LETTER | When education system fails the nation

LETTER | Indeed the 2022 SPM results are shocking. The scores obtained by the 373,974 teenagers who sat for the ultimate examination seal a scary future for Malaysia.

As analysed by blogger, OutSyed The Box' in his write-up on June 12, we garnered less than three percent of straight A’s passes.

That is not all.

The prudent question is, what will happen to the rest of the 97 percent of our youngsters who will not be able to further their studies with choice pathways that promise to provide the nation with the right and needed human capital?

What is shell shocking is we had a mysterious grade “E” scorers totalling 128,193 (34.3 percent) candidates.

Are they failures too or will they get a “passport” to enter the hallways of tertiary institutions? Or will they be absorbed into the already bloated civil service?

Likewise, who has the answers to the 160,350 or 43 percent of the SPM candidates who did not get into the Grade A, C and the unqualified E categories? Where will they end up?

Indeed, the 2022 SPM results that we see this year reveals the true elephant in the room. We have repeatedly, over the decades, failed as a nation in building our future. Period.

After 11 years of schooling, we discovered that our youngsters failed to get a “passport” to further their education or become relevant capital for the nation's future.

Just like the annual Auditor General's Report of repeated disasters affirming massive wastages, mismanagement, leakages, lack of accountability and irresponsible failures, we see declining performance among our students year after year.

Is there no one capable of mustering the courage and brains to revamp our failed education system?

Or is this all part and parcel of a massive political plot to keep our young from becoming high achievers and not deemed as dropouts?

In this age of accelerating development all around the world, it is impossible to fathom what is holding us back from correcting the countless wrongs in the education system and jump-starting our future human capital needs.

When are we going to act?

It is mind-boggling that despite concerned citizens and academics raising the alarm for decades, we continue to slide further downwards in the quality benchmark of the education standards in the country.

Do our leaders ever want to admit the fact that we have reached a disastrous junction in the nation's destination, where our graduates and youths cannot even write, let alone have the passion to read and speak right?

Despite all the slogans and billions of taxpayers’ money allocated, in addition to the screams of racial rights and privileges, we have a big zero when it comes to educational success, affecting the nation's future.

The “Next Change” (as we say for new movies) to come is certainly a social disaster as the cumulative millions of school dropouts fill the streets.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.