Why Malaysia Education System Is A Failure?

Summary

The video script discusses Malaysia's underwhelming performance in the 2022 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), highlighting a significant drop in scores compared to regional peers, including Vietnam. It attributes the decline to the pandemic and lockdowns but also points to deeper issues within the education system, such as the quality of teachers and early education. The speaker, a parent, emphasizes the importance of improving educational outcomes for the nation's future productivity and economic growth, suggesting a focus on teacher training and curriculum quality rather than language debates. The video also touches on the impact of education on GDP and the need for a merit-based system to incentivize teacher performance.

Takeaways

• 📉 Malaysia's education system has been performing below average, with the 2022 PISA scores showing a significant drop, even falling behind Vietnam.
• 🚫 The pandemic and lockdowns were cited as reasons for the decline in performance, but this excuse is questioned as other countries faced similar challenges without such a steep drop.
• 📚 The Prime Minister of Malaysia has acknowledged the poor performance and called for an end to excuses, emphasizing the need to improve the education system, particularly in STEM subjects and English.
• 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 As a parent, the speaker agrees with the Prime Minister, wanting the best education for children who will be the future workforce and contributors to Malaysia's economy.
• 💹 Studies suggest that the education level of citizens can impact a nation's GDP, indicating that the decline in Malaysia's education could have broader economic consequences.
• 🔍 The speaker investigates the PISA assessment, which is a worldwide test conducted by the OECD to measure the scholastic ability of 15-year-old students in science, maths, and reading.
• 📝 The speaker's staff attempted the PISA test, highlighting that the assessment is not easy, with only 1% of Malaysian students able to complete level five and six in mathematics.
• 👩‍🏫 The quality of teachers in Malaysia is identified as a major issue, with reports indicating that many teachers are underqualified and not meeting the required standards.
• 📈 The implementation of teaching STEM subjects in English was a step in the right direction, but the execution was flawed, leading to a widening gap between urban and rural students' performance.
• 🌐 The speaker suggests that the focus should be on improving the quality of education and the teachers' capacity, rather than arguing over the language of instruction.
• 🤝 The Education Minister's quote on education as a tool for national unity is highlighted, emphasizing the importance of focusing on the root causes of educational issues to improve Malaysia as a whole.

Q & A

What was Malaysia's performance in the 2022 PISA scores?

Malaysia performed below average, with a score drop of more than 6%, placing it behind regional peers including Vietnam.

How did the pandemic affect Malaysia's PISA scores?

The pandemic led to school closures and lockdowns, which negatively impacted the performance of Malaysian students, although other countries faced similar challenges.

What was the Prime Minister's response to the PISA scores?

The Prime Minister acknowledged the poor performance and called for no more excuses, emphasizing the need to improve Malaysia's education system.

Why is the PISA score important for Malaysia's future?

The PISA score reflects the quality of education, which in turn affects the nation's GDP and the ability of its citizens to support the economy.

What is the PISA assessment and how is it conducted?

PISA is a worldwide assessment by the OECD that measures the scholastic ability of 15-year-old students in science, maths, and reading.

What was the outcome of the office staff's PISA test?

The office staff were tested on reading level five, and the results varied, showing that the PISA assessment is not easy.

What is the issue with early education in Malaysia?

A significant number of students below 10 years old struggle with reading, writing, or interpreting sentences, which is a fundamental skill necessary for problem-solving.

What is the problem with the quality of teachers in Malaysia?

Many teachers are underqualified and lack the necessary training, which affects the overall quality of education.

What was the government's attempt to improve STEM education?

The government tried to teach STEM subjects in English, but the implementation was poor, leading to a wide gap in performance between urban and rural students.

What is the suggested solution to improve Malaysia's education system?

The focus should be on improving teacher quality, providing proper training, and ensuring they are passionate and qualified to teach.

What is the role of language in Malaysia's education system?

The debate over whether to teach in English or Bahasa has been divisive, but the key is to focus on students' ability to understand and solve problems, regardless of the language used.

Outlines

00:00

📉 Malaysian Education: A Concerning Trend

The script discusses the poor performance of Malaysian students in the 2022 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), highlighting a significant drop in scores compared to previous years and other regional peers, including Vietnam. The pandemic and lockdowns are cited as contributing factors, but the script emphasizes the need for the Malaysian education system to improve, especially in STEM subjects and English. The Prime Minister's call for no more excuses and the potential impact on Malaysia's future economy are also mentioned.

