Disaster in our educational system

 P Dev Anand Pillai: Sad but true. We are on track to becoming a nation full of highly incompetent graduates.

Many are becoming doctors and seem to be sending patients with easily treatable ailments and conditions back home in a box.

Koon Yew Yin, I take my hats off to you sir, but no matter how much help is given, nothing will change if there is no political by those who wield the wand of power in Putrajaya.

Fair Play: Koon, the standard of English in your example is good in comparison to others. Her repeated use of ‘sir’ is more a mark of respect than poor grammar. I have taught tertiary students in IPTS (private universities). Their standard of English is not even near hers.

Swipenter: If we are unable to communicate in simple but correct English, we are doomed because basically it means we cannot communicate with the world at large. The world of commerce, science and technology is basically conducted in English.

Of course, if we think that Bolehland is the world and the world is Bolehland, then there is no problem at all. Again we have this obsession with quantity and not quality, resulting in the production of plenty of ‘uneducated’ graduates.

It is not a secret that our local graduates lack communication, problem-solving and critical-thinking skills. What about leadership qualities and creativity?

But we have been told that we have the best education system in the world; better than most developed countries. Self-delusion at its highest, I would say.

Gen2indian: I totally agree with you about the private colleges, Koon, and we could start with the 36-odd medical colleges we have, which is more than the United Kingdom and Canada combined. Fees here are in excess of RM300,000 per annum – is this not profiteering?

We seem obsessed with the quantity of ‘A’s a student gets as opposed to quality and a holistic education. I too have met countless straight A students who can’t have a decent conversation and all they seem capable of is to memorise and regurgitate.

You are right, our education system too has been politicised and made to look good when in reality it is in the “longkang” as you rightly put it.

James TCLow: This untold story is no secret. The declining standard of our students’ English language started during former PM Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s time. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.

Charlie Chan: I have interviewed hundreds of our half-past-six graduates, and not one had any level of competency in the English language. Our interviews are simple: write a 3,000 word essay about yourself and your hobbies.

This was for an engineering management team to manage our manufacturing. By not being able to write a good report meant the company would have problems downstream. Hence this is important.

Our manuals for equipment are in English. The engineering and safety processes are in English.

The so-called translation to Bahasa Malaysia was also a disaster as the translation company didn’t have the competencies to translate engineering facts and technical terms to Bahasa Malaysia.

This compromised work safety. In the end, we decided to stick to the original materials and head hunt the right person for the job.

Ratbatblue: This has been the problem with most countries which have been under the British.

In the euphoria following independence, anything and everything having even a faint semblance to their previous colonial masters had to be wiped out, perhaps leaving only pop culture (music, dressing styles, etc).

National languages were introduced and used with untold passion and fervour. Granted, the standard of English here was still high much after independence. Then the rot started to set in when the newer generation of teachers were trained to be ‘national language proud’.

Another good example is India: Indians spoke better English than their colonial masters, then Hindi was forced on the populace as the national language.

However, Indians soon realised that English proficiency was foremost in importance and they managed to pull themselves from the brink in time. Even so, many Indians still cannot speak English as their forefathers could. When will we ever learn?

DontPlayGod: Our real slide came the moment Mahathir took over the post of education minister in the 70s when he switched all instructions to Malay. So, who is to be blamed?

In Africa, the locals there had no qualms adopting the language of their colonial masters as their national language (be it English or French).

Foodforthought: Not only have they destroyed our education system; they have made us beg for education. This is by design and not by accident.

Malaysia Ku: If the quality of the ministers in the BN government is any indication of our educational standards, one can understand the loss to the nation of a few generations of students since Mahathir took power.

Unqualified teachers, under-qualified university lecturers, whose tenures are based exclusively on their privileged ethnicity, passing on grossly substandard lessons to their students who will then carry on the same substandard qualifications to future generations.

Do we need to ever wonder why?

Haveagreatday: None of what the writer has written is not known to the Umnoputras, and none of it is false. Sadly, until there’s a change of government, our education standards will continue to slide southwards.

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