The MQA (Malaysian Qualification Agency) will not oppose if SPM scrapped for educational reforms introduced by lecturers/tutors!
Commentary and Analysis . . . Students in Malaysia, generally doing badly on their studies, appear losing interest in education and prefer the gig economy after SPM, if media surveys are accurate on the lack of educational reforms. So, colleges could do better on helping students and thereby remaining solvent. The alarm bells start ringing when colleges fall back on paying staff salaries. Lecturers and tutors, if unpaid, will leave in droves.
Follow the Debate in the following link . . .
https://www.malaysiakini.com/news/712024
PTPTN (Perbadanan Tabung Pendidikan Tinggi Nasional), the National Higher Education Fund Corporation, alone won’t save colleges. The students and families are not that naive. It’s pointless incurring PTPTN debts and ending up unemployable. The workplace needs skills.
The MQA (Malaysian Qualification Agency) will not oppose reforms in education. This writer has dealt with MQA based on lifelong Teaching Permit as subject matter expert on public examination techniques. That means students get A in all subjects. The truth remains stranger than fiction.
In April, for example, this writer’s media students scored A in all six areas tested viz. assignment/related presentation, Quiz, project, related presentation, final exam, and marking all testing areas for scrutiny and moderation by the Examination Board and MQA.
Educational Reforms
Colleges need lecturers/tutors, subject matter experts in public examination techniques, playing key role in educational reforms. There’s no place for memorisation and rote learning. Objective tests should be minimised. The focus should be on subjective questions which call for thinking skills as matured persons. There are no right or wrong answers. The students’ answers, in varying degrees, merit marks.
Lecturers/Tutors should interpret the curriculum/syllabus/text/topics for the lectures/tutorials. All testing areas can be worked out by lecturers/tutors, based on lectures/tutorials, and marked by them for the Examination Board/MQA. These two bodies will cooperate.
Students will do well. Colleges will have credibility.
The focus should be on skills which can be taken away from lectures/tutorials for the workplace.
SPM Scrapped
Let’s scrap the SPM. Students can sit for 45 minute computerised university entrance examination based on school leaving certificate. There can be only two grades i.e. Pass or Fail. The computer will announce the result immediately.
The entrance examination paper, three subjects in one, can consist of English comprehension, Bahasa Comprehension and Mathematics with Statistics. The Open University of Malaysia (OUM), for example, conducts entrance examination for mature students and others.
10A Students
The government said that Other students with at least 10A in SPM would get seats in matriculation. Ironically, not that many students sit for 10 subjects in SPM.
What do local Ummah, Orang Asal and Orang Asli students get in SPM!
Can they get at least one A under the standard marking system! This writer stands corrected on Orang Asal students.
The SPM marking system shouldn’t be state secret. The Trial Examination results give the game away on the state secret.
Matriculation students, in impossible feat, are guaranteed seats in the 20 public universities. It’s backdoor system which circumvents the collapse and implosion, by 2002, of the quota system imposed by public universities.
The government should focus on the meaning of education.
University remains for the brilliant.
Job seekers should join training institutes for skills needed by the workplace. Then, there’s TVET (Technical and Vocational Education and Training). Night school should be for adults and those who can’t read and write.
True education lies in remembering all the readings for writing from memory in connecting the dots. There’s originality of thought and original thinking.
Opinion
This writer doesn’t write peer-reviewed academic pieces or compile known facts and pass them off as Opinion.
Writing, based on memory from all the readings, connects the dots. There’s originality of thought and original thinking.
The sourcing, where applicable, may fall back on history and law stored in the memory. That’s based on all the readings.
The plagiarism checker will detect no plagiarism and no similarity of content — term used by universities — if any, above 30 per cent. It becomes ethical issue, bordering on theft, if the work of others were passed off as one’s own. Plagiarism exists even if material was rewritten, attributed and referenced as there’s no originality of thought and no original thinking. Editing down material, drastically, may be form of connecting the dots. There’s originality of thought and original thinking.
There’s no law on plagiarism.
In fact, all laws are works of plagiarism.
The grammar checker, never more accurate than 60 per cent, may find that this writer does not follow the rules of grammar per se. English remains language which often breaks its own rules. There are many exceptions.
The approach on grammar remains based mostly on the sounds of the language while not ignoring the more familiar rules.
No Politics
The education system needs lecturers/tutors in the form of subject matter experts in public examination techniques. Again, that means students get A including in English. Language, for example, remains best learnt on one’s own after Year 3. Language teacher isn’t necessary.
Politics, based on divisiveness, can be taken out of education if the education ministry was abolished.
There should be independent Education Commission at the national level.
The examination syndicate and Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA) exists.
The Education Bureau would be at the state level.
No one should be awarded PhD unless they can explain the thesis statement in English, in face to face encounter, before 15 member Panel made up of local and foreign academicians in equal measure.
Intelligence
IQ, on related matter which does not digress too much, may not measure intelligence per se but can only be about the ability for doing IQ Tests.
Intelligence, based on all readings and stored in memory, remains the ability for learning from mistakes. If there’s learning, the intelligence level increases.
We don’t know whether the ability for learning from mistakes can be increased through nutrition. However, oxygen level, balanced meals, keeping hydrated, managing stress and night sleep matter for general feeling of comfort and wellness.
New mistakes can be made as part of the learning process.
Old mistakes must never be repeated.
If old mistakes are repeated, there has been no learning, and no increase in intelligence.
If old mistakes are repeated, viz. no learning and no increase in intelligence, it may be sign of forms of incorrigibility and/or sign of forms of delusions arising including perhaps from belief systems and/or sign of forms of mental illness and/or sign of forms of insanity.
Insanity, under the law on mental health, remains legal term based on subject matter expert opinion.
All these phenomenon on the mind may be driven by “demons” created by imbalances in brain chemistry. They arise from stress and trauma which disorients, confuses the immune system and creates chaos. It’s said that ancient India discovered that chaos was the only predictable property of the universe. It was confirmed by Cambridge University theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking.
Buddha for example saw Nirvana — eternal bliss — which has been translated as heaven and/or paradise. Theoretical physicist Albert Einstein said that Buddha found what he was looking for, viz. the end of suffering, and came the nearest for science. Einstein said the secret of genius lay in daydreaming.
Buddha said, “you are what you think”, “you attract what you feel”, “you create what you imagine”.
Related Links . . .
https://www.malaysiakini.com/news/712162
FOOTNOTE . . .
As subject matter expert on public examination techniques, the writer can help interpret the curriculum/syllabus, text/topics, for preparation of lectures/tutorials for securing A, preparation of material for all testing areas viz. assignment/related presentation, Quiz, project, related presentation, final exam, and marking all testing areas. — NMH
Longtime Borneo watcher Joe Fernandez has been writing for many years on both sides of the Southeast Asia Sea. He should not be mistaken for a namesake formerly with the Daily Express in Kota Kinabalu. JF keeps a Blog under FernzTheGreat on the nature of human relationships.
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