An Education System Worthy of Malaysia #43
Chapter 7: Strengthening the Schools (Cont’d)
Middle School (Years 7, 8 and 9)
My proposal calls for minimal changes to middle school. The same four core subjects would be taught daily. The curriculum could be modified to meet the needs of the students. A school with exceptionally bright students could offer advanced mathematics and special enrichment programs like GATE (Gifted and Talented Education); likewise schools with slower students could offer more remedial classes. I would introduce electives; letting students choose their own subjects beyond the core. Some electives could be prescribed; for example, at least two years of fine arts or crafts. The student could choose to take the same fine arts or crafts for all the three years or try different one for each year. A long recognized pedagogical wisdom is that arts and crafts should be a basic part of every child’s education.
I would make extracurricular activities mandatory. The theme for sports should be, “Athletics for All.” Every student should participate; if he or she is not good enough to be on the school team, then there should be house teams for intramural competition. Because everyone takes part in sports there is no need for a special period for physical education.
I would design sports activities around the physical environment. For schools near rivers and the coast, I would provide swimming pools. Every year we read reports of children drowning; these are all preventable. Similarly for schools near golf courses, arrangements could be made so students could use those facilities. For the golf clubs, that would be a splendid opportunity for public relations. After all these clubs received substantial government grants and subsidized land prices, that is the least they could do to be good corporate citizens. These students could be their potential members.
Athletic programs need not be expensive. Team sports like soccer, sepak takraw, basketball, and volleyball do not cost much.
Middle school is qualitatively different from either primary or high school. This difference extends beyond mere differences in age. The middle school years are characterized by raging hormonal changes and tumultuous physical and emotional transition between childhood and adolescent. These students need their own space, away from both the pre-pubertal group as well as the older adolescents. In rural areas where there would be not enough students yes, by all means combined the primary with middle school, but the two should still be separate and independent entities, sharing only the physical campus. Preferably they should have their own separate building at either end of the school ground, and separate teachers and headmasters.
The middle school program should be broadly balanced between basic academics and the fine arts, as well as full participation in extracurricular activities.
High School (Years 10-13)
High school would see the greatest change. Essentially there would be three streams: academic, regular, and vocational. The academic stream would prepare students for universities; vocational for trade and skilled occupations. The regular stream would prepare students for entering directly into the work force as well those who would end up at non degree-granting institutions (technical and teachers colleges, nursing schools, and polytechnics).
Students would be streamed based on their performance at middle school, as determined by their overall GPA as well as their PMR scores. The top third would be selected for the academic stream. I would encourage an equal number to opt for the vocational, and the rest would continue in regular schools. There should be no compulsion; students would be free to choose except that entry into the academic stream would, as expected, be competitive.
The word “streaming” is a poor choice here. It connotes a permanent labeling of individuals based on some test scores. What I mean is that some schools would focus on academics and others on vocational. The rest will continue as regular schools, offering as many subjects as there would be demands by their students. Nothing would prevent a regular school from offering classes that would normally be offered at an academic school (calculus and the pure sciences) or vocational one (woodworking, auto mechanic) if there are demands from the students.
Similarly nothing would prevent the present large schools from transforming themselves into the equivalent of the American comprehensive schools or the German Gesamtschule and offering the whole spectrum of subjects from academic to vocational. But instead of having one unmanageable unit I would divide the school into the three smaller components of academic, regular, and vocational, each with its own set of teachers and principals, and located in separate buildings on the same compound. They may share the some common programs for music, fine arts, and sports. In this way students could switch from one stream to the other without having to change campus and the consequent physical and social disruptions.
I would broaden the criteria of those eligible for academic schools to include the top 10 percent of students (as judged by their teachers) from every middle school. Many of them would qualify through the normal selection process, but by making this extra option we would select those bright students who for some reason do not excel in standardized tests because of a variety of reasons. One could be that their particular school was not well equipped with good teachers and facilities. This provision would obviously benefit small rural schools, and rightly so as they should be given preferential treatment. It is not the students’ fault that their school is not as well equipped as urban ones.
Doing this would also encourage parents to send their children to rural schools as their chance of getting into the academic high school would be greater. This inflow of involved and committed parents would only enhance the caliber of such schools.
This streaming must be flexible to cater for late bloomers as well as those who discover their technical aptitude later. Students should be able to switch in the first two years based on their aptitude, performance, and teachers’ recommendations.
There will be the same four core subjects taught daily in all streams. The level or depth would vary. With the academic stream, the science could be offered in greater intensity with individual subjects like physics, chemistry, and biology; in the regular and vocational streams it could be offered simply as general, physical, or life sciences, geared to the students’ needs and capabilities. Similarly for mathematics, there could be calculus and statistics for the academic stream; general and “consumer math” in the regular and vocational.