05:01

📚 The PISA Test and Its Implications

This paragraph delves into the PISA test, explaining its purpose as a worldwide assessment of 15-year-old students' scholastic abilities in science, maths, and reading. It contrasts Malaysia's performance with the OECD average and discusses the challenges faced by Malaysian students, particularly in completing higher levels of the assessment. The script also touches on the Minister of Education's response to the situation and the need for better connectivity and learning resources for students.

10:02

👨‍🏫 The Quality of Teachers in Malaysia

The script addresses the issue of teacher quality in Malaysia, noting that many teachers are underqualified and not meeting the required standards. It suggests that improving teacher training and capacity is crucial for the education system's success. The script also reflects on past experiences with dedicated and knowledgeable teachers, contrasting them with the current situation. It calls for a merit-based system and incentives to attract and retain passionate, qualified teachers.

🌐 Language and Education Policy

This paragraph discusses the challenges of implementing STEM subjects in English and the resulting disparities between urban and rural students. It criticizes the poor execution of the policy and suggests that the focus should be on improving teacher proficiency and student comprehension rather than the language of instruction. The script also mentions the dual language program and the need to prioritize educational quality over language debates.

🤝 National Unity and Education

The script concludes with a call for unity and a focus on the root causes of educational issues. It emphasizes the importance of education as a tool for national unity and growth, urging parents and the government to prioritize the quality of education over language debates. The Education Minister's quote on the role of education in fostering unity is highlighted, and the script invites viewers to share their thoughts on the matter.

Keywords

💡PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment)

PISA is an international assessment that measures the scholastic performance of 15-year-old students in reading, mathematics, and science. It is conducted by the OECD and provides a comparison of education systems worldwide. In the video, Malaysia's performance in PISA is discussed, highlighting the country's below-average results and the need for educational improvement. The video mentions a significant drop in Malaysia's PISA scores, comparing it to other countries like Vietnam.

💡Educational Performance

Refers to the academic achievements and learning outcomes of students, often measured through standardized tests like PISA. The video emphasizes Malaysia's poor educational performance, especially in STEM subjects and English, and how it impacts the nation's future workforce and economy.

💡COVID-19 Impact on Education

The pandemic has disrupted traditional education systems globally, leading to school closures and a shift to online learning. The video discusses how the pandemic affected Malaysia's educational performance, with the excuse of lockdowns being cited for the decline in PISA scores.

💡Early Education

Refers to the initial stages of a child's formal education, typically starting from preschool to early primary school years. The video highlights the importance of early education in developing foundational skills like reading, writing, and comprehension, which are crucial for later academic success.

💡Teacher Quality

The quality of educators is a critical factor in the effectiveness of an education system. The video discusses the need to improve the quality of teachers in Malaysia, suggesting that many are underqualified and not meeting the required standards.

💡STEM Education

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education focuses on these four disciplines, which are considered essential for the future workforce. The video discusses Malaysia's attempt to teach STEM subjects in English and the subsequent challenges faced due to inadequate preparation and resources.

💡Dual Language Program

This educational approach involves teaching subjects in two languages, often the native language and English. The video touches on the challenges of implementing a dual language program in Malaysia, where some teachers continue to teach in Bahasa despite the program's intent.

💡National Unity

National unity refers to the process of fostering a sense of belonging and solidarity among the diverse population of a nation. The video quotes the Malaysian Education Minister on the belief that education should be a tool for national unity, suggesting that language debates should not divide the country.

💡Economic Impact

The economic impact of education refers to how the quality of education influences a country's economic growth and development. The video suggests that a decline in educational standards could lead to a decrease in Malaysia's GDP, affecting the nation's prosperity.

💡Parental Concerns

Parents' concerns about education typically revolve around the quality of schooling, the future opportunities for their children, and the overall development of their skills. The video reflects the speaker's personal concerns as a parent, wanting the best education for their children to contribute to the nation's productivity.

Highlights

Malaysian education has once again performed below average in the PISA 2022 assessment.

Malaysia's performance was worse than regional peers, even falling behind Vietnam.

The pandemic and lockdown were cited as reasons for the decline in performance.

Vietnam's score only dropped by 4%, while Malaysia's dropped by more than 6%.

Malaysia's current PISA score is below the standard of 2012.

The Prime Minister has called for no more excuses and improvement in the education system.

The focus should be on STEM subjects and English proficiency.

The education of citizens affects the GDP of a nation, and Malaysia's economy could be at risk.

PISA is a worldwide assessment conducted by the OECD to measure 15-year-old students' scholastic ability.

Only 1% of Malaysian students can complete the PISA assessment for level five and six in mathematics.

