 33.33 percent in agreeing with the abolishment of examinations compared to those with a Degree certification, 15.79 percent. In contrast, 73.68 percent of Degree holders agreed with the decision to maintain with the current system. This percentage is higher as compared to teachers with a Diploma certification (58.33 percent). Although there are contrast in the results, but both certificate holders agreed with the decision to maintain current system.
T ABLE II DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS ON E XAMINATION SYSTEM PREFERENCES Panel A: Overall Abolish 20.00% Maintain 70.00% Neither 10.00% Total 100.00%

these examinations help students to be more focused in their studies and to inform them their level of achievement. By maintaining these examinations, parents will give more attention towards their childrens education. Some of the teachers also reported that the decision to adopt school based examination to be unreliable and unfair. However, there are some teachers who believed that it is good to abolish these examinations because the students will be too exam-oriented. They will be taking too much time in preparing for the examination and this will hinder their social relationship with their surrounding (e.g., friends and family members). On top of that, they will just concentrate with the exam materials and tends to not study materials beyond the exam syllabus. With the too exam-oriented environment, students hidden talent (e.g., in sports and music) may recede gradually. Then again, they too recommended that a different method of assessment is needed in assessing students. VI. CONCLUSION The overall result obtained from this study suggested that majority of the teachers disagreed with the governments intention to abolish the UPSR and PMR examinations. They preferred that the current system to be maintained with amendment to be made in order to suit the current environment. To meet Vision 2020, Malaysia needs active learners who have acquired the skills of problem-solving, independent thinking, and autonomous learning as well as the abilities to work co-operatively. Schools need to emphasise different kinds of teaching and learning strategies such as co-operative learning, group work and other learnerdirected modes of operation. School performance indicators should be broadened to include a whole host of social outcomes such as attendance, behaviour, self-image and a range of attitudes to school. Consequently, teachers attitudes, feelings, and perceptions must be recognised well before the launching of any innovation. Likely discrepancies between teachers opinions and the ideas underpinning a curriculum innovation need to be identified, analysed, and addressed. The current trends in education towards constructivist learning environments and assessment of learning based on demonstrable outcomes will only succeed if teachers beliefs about these reforms are considered and confronted. Otherwise, teachers will maintain their hidden agendas in the privacy of their classrooms and the implementation process will result in a self deceiving public exercise of educational reform and a waste of energy and resources.

Panel B: Age Category < 35 years 35 years and above Abolish 21.21% 17.65% Maintain 69.70% 70.59% Neither 9.09% 11.76% Total 100.00% 100.00%

Panel C: Education Level Category Diploma Degree Abolish 33.33% 15.79% Maintain 58.33% 73.68% Neither 8.34% 10.53% Total 100.00% 100.00%

REFERENCES
Fig. 2 Preferences on Examination System [1] [2] Abdullah, S., & Kumar, P. (1990). Pendidikan di Malaysia [Education in Malaysia]. Kuala Lumpur: Longman Malaysia. Anderson, D. S., & Piazza, J. A. (1996). Teaching and learning mathematics in constructivistpreservice classrooms. Action in Teacher Education, 18(2), 51-62. Azizah, A.R. (1987). Curriculum innovation in Malaysia: The case of KBS Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of London Institute of Education, U.K. Chiam, H.K. 1984. The elite, exam oriented education system: A socio-psychological critique. Paper presented in Seminar on Education and Development: Key Questions on Malaysian Education. November 1822, to Consumers Association of Penang, Malaysia.

From the survey conducted, majority of the teachers disagree with the governments intention to abolish the examination as these examinations are important in determining students level of proficiency. For example, in the case of UPSR examination, this exam is the main tool for teachers to evaluate the primary school children before entering secondary school. In addition, this exam also helps to assist teachers in assigning classes for them. Furthermore,

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