YOURSAY | Education system - train crash in slow motion

YOURSAY | ‘Lower the standard of education, and you lower the progress of generations.’

COMMENT | Too late to revamp education when we become a failed state

Cynic: You don’t need an atomic bomb to destroy a nation, the lack of quality education would do the job quite as well.

Lowering the bar on passing grades to, say 20 percent, would mean that the student would graduate with only 20 percent knowledge of that subject.

Such grades in a professional setting would be a recipe for disaster. Patients die at the hands of such doctors.

Bridges and buildings collapse under the hands of such engineers.

The world of finance and commerce would be in disarray under unskilled accountants.

Mixing science and religion would sink humanity into the potent morass of confusion. Lower the standard of education, and you lower the progress of generations.

Our policymakers, our politicians, who send their children to good private and international schools know all too well the necessity for a sound education.

They have the power not only to speak out but also to improve the quality of education in our national schools.

Sadly, they don’t. They are content only to have their children well-educated, leaving the rest to the fates of their ignorance.

Leaning on an ignorant vote bank to elevate themselves into positions of power, authority and wealth is not what is expected of an altruistic leader.

In the words of “The Art Of War” author Sun Tzu, “It’s an evil man who would let his nation burn to the ground to rule over its ashes.”

MyTwoCents: There is no denying that the education system needs constant upgrading.

But is our education system a failure when 55,000 of our students are studying overseas, including at Harvard University?

Would they have been offered these places if our education system is broken?

We have one of the most comprehensive education systems in the world with thousands of dedicated teachers.

My daughter’s English teacher, who is a Malay, burst into tears when my daughter scored an A for the subject in her SPM exam.

That’s the dedication of thousands of our teachers. Brushing all teachers with negative broad grey strokes is a disservice.

The highest budget allocation for 2023 was in education with an outlay of RM70 billion (about 5.2 percent of the GDP) while Europe has an average of 4.7 percent of the GDP.

We have a long way to go to attain education excellence.

The best formula is to have an independent multiracial education commission to prevent knee-jerk, politically motivated policy changes with every change of education minister.

That’s the need of the hour.

Save our currency: Our education system was doing well up to the 1970s. There was unity in the country and the Malays benefitted. Then they fixed what was not broken.

When politicians interfered from the 1970s onwards, it became like the Malay proverb bagai tikus membaiki labu (like a mouse trying to fix a pumpkin) with every education minister since then.

Dual languages are an asset. Why go for the limitation of a single language? Children should be preparing for a future on earth and not spend their whole lives preparing for the afterlife.

Bamboo: More than 30 years of focus on educating for the afterlife will produce unemployable youngsters.

We are heading for a failed state when foreign direct investment shuns us as our workforce is useless for their production needs.

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim refuses to take the bull by its horns and reduce religious periods in schools.

Our education minister is out of her depth to overhaul the system. To do that, she needs the green light from the prime minister.

If Anwar loses in the next general election he will not be missed.

BrownSinga7958: No prime minister has had the political capital or courage to reverse the trend and the Education Ministry has been taken over by religious conservatives at all levels.

So even if the prime minister wants to make changes, it will be thwarted at the administrative level.

WhitePony9855: Until and unless our government acknowledges the weakening standards of our national schools due to policies and poorly trained teachers, more and more of those who can afford private education will shy away from national schools.

Do a survey and see how many of our MPs and assemblypersons send their children to national schools.

How many of them send their adult children to tertiary education overseas?

Apanama is back: The education system is the one leading us towards becoming a failed state.

Maybe the education system has already achieved its mission. For example, the UiTM policy of admitting only one particular community.

There is nothing to revamp here.

ScarletHamster5535: We are already a failed state. We have a prime minister who is more concerned about the welfare of foreigners instead of the people who voted him into office.

The education minister comes up with her interpretation of schools teaching Maths and Science in English.

Does she not know that non-English science journals are almost non-existent in university libraries?

Mosquitobrain: It was only recently that some incompetent writers published literature on Malacca history to coincide with its “Visit Malacca Year”.

It looked like no one double-checked the facts before the materials went to print. Glaring mistakes were highlighted and all this is due to complacency.

And not too long ago, history books and examination papers were found to have incorrect facts, causing hue and cry among parents.

Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek, our children need a good and solid education to help them build a strong foundation for their future.

We do not need to cook up history to make the nation look great when it serves no purpose.

Gen2: Our education system is like a train crash in slow motion.

Everybody, including the driver, knows it is going to happen but is unable or unwilling to stop it.

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