Early Education issues, such as 4 out of 10 Malaysian students below 10 years old not being able to read or write, are highlighted.

The quality of teachers in Malaysia is a significant concern, with many being underqualified.

The Ministry of Education should take teacher recruitment more seriously and invest in teacher development.

The implementation of teaching STEM subjects in English was poorly executed, leading to a widening gap between urban and rural students.

The focus should be on improving students' ability to comprehend and solve problems, rather than the language of instruction.

Education should be a tool for national unity, as stated by the Education Minister.

Parents want the best education for their children, regardless of the type of school or language of instruction.

Transcripts

Malaysian education has once again

caught the headline after the pizza

score of 2022 was announced and we have

performed below average once again this

time is so bad that when we compare with

our regional peers we are one of the

lousy performing ones even behind

Vietnam now obviously the excuse that

was given was because of pandemic there

was lockdown schools has to stop

therefore our you know performance was

bad but other countries also went

through the same thing right in fact

Vietnam score only dropped by 4% plus

but Malaysian score actually dropped by

more than 6% and right now our Piza

score standard is actually below that of

2012 okay some of it is about there but

it is bad it is so bad that even our

prime minister actually came out and

spoke about it and say that there should

not be any excuses anymore Malaysia

education system needs to pay pick up

our students need to be better in stem

subjects and English as a parent I

totally agree because I would want the

best education for my children and

what's more important is they are the

ones who's going to support the economy

in Malaysia they are going to be the

workforce they're going to be the

productive workers and if they have bad

education what's the future for

[Music]

Malaysia in fact there are studies that

actually shown the education of citizens

were affect the GDP of a nation and so

if our education is going down the drain

it is very high chance that Malaysia

economy could also go down the drain in

the future so to understand what's wrong

with Malaysia's education system and why

every time we are scoring so badly in

this Piza score I've decided to find out

what this whole Piza thing is all about

P out the program of international

student assessment it's actually a

worldwide assessment conducted by o ecd

on countries that are members and

non-members basically the whole idea is

to assess the education system of a

country by measuring 15-year-old

students Scholastic ability means

whether it see they educated or not on

the subject of science maths and reading

and to explain how Malaysia has been

performing in this let me first start by

the good news in 2012 we definitely did

not perform very well but by 2018

Malaysian actually started to pick up

and improve however in the last

assessment in

2022 oh we just dropped so instead of

just standing there and criticizing

people and saying that I you so stupid

cannot do it well well I've decided to

get my staff in the office to do an

actual example of the pizza assessment

and see how they actually

do hello in Adel

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identity today now back to our video so

