What this Malaysian voter wants on education

This is post no. 44, 4+4 = 8 = prosperity.

Yes, essentially, this is what I want from our government. Because once we become a richer country, life would be better all around - although granted that not all problems will go away but hopefully there will be lesser and replaced by such 'happy' problems of having to decide what to eat! Instead of the problem of 'is there enough to eat'?

Firstly, let's be fair to the existing government and civil servants - we are developing to be sure and it is helped a lot by petroleum revenues as well as private enterprise, but at the same time because the pace of growth has been quite high for a while - a lot of fundamental things are not done well and in the long run it will come back to haunt us. In fact the problems are already here:

But lets start with one issue first: Education

I think there is too much emphasis on tertiary education whereby it has become a matter of quantity over quality, we have failed in the lower levels of skills certification. Or maybe we DO have such certification but there seems to be no punitive actions taken on failure to comply with things such as hygiene & safety and even basic stuff like taxi driver behaviour.

So for our country to progress, we need to fix the education & training environment from top to bottom!

In point form - 'cos if you are a politician (hah!) reading this then I'll keep in short (I'm just lazy that way):

1. Tertiary - liberalise the campuses, in every sense of the word. Let the universities compete for students' fees by offering courses, campus life and career opportunities (oo, excellent alliteration,even if I do say so myself. Comes from going to 2 veh good universitaahs, yew know old chap). Not popular? Lousy reputation? Close down then. Popular? Then lecturers get well paid, attracts talented and ambitious students, everybody wins.
2. Vocational certification - spend money here on training, certification and enforcement. This is where we fail very badly. Get it down to even the road sweeper! One day course with tea break also can ma.. at least they will feel valued somewhat, seriously.
3. Secondary - I would advocate going back to using GCE O-levels but that would not fly so next best is to ensure that the passing mark is CONSISTENT. And put a cap on the number of papers - it's patently ridiculous to take 17 papers just to get all A's, kind of devalues the whole thing and honestly, just means that they are good at regurgitating facts because there is no critical thinking involved.
4. Primary - put more resources into the primary teachers more, please! This is the most crucial time and teachers here have be motivated and well trained and well-paid. Of course, disciplinary action and constant monitoring is crucial because young kids are most vulnerable and impressionable. The nurturing at this stage must be top notch. Focus on the 3R's and developing talents (e.g. art, music, sports). Don't force rote memorisation, learn through play is better.
5. Streaming at all levels - must be strict and consistent with this, if the child is not good, he's not good. Stream him into vocational, stream him into a special class for slow learners, hold him back a year. Better to do it now and do it properly than to push him through a standard system that does him no good and he ends up unemployable, angry and dysfunctional - unable to understand why he is deemed a failure where for all we know, this child could have been a brilliant athlete or artist, but no one bothered to check.

Phew, glad I got that off my chest..

p.s. on PPSMI - I actually went through a BM medium education most of my life then switched to GCE O-levels in a very short span of time, so I have been through both systems and this is what I feel:

•  I found learning Sciences (and I was in science stream, so the whole shebang: Physics, Chemistry and Biology) in English much easier - mainly because I'm much more fluent in it compared to BM (although I did grow up speaking BM at home too but only to our servant). Also because from watching documentaries and stuff on TV, it was easier to absorb and link facts together. That being said, I never liked Physics and this is the key point - I didn't do well in it either in BM OR English. Albeit, my scores did improved when in English medium but it was like just moving from a pass to a barely there credit.
• Mathematics in English or BM = no difference to me, either you get the concept or you don't. Once you grasp the logic (especially in calculus and statistics), then you're ok. Doesn't matter which language because ultimately, the final answer and your steps along the way are either right or wrong, your language fluency is not important in deriving the correct answer. Anyway, I went from failing Add Maths in BM to finally getting an A1 in GCE Add Maths in English but I would attribute that to the private tutor my dad got for me who taught me how to understand the concepts, which is the right way to teach calculus, right!?

So there you go, PPSMI for Science definitely but ambivalent about Maths. Ultimately, if the teachers are good, can explain concepts well and make learning enjoyable, then the language should not be that much of a stumbling block. E.g. I loved Geografi Fizikal, even though it was in BM, the teacher (can't remember her name but a Malay lady) was very passionate about the subject and she made it very interesting - plus I kinda liked drawing all the glaciers, fiords and stuff for homework.