I love a good policy debate and this time it was with our Deputy Prime Minister who had said that the Malaysian education system was superior to those within developed countries. A version of this was published in theSun on 6th April 2012.
Better than Advanced Nations?
Deputy Prime Minister stated this week that the Malaysian education system was superior to those within developed countries, and that our younger generation is receiving a better education than students in the United States, Britain and Germany. The online community (which has become the real space to watch and interact in when gauging genuine sentiment and perception amongst Malaysians these days) was abuzz with responses of sarcasm.
How, indeed, does the Malaysian education system perform vis-à-vis the rest of the world?
His announcement was an interesting one, since it quoted the World Economic Forum’s global competitiveness report, saying that “the report ranked Malaysia 14th among 142 countries in quality of education and second in the ASEAN region” (The Star, 31 March 2012).
However, upon actual scrutinising of the report itself, it seems that on the two scores that evaluated education, Malaysia was not in fact all that of a star performer indeed. On the indicator of health and primary education, Malaysia ranked 33 out of 142 countries; and on the indicator of higher education and training we ranked even lower, 38 of 142 – far below the three countries that were singled out, i.e. Germany (8th rank), the United States (13th rank) and Britain (16th rank).
In fact, in the section which provides a written analysis of Malaysia’s results, although we were praised for having climbed in our overall ranking, the report commented that “Malaysia will need to improve its performance in education”, and that “improving access remains a priority in light of low enrollment rates of 69 percent (101st position) and 36 percent (66th position) for secondary and tertiary education respectively.”
It turns out that Muhyiddin had come to his conclusion based on an Executive Opinion Survey portion of the report, in which top business figures were polled on the competitiveness of various sectors and institutions in their respective countries. The 87 Malaysians that were polled on how well the education system met the needs of a competitive economy rated Malaysia with a weighted average score of 5.1, whereas the businessmen of Germany, Britain and the US gave their countries a slightly lower score of 4.9, 4.8 and 4.7 respectively.
Coming from the market research field, one is fully aware of both the advantages and limitations of conducting such opinion polls. In this case, doing a multi-country survey poses certain challenges. Words have different meanings and connotations in different countries, hence making comparisons between societies and cultures difficult. Worse, these communities have varying standards on which ratings are done. For example, some cultures are therefore more culturally inclined to give a lower – or higher – rating than others.
In this case, the most research-based defensible conclusion one can make is that ‘when asked if the Malaysian education system had met the needs of a competitive economy, the Malaysians surveyed gave a rating of 5.1 out of 7’. To conclude that our education system is superior to other advanced nations is taking a large leap of faith.
Having settled the fact that this was most likely a misinterpretation of the World Economic Forum’s statistical results, this moves the discourse closer to home: what exactly is it that requires attention when evaluating the Malaysian education and higher education system?
Based on the enrollment rates published, three out of ten primary school students will not continue on to secondary school, and out of those, almost four out of ten would drop out and never attend any form of tertiary education institutions. Building an intelligent and highly-skilled workforce would require the very basics of increasing student enrollment at tertiary level.
Our national education syllabus and content ought to now focus on intrinsic values that can create thinking, expressive, creative and critically-minded individuals. The fact that none of our public universities has a department of Philosophy is an indictment on the development of Malaysian thought and knowledge. Finally, an emphasis on language and communication is imperative when creating a skilled and service-based workforce to serve the country’s future economic needs.
The Ministry of Higher Education is reportedly beginning a national roadshow to obtain feedback on the education system from stakeholders, with the objective of reviewing and revamping the education system. In conducting this research study, it is hoped that as wide a cross-section of society as possible will be interviewed including the marginalised and less-privileged of Malaysians.
After having attended numerous forums on Malaysia and its various needs, it is safe to conclude that one of the major barriers to achieving all that we want to in the future is that of a poor public education system. The challenges of political intervention, racial and/or religious agendas, will remain but this must be overcome if we are to achieve (what is now a cliched target, but still true nevertheless), a “world-class education system” – and most importantly, one that produces thinking Malaysians.
