Chapter 4: Deficiencies of the System (Cont’d)

Apart from neglecting those not in the academic stream, the system also fails the thousands now in religious schools. The whole philosophy of these schools is misguided. They are not concerned with education rather with indoctrination. These madrasahs and religious schools are not so much schools as seminaries. Their obsession is with preparing children for the hereafter, forgetting that these children would first have to live the present life.

The Malaysian model of religious education is patterned after those of backward Muslim countries. There is no Muslim country with superior education system that is worthy of our emulation. The obsession of these religious schools focuses on aping the Arabs rather than propagating the message of Islam. On the one hand Malays have a phobia about being colonized by the West, but they have no compulsion of being mentally and culturally colonized by the Bedouins. Malay students go out of their way to blindly ape the Arabs, never mind that those thick flowing robes and huge turbans are totally inappropriate for tropical Malaysia. Male teachers sport unshaven face and collect multiple wives, as if piety resides in those external manifestations. It is pathetic that of the many sterling qualities of our holy prophet (peace be upon him), these are the only attributes modern Muslims feel compelled to emulate. Pity them! It is the students who suffer from their particularly myopic interpretation of Islam. Students are not taught to think, rather how to memorize and parrot what had been said before.

Students in the religious stream are exclusively Malays, and those who are not academically inclined are also mostly Malays. Thus we have the supreme irony of an education system designed and controlled by and purportedly to help Malays failing to meet the needs of a significant number of them.

Malaysian schools remain dangerously segregated racially. The goal that national schools are for all is but a dream; today they are essentially for Malays, having failed to attract non-Malays. Increasingly Malays too are abandoning the national stream for the religious one.

Apart from their other failures, our schools have also utterly failed in their basic mission of uniting the young. This is not just my opinion, it is also shared by no less than Prime Minister Mahathir. Our schools are nothing but cookie-cutter versions of one another not only physically but also in their academic offerings. They all use the same textbooks and offer the same subjects. There is little attempt at differentiation. There are no schools that emphasize foreign languages or the performing arts. About the only specialized ones are the science residential schools. I venture that the school bells are also timed to ring at the same time throughout the country.

Teachers are allowed little room to display their initiative and creativity. Every school minute has been planned for or programmed by the bureaucrats. Just follow the script. Headmasters have little power; they do not get to choose the teachers, the ministry does that. When it assigns a science teacher when the school needs an English teacher, well, that is just too bad. That teacher will just have to teach English rather than science. No surprise then than many are unhappy and quit early in their career.

I asked one headmaster his annual budget to run his school, and he could not even venture a guess. He had no clue; the teachers were paid directly by ministry, and the books and supplies were shipped from headquarters. The headmaster is merely an administrative functionary, and not surprisingly, the post attracts not superior teachers rather administrative types. They look upon the promotion as an escape from the classroom. Headmasterships are rarely terminal appointments; headmasters are transferred as part of their promotion exercise. When you ask these headmasters their legacy at their former school, they would be dumbfounded. They have none.

Visit any school and chances are the headmaster is away off campus. One study by the teachers’ union showed that headmasters spend less than 20 percent of their time on campus! At one school, despite my making a prior appointment, I still could not meet the headmaster. On the morning we were supposed to meet, he was off to a district meeting concerning, of all things, rural development. I met him briefly at noon on campus while he was on his way out again to another meeting, this time for an upcoming Qur’an reading contest. He was busy with everything except his primary responsibility – running his school.

While the government is supposedly emphasizing the sciences, very few headmasters have that background, which is a curious way to encourage the subject. It is the unstated policy of MOE that only Malays be appointed to senior positions like headmasterships. And since most Malays have degrees in soft subjects like Malay Studies and rarely in the sciences, not surprisingly they do not understand the technical needs of science teachers and therefore rarely support the science program.

The weaknesses of our schools extend from their physical structures and management to the curriculum and teachers. All these elements will have to be reformed.

Next: Residential Schools and Matrikulasi

Personal note: Many of you wrote me expressing your concerns for my personal well being as I did not have a posting last Sunday, June 25, 2006. Praise be to Allah, I am well and fine. I was on holidays and while I had access to a computer, I could not very well hog it to do my postings; just enough time to check e-mails! My posting continues as its regular schedule on Sundays and Wednesdays. MBM

Chapter 4: Deficiencies of the System (Cont’d)

TIMSS 1999

In 1999 Malaysia took part in the Third International Mathematics and Science Studies (TIMSS). The original studies were done in1995 and assessed students at the Years 4, 8, and 11, but Malaysia did not take part in that. The 1999 studies were a repeat (TIMSS-R), involving only Year 8 students. Malaysia scored somewhere in the middle for both mathematics and science (18 and 22). We are no doubt ahead of the Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia, but way behind Singapore, South Korea, Japan, or Taiwan.

That study was extensive, generating mountains of data. While others were busy poring over them and trying to discern the weaknesses and strengths of their system, in Malaysia no mention was made of that study. My enquiries to the lead official at MOE and some researchers at the universities drew a blank. Malaysia spent considerable resources and efforts in taking part in that study, yet its officials show scant interest in analyzing the results.

