CONCERNS about the employability of young graduates in Malaysia stem from inadequate English proficiency and essential soft skills.
Frequently, tertiary education institutions bear the blame for student shortcomings. However, higher education institutions are not tasked with initiating learning but serve to enhance the knowledge acquired during students’ formative schooling years. Skills, values and proficiency are qualities that should be cultivated from an early age.
Education access is universal but achieving universal quality education (educational equity) is the primary responsibility of the national education system. This encompasses more than physical access, involving curriculum design, teacher training, infrastructure and policies that collectively ensure high-quality education to all (“Teaching quality as students’ course experience determinant: evidence from Malaysian higher education institutions”, Malaysian Online Journal of Educational Management, 2023).
Malaysians expressed satisfaction with our 25th position out of 113 countries in the latest Education First English Proficiency Index, ranking us as the third-highest English proficiency country in Asia after Singapore and the Philippines.
At first glance, our continental performance seems impressive. However, a closer examination of the data reveals a declining trend in our English proficiency, especially among the younger population compared with young adults and senior citizens.
While declining English proficiency among the younger generation is common in other nations, our youths consistently demonstrated lower performance levels compared with other participating Asian countries.
It is crucial to emphasise that the subpar performance of our youths in this assessment indirectly reflects Malaysia’s current education quality.
In addition, the recent 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) results found that our students not just performed poorly but also scored below the average.
Our 15-year-olds scored 388 in reading compared with OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries’ average of 476 points.
Notably, our students’ performance on other tested dimensions was relatively better than their reading proficiency, yet fell way below the corresponding OECD averages: science – 416 points (OECD average is 485) and mathematics – 409 points (OECD average is 472).
Another significant indicator revealed that Malaysian students in the top 25% socioeconomic bracket outperformed those in the bottom 25% by 82 score points in mathematics. This mirrors the average 93-point difference observed across OECD countries between these two groups. This highlights a stark socioeconomic disparity in Malaysia.
Educators’ qualifications and art of teaching
Malaysia tries to emulate successful education policies from high-performing countries judged by their exceptional education performance and sensible national outcomes. However, these efforts are not comprehensive.
For example, Malaysia is moving toward decentralising the education system, offering educators more autonomy in student assessments.
Decentralisation is a prevalent trend in successful national education systems worldwide.
However, in successful education systems, decentra-lisation is paired with rigorous performance indicators for schools and educators.
Furthermore, teachers often hold dual PhDs, one in education and one in their respective teaching fields, allowing them to adeptly experiment with best-suited methods while addressing local idiosyncrasies. This setup, seen in countries such as Finland, Japan, Netherlands and Singapore, gives them a winning edge and makes decentralisation highly effective.
Therefore, a notable gap between Malaysia and these countries lies in the crucial area of training and hiring highly trained and highly qualified teachers.
Meanwhile, we need to emphasise how educators’ professional competence and credentials profoundly impact their efficacy and students’ academic and non-academic achievements.
Research on teaching quality among 1,366 experienced Malaysian teachers revealed that only 0.1% of them were PhD holders, followed by Masters (3.7%), degree holders (887 or 64.9%) and Diploma of Education (24.9%).
Emir Research stresses the need for teachers at all school levels to hold at least a Master’s degree, aligning with the practice in many developed nations to integrate scientific principles into pedagogy.
Consistently, a study involving 11,600 American elementary students found smaller class sizes and highly qualified as well as experienced teachers led to higher assessment scores.
Paradigm shift towards quality
The removal of UPSR (Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah) and PT3 (Pentaksiran Tingkatan Tiga) shifted focus to holistic and continuous in-class assessment, aligning with the global trend adopted by many nations, including Malaysia. However, our system has a flaw.
The government faces challenges assessing school children’s performance due to an incomplete framework and a decentralised database system.
Despite the almost decade-long imple-mentation of a comparable school-based assessment system, previously referred to as school-based assessments and now known as class-based assessments, recent Pisa test outcomes raise questions about its effectiveness due to our students’ subpar performance.
What is required is not a more challenging syllabus or stricter curriculum.
Instead, we need a “fewer topics, deeper understanding” approach prioritising strong foundations, mastery of subjects, critical thinking and ensuring a comprehensive grasp of vital topics beyond mere memorisation.
Singapore’s Curriculum Planning and Development Division emphasises “Teach Less, Learn More” to enhance teaching quality and student learning by promoting in-depth learning.
While reinstating public examination is not the sole solution, Emir proposes the following recommendations to improve Malaysia’s education system:
1. More accessible early childhood education
Preschool education is a critical foundation for a child’s overall development, which lays the groundwork for future academic success, fostering early cognitive, social, emotional and physical growth.
Financial support programmes aid accessibility by removing financial barriers hindering families from enrolling children in preschool.
As per an OECD report, students who attended one year or more of pre-primary or preschool education scored higher in mathematics at age 15 compared with those with no attendance or less than a year, even when socioeconomic factors were considered.
2. Enhanced teacher evaluation system
Teacher evaluations are pivotal for an effective education system but concerns about their integrity persist. Ideally, these assessments must occur without prior notification.
Surprise assessments reflect a teacher’s typical teaching methods, ensuring consistent high-quality education and discouraging temporary adjustments.
Additionally, including peer evaluations, student feedback, classroom observations and student outcomes provide a more holistic view of a teacher’s abilities.
3. Transforming teaching into respected and competitive career
The Education Ministry should engage foreign experts to train or facilitate knowledge exchange at the Teacher Education Institute, to enrich education with diverse perspectives. This training will enhance pedagogical skills, classroom management and subject understanding.
Moreover, the Education Ministry should raise standards for becoming a teacher, implementing more stringent rules, qualifications and training to elevate teaching as an esteemed profession and not just a backup job for young unemployed graduates or contract teachers. This should be aligned with increased salaries, currently inadequate for the significant responsibilities the teaching profession bears.
4. Institutionalise input-output-outcome-impact model
The Education Ministry should consider infusing the current education framework with the organising framework by OECD that focuses on how to address the loopholes and enhance the effectiveness of policymaking within the education system.
The framework aims to provide insights into the right educational inputs and outputs, in the form of operational dynamics, human and financial resources and others, that are robustly linked through data and science to sensible returns on education via high-quality graduates and intergenerational impacts for the nation.
In summary, education represents a sustained investment in present and future benefits. The rise or fall of a nation is intricately linked to the quality of its education system as Nelson Mandela succinctly put it: “From the poorest of countries to the richest of nations, education is key to moving forward in any society.”
The writer is a research assistant at Emir Research, an independent think tank focused on strategic policy recommendations based on rigorous research. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com
