UPSR and PMR, Abolished?
June 24, 2010
Will Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) be the only compulsory national examination under the Malaysian national school system? There are discussions about it and Berry Berry Easy would like to bring to attention this news on June 20th, 2010 to all our Berry Readers.
Ujian Penilaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) and Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR), Abolished?
The news in snippets:
General:
- Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin (which is also Malaysia’s present Deputy Prime Minister) has announce the possible abolishment of the PMR and UPSR examinations.
- UPSR is the compulsory school leaving national examination for Standard 6 students in Malaysia.
- PMR is the compulsory examination taken during Form 3 to gauge a student’s level before checking their suitability for art/science stream.
- If the two are abolished, this will leave SPM as the only compulsory national-level examination for school going children in Malaysia.
- STPM is not considered compulsory as not all student undergo Form 6.
Reasons given:
- It is said that the current system is seen as too examination oriented and failed to provide a holistic education. (So removal of UPSR and PMR will reduce the examination element of the whole system)
- It is also possible that both the UPSR and PMR be retained but have its nature changed from public examination to school-based assessments.
- However, no decision will be made yet (or near future) as the public would be required to give feedback.
- It is also said that for employment/job seeking, only SPM is needed, hence only one public examination will suffice.
Possible benefits of abolishing UPSR and PMR:
- It is said that with only SPM as the sole public examination, teachers and students can care less for exams and focus on improving creativity, interactivity, sports and co-curricular activities.
Opinions so far:
- Jais Abdul Karim (President of the Federation of Peninsular Malay Students (GPMS)) believe that the abolishment will strengthen the education system and produce students who are more focused. Also mentioned tha the current system is too exam-oriented which stresses out students. This caused students to study blindly in order to pass exams without truly understand the use of it in the future. However, he said that a new method or mechanism would need to be formulated to gauge the achievement of students in event this proposal is followed through.
- Hashim Adnan (President of the National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP)) said that UPSR should be maintained as it has its relevance. UPSR will serve to motivate primary school students to strive hard in their studies. However, he thinks that PMR could be abolished as the exams do not serve any purpose beyond determination of streams for students entering Form 4.
- Abdul Karim Abdullah (the liaison officer for the Malaysia Education Service Ex-Officers Association (PBPPPM) said that the abolishment is appropriate to allow teachers and students to gain more time to focus on co-curiculum and sports activities.
So what’s your take on this? Aye or nay to the abolishment of the UPSR and PMR examinations?
Please also view the other berry related posts:
4 Responses to “UPSR and PMR, Abolished?”
I think it is beneficial to the ministry to cut the cost of national examination. For the teachers ,it will alleviate their burden and will not stress so much on getting As.What remains to be said especially by the NUTP is how the teachers will be evaluated as before they are seen as a good teacher if their students can get 20As. So, after this, how to evaluate teachers? For the students, it is now that they dont have anything interesting to do at school instead studying.Why dont we make schools interesting u know like Music and drama etc. That will get the students going to schools.
By Hamidon Rahman on Jul 19, 2010
@ Hamidon Rahman – BerryBerryJenius (Jo-Han) replying on behalf of BerryBerryEasy:
Thank you for your wonderful point of view. I am not a teacher (my partner the Berry Berry Teacher is one)so I would like to give my own point of view as a layman on the education system.
I personally think that teachers should not be graded by the number of As accumulated by their students. A teacher in a school with good track record will invariably teach more students who have a good track record in getting As. This is not so for teachers maybe in more rural non-elite schools.
There should be an objective but agreed upon metric to gauge a teacher’s ability. And let the teacher be graded more holistically by fellow teachers (to gauge congeniality and peer reviews), superiors (to have a high-level view on the performance and conformity to the overall cause), students (to gauge the effectiveness of the delivery and maybe motivation powers) and parents (work with parents to ensure that students obtained education from school rather than just be booksmart). With proper fine-tuning, we might just be able to find a proper basket of metric to gauge a teacher’s efficacy.
As for the students, I do agree that removal of exams will free up more time to pursue more artistic pursuit like music and drama. I was drilled in a non-Malaysian education system twice, and in the other places, they do have compulsory dance classes and other recreational activity. Teachers are given more autonomy to conduct classes. I’m not saying this is absolutely better as different culture would suit different system, but maybe it is time to make school more interesting. So yeah, that’ll get students going to school.
So, Hamidon Rahman, are you also a school teacher?
By BerryBerryTeacher on Jul 19, 2010
Hello BerryberryJenius,
I totally agree with your teachers’ evaluation except it will create more paperwork for the schools and this has been raised by teachers recently. They want to concentrate on academic matters and not filling in forms. Nevertheless, i think a simpler and main evaluation should be from the school heads. As for the students, two things we have to consider 1) are the teachers capable to conduct music and drama etc? and if not what about teacher training which brings to more cost to the ministry 2)Adequate Resources are the schools equipped with musical instruments or whatever to facilitate these fun things to do in schools? Yes, i was a teacher in several secondary schools but now i am in the ministry.
By Hamidon Rahman on Jul 19, 2010
@ Hamidon Rahman – BerryBerryJenius (Jo-Han) replying on behalf of BerryBerryEasy:
Dear Hamidon Rahman,
Once again I will make comments as someone who has not been a teacher before and do not know how the ministry and school works. Just another passionate remark from me.
I obviously did not foresee that having a more comprehensive method to benchmark a teacher’s performance will create more paperwork for the school. So I agree fully with you that additional paperwork from this comprehensive evaluation is not really possible.
However, maybe the teachers and school head can participate in the evaluation of teachers but in exchange, they are allowed to do less paperwork. (For example, maybe the school admin officer could help in keying in the marks for exams or key in other records? Or maybe school office can help to write receipt or type the names on certificates?)
In anyway, it is still my opinion that teachers should handle some paperwork especially those involving their own students to better understand them, but will be great if teacher’s are not burdened by it and be allowed to concentrate fully on teaching. (The problem of teacher’s being burdened by paperwork is indeed highlighted by newspapers lately)
Of course, the school administrative offices are overloaded with their own work too, but hiring more of those officers will free up time for teachers to do peer evaluation and also focus on the teaching. (In my opinion, hiring an additional 2-3 clerks per big school which cost maybe RM3000 or so will free up a teacher’s time to improve the quality of teaching. Make these new clerks, specially designated teacher’s assistants. But I guess this idea is not economically feasible as it will add up to RM36,000 a year.
It great to know that there are many wonderful ideas from teachers, public and ministry to make school life in Malaysia more interesting. However, it seemed that most of the idea do not see implementation due to the high cost involved. Music and drama are stuffs that will make a student more complete instead of just science and maths. However, to not consider implementing those fun stuffs because it is expensive to buy equipments and train teachers, is quite a sad thing to know. I personally think that education is the single most important thing that a country should invest in.
So thank you (Mr) Hamidon Rahman for highlighting some of the issues you mentioned before. It gives me renewed hopes that the people in the ministry do have bright and sparkling ideas, only that there any many factors such as cost, which are usually not considered by public (layman like myself), that are stopping these ideas from becoming a reality.
Sorry that I digress away from our original topic of abolishment of UPSR and PMR. – Regarding this issue, have we stop to listen to the opinions of students themselves? Would it make them more nervous during SPM as they have not experienced national examinations? Would they lose motivation to study? It will be interesting to listen to their response.
By BerryBerryTeacher on Jul 19, 2010