I would pattern the academic schools after the best American “prep schools.” Local universities could collaborate in designing the syllabus. In this way they would know exactly the academic preparations of their incoming students. I would model vocational schools along the German Dual System. Industry experts would draw up the curriculum; they would know better than ministry officials the needs of industry. Properly designed the vocational stream could be integrated with apprenticeship programs. Students could spend their mornings in classrooms and afternoons at factories or constructions sites, combining theory and practice. Students could even be paid for working, making the vocational stream even more attractive.
Making the vocational curriculum relevant, meaningful, and with a high degree of practical orientation would greatly reduce the unacceptably high dropout rates for those who lack academic aptitude. America has elaborate remedial programs for “at risk” students, like independent study programs where students are taught less academic subjects but in a personalized fashion. The curriculum is also less rigid. Frankly a good vocational program would be far more effective.
The main purpose of vocational and other non-academic programs is to produce what Robert Reich calls the “routine production services” and “in person services” workers. The former includes factory workers, electricians, and clerical workers; the latter include service industry workers like waiters, tour guides, and childcare personnel. Many regard these services as menial, thus not requiring full schooling, special training, or deserving high salaries. The reason these workers earn low wages in the Third World is precisely because they are not properly trained. There is a world of difference between a waiter in tuxedo serving an elaborate gourmet dinner in a dining room with tablecloth, fine china, and silver cutlery, to a sweaty Bangladeshi illegal immigrant in his undershirt serving teh tarik on a greasy porcelain table. In my student days I used to work in a dining room. It took me over three months before I was promoted to be a waiter, and yes, with my own tuxedo. In the process I learned how to set tables, pamper my customers, take their orders accurately, and such social graces so as to make their experience pleasurable. I was well paid for y services, enough to support my sister in university. I also made a point of saying to my inquisitive guests that I would be going to medical school in the fall. That always prompted more generous tips!
There was nothing demeaning about my job; I enjoyed it immensely. Even today when dining out I cannot help but grade the experience. Once while vacationing in Langkawi my wife and I stayed in a new resort. At dinnertime I began my usual habit of critiquing the service. Unbeknown to me, a foreign gentleman a few tables away was intently listening to my comments. When we finished dinner he stopped by and invited us to his office. He was the manager, and was very interested in my comments! He lamented on the difficulty of getting trained waiters or to have them accept the concept that there are skills and graces they have to learn in order to be good at their jobs. It happened that there was a government vocational school nearby training workers for the hotel industry. I visited it and inquired whether it had a program to train waiters, and received a befuddled look from the man in charge.
Such “menial” jobs may appear to be insulated from global competition. Malaysian waiters may feel that they need not worry about competition from America or Australia. Not true! If our waiters and tour guides cannot make the experience of our tourists pleasant and memorable, they would not return. They will go to Bali or Disneyland instead.
Even clerical workers are not immune to global competition. Many American companies are transferring their back office work to Third World countries like Jamaica. With modern satellite communications it matters not whether the processing is done in Timbuktu or Toledo, Ohio, the data could be flashed back to America instantaneously. The dictations at many American hospitals are transcribed in India. It is first digitized, sent over the Internet to India where it is downloaded, transcribed, and then e-mailed back to America ready for the patient’s chart by the next morning. These jobs are done by Indian doctors who find that they could earn more by using their medical knowledge deciphering these dictations rather than treating the sick.
The service calls to American companies are answered not by highly paid American workers rather by Indians in India. They have been trained to get rid of their thick rolling accent and speak like Americans. They even acquire homey American names like Diana and Patty, and learn the minutiae of Americana so that customers at the other end of the line think that they are speaking to someone in Peoria, Illinois, and not Poona, India.
In America the fastest growing service industry is childcare. Childcare workers are tested for health, checked for criminal records, certified for cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and trained for other childcare skills. They are paid well. They are also far different from the illiterate and unskilled maids Malaysia imports by the thousands from Indonesia and Philippines. As Malaysians become more affluent, they too would want their children to be taken care of by competent personnel. Compare the quality (and hence pay) of maids working for expatriates to the Indonesian servants working for local families. Jobs like housekeeping and maid services as well as mechanics, electricians, and plumbers are well paid in America because consumers value those skills and expertise.
Because of these global implications Malaysia cannot afford to ignore the non-academic stream and the education and training for those so-called menial jobs. The variety of vocational jobs in a modern economy is endless, especially in the service sector. I would boldly say that we should not build any more universities and instead build additional vocational schools and training institutes. This would go a long way in providing skilled workers and artisans, and at the same time give our non-academically oriented students a bright future.
Next: Residential Schools