we're going to go around the office and

get some of our colleagues to do the

pizza test there are total of six levels

in this test level one being the easiest

and level six being the hardest we're

going to go around the office and get

our colleagues to test on their reading

level five let's see how they're going

to Fair out any wait guys if you guys

want to take the same test pause the

screen and take the test right here

we just want to test you on something H

have you heard of the pizza test

basically it's a program for

international student assessment you

just have to just read through this

thing and then the last question right

uh there'll be a question for you and

you have to answer the

question is it

C the answer is indeed it is C wow not

bad thank you only

huh what do you

mean I graduated with a writing degree I

think

right that means your answer is C good

job good job yeah the answer is C this

questions ask whether participants had

experienced partic feelings for a long

period of time the previous day enjoy

happiness stress worry and sness

according to researchers such ansers are

free from the revised memories or

subject obviously yeah a obviously yeah

sorry to let you know sir but the answer

is C so your answer is D

yeah the answer is

C so as you can see the Piza assessment

is not that easy in fact according to

the indepth Piza assessment report only

1% of Malaysian student can actually

complete the assessment for level five

and level six for mathematics subject

comparing against the oecd average of

9% well our education Minister did came

out and speak about this and say that is

is mainly due to the covid time where

schools were shut down and we have that

issue with connectivity so students

can't learn they do not have connection

they do not have tablet blah blah blah

blah blah well we all know that and

those explanations are all valid and at

the end of the day she actually

inherited this whole Legacy of Ministry

of Education it is not under her watch

that all this happen so let's not blame

her for it in fact the root cause of all

this in my opinion begins from Early

Education in fact there was a separate

study that was conducted that shows that

Malaysian student age below 10 years old

four out of 10 cannot read or write or

interpret a sentence imagine if you

can't even understand a sentence how can

you actually solve any problem or learn

if you look at it that is exactly what

the Pisa score is trying to test for

your ability to interpret and understand

a situation and a problem true language

and solving it if you can't even read

and interpret a sentence it is going to

be very hard for us to continue learning

because when you graduate and there's no

more teachers you have to keep improving

the only way is to understand things and

move on and learn yourself right so the

issue of not being able to read or write

or interpret a sentence is huge problem

and that should be something to be

tackled in Early Education itself I

can't emphasize how important this is

because as a parent

myself I'm truly truly concerned so is

Malaysian education really that bad to

understand this I decided to go back in

the past and ask my family members my

mom my uncles and aunties and ask them

what they think about Malaysian

education in the past and this is what

they told me back then their teachers

were fantastic they were really

dedicated people and they were very

knowledgeable and when we look back in

the past during those days many of our

teachers were actually trained overseas

in London in UK right and they came back

but the problem today is the quality of

teachers are not that great in fact

there was a report that was shown that

93% of applicants into the teaching

Institute and 70% of those were

recruited as teachers are underqualified

they do not even meet the minimum

standard of requirement and that

explains why is it so bad we need to

start by improving the quality of our

teachers itself obviously I'm not saying

that we need to let go of the teachers

or whatnot I'm saying maybe we should

start investing more in developing the

teachers capacity we should train up the

teachers upskill them we should have a

more formal program and go heavy on such

investment I recall many times back in

school there were teachers who were not

interested in teaching at all there were

teachers who actually do not even know

what they are teaching about their

quality was so bad we even came across

news reports that tells about teachers

who do not come to school for one year

and students actually whistleblow it

right and what happened to those

teachers they just merely get

transferred that's all I think our

government the Ministry of Education

should take the recruitment of teachers

more seriously getting great teachers on

board people who are really really

passionate about it people who are

qualified attract them with higher

salary and Implement a system and

structure of reward so that they will

perform well in school and if they don't

Let It Be Merit based right force them

to up skill or change them to other jobs

that are non-teaching related at least

teacher will be incentivized to work

hard and educate the Next Generation now

it's not to say that our country did not

try to improve our education system we

did in fact T mahad before he resigned

as a prime minister he implemented stem

subjects to be taught in English and

that was a good move however the

implement mentation was so bad after he

implemented it the gap of results

between urban students and Rural

students was so wide students either

perform very well or either but they

performed so badly because the system

was not ready what happened is that when

they implemented stem subjects to be

taught in English the teachers are

barely ready to teach in English some of

these teachers barely even speak English

and the comprehension of English at the

Early Education itself was already not

strong how are they going to be able to

learn stem subject in English therefore

it's not a surprise when students did

not perform well after stem was taught

in English my opinion the idea is great

but the way it was implemented was bad

after a few years they revert it back

and teach it in Bahasa and then later go

into dual language program which once

again is a huge problem because until

today when I talk to someone the

students who just graduated they told me

that some teachers are still teaching in

Bahasa despite the fact that it's

supposed to be taught in English cuz at

the end of the day the root cause is

still the same the teachers the teachers

need to improve need to be upskilled

they need to be ready to be taught if

they are not ready to be honest it is

better off to teach that in Bahasa or

whatever language because if we were to

keep arguing about whether to teach it

in English or basa or whatnot not it's

going to stay stagnant what's more

important is the students ability to

comprehend and understand Concepts and

improve and solve problems it doesn't

matter at the end of the day whether is

it going to be in English or basa or

Mandarin or whatever language more

importantly is their ability to

interpret and understand and solve

problem to think in a higher order so

maybe we should just stop fighting about

language and focus on the real issue of

education and improve Malaysia's

education system way if you guys want me

to do a in-depth dive into the pizza

assessment of 2022 where they compare

Malaysia education system with all the

other countries there's so much of

information there and so many things

that you can uncover if you like that

please write Piza in the comment as a

parent I truly think that this is

extremely extremely important because I

want the best for my children and I want

my children to be able to contribute to

this nation's productivity to this

nation's growth so for those of you who

are watching this if you're parent you

probably feel the same as me you're

probably thinking to yourself whether

you send your children to international

school or send them to a national school

and what's this whole dual language

program all about the truth is we just

want the better things for our children

I think it's the same regardless of

whether you are Chinese Malay Indian or

any race or anyone in the world that's

how a parent will think before I end

this video I just want to bring out a

quot

that was sa by our education Minister on

bfm radio of how she believe that

education should be a tool that brings

about National Unity for Malaysian and I

truly believe that I think we should

stop arguing about language and focusing

on what is truly important and the root

cause of all these issue so that

Malaysia can unite and improve as a

country tell me what you guys think in

the comment below