Singapore, which scored at or near the top on both surveys, has done a credible job in reviewing its data. Not surprisingly it found that the scores were correlated with the students’ socioeconomic status and home educational activities, reaffirming the points I raised earlier. One interesting observation is that 96 percent of Singapore Chinese students scored above the 50th percentile internationally for mathematics, while 83 percent of Malays did the same. For science, the figures are 86 and 61 percent respectively. Note this is a crude and simplistic analysis based on race. There was no attempt to factor in the all-important socioeconomic status. How do Chinese and Malays of the same socioeconomic status and comparable parents’ educational background fare, for example?

That criticism aside, the Singapore figures reveal something important for Malaysia. That is, Singapore Malays do better both in mathematics and science as compared to their international counterparts, and certainly way ahead of Malays from Malaysia.

Equally remarkable were the responses of the various officials. In America there was hue and cry that triggered massive movements for reform. Meanwhile Singapore‘s Minister of Education was busy visiting top American schools. When asked that perhaps American officials should visit Singapore instead, he replied modestly that while his students had done well in the tests, he felt that they lacked the more important qualities like independent and critical thinking, innovation, and creativity.

Meanwhile Malaysia’s Minister of Education hardly commented on TIMSS. He was not interested in the results or the details; he was busy bragging about Malaysia being a center of educational excellence and far ahead of Zambia. Amazing the differences in reaction!

Concomitant with the deteriorating quality of education is the deplorable physical facilities. Double sessions are now common and take a severe toll on facilities and personnel. The initial rationale for double sessions was reasonable – to provide education to as many pupils as possible. As these schools are not air-conditioned, the productivity of both students and teachers in the oppressive heat is severely tested. Imagine trying to teach mathematics or English in the hot afternoon! Teachers have a tough time keeping the children awake. When I was in school the headmaster purposely planned the timetable so that subjects requiring intense mental activities like mathematics were taught in the morning. Students are sharpest at that time because of the coolness.

More significantly, studies show that the promised hours of teaching in the afternoon are always interfered with or cut short for a variety of reasons. In one World Bank study, about 20 percent of the instructional hours are lost. Long before the afternoon session begins, the commotion and crowd outside would effectively disturb the last hour of the morning’s session. Leaders have made repeated pledges to eliminate double sessions. Thus far those have been nothing more than the typical politician’s pre-election promises.

Visit a class in the second session. The first half hour would be wasted, waiting for the children to settle down from the heat, sweat, and noise. The government implicitly recognizes the limitations of afternoon sessions by limiting them to classes that do not have to sit for important national examinations.

The greatest failure of the system impacts two particular groups of students: those who are not academically inclined, and students in the religious stream. Vocational education is a haphazard affair. There are not enough vocational schools and they offer courses of little relevance. No surprise as ministry bureaucrats who are ignorant of market realities draft the curriculum. For example, while the construction industry is desperately looking for plumbers, plasterers, and electricians, few schools produce them. In the east coast states with their fishing industry, one would expect the schools there to have programs in marine repairs and refrigeration. Not so. And homeowners know the difficulty in getting skilled craftsmen. Often the only training these workers have is simply on the job, and done erratically. Few vocational schools offer woodworking and other useful crafts.

While American schools have Future Farmers of America clubs and active agricultural and horticultural programs, few in Malaysia have comparable curriculum. The school in my town has an active agricultural club that sells flowers at Christmas. Similarly students in the animal husbandry class raise farm animals that are exhibited at county fairs and later auctioned off. I fail to see why rural schools in Malaysia do not have comparable programs. There could be rice or banana planting clubs, raising various varieties of fruits and doing simple experiments on cross pollinating and grafting. Why cannot rural schools have experimental farms and gardens for the students to grow vegetables and raise small animals? In this way if these students do end up staying in their villages, at least they would have enhanced farming skills. More importantly, by teaching such agricultural and vocational subjects, we legitimize those vocations. During British rule, it was quite common for rural Malay schools to teach these skills. But with independence these activities are disparaged, not befitting for a school to partake.

The avenues and opportunities for learning in these vocational subjects are limitless. We should use all the natural resources and attributes available to benefit the students. Besides, there is a lot of science and mathematics that can be fitted into these subjects. In primary school I remember the enchantment of watching and measuring germinating seeds and the metamorphoses of pupa wrapped in banana leaves. A lot of biology can be taught in incubating eggs. For good measure we can throw in some mathematics and statistics too! Those are not demeaning pursuits, in fact the very same research is being done at universities all over.

The important objective in vocational schools should be to relate knowledge with its applications. There is a lot of geometry that can be taught in woodworking. Watch a carpenter build a door frame, and see how he “squares” it by ensuring that the distances between the opposite corners (hypotenuses) are equal. It is wrong to assume that those who are vocationally and mechanically inclined cannot think, rather they think more with their hands. Anyone watching a skilled craftsman or mechanic at work can attest to this.

If we have attractive and meaningful vocational and technical programs to cater for those not academically inclined, we give them an opportunity to shine in their own special areas. The remarkable insight in education is that if students are allowed to succeed in one area, it will open the doors to learning in other areas. Hence the importance of having not only these technical and vocational programs but also such activities as sports, music, and drama in the overall school experience.

To be continued

Chapter 4: Deficiencies of the System (Cont’d)

The P-13 Years

I will examine the system from three perspectives: access, equity, and quality. Stated differently, how easy it is for citizens to get an education; do all have the same opportunity; and lastly, the overall standard and quality. Malaysia has done reasonably well with the first, moderately successful with the second, and poorly with the third.

Although Malaysia has near universal primary education, with participation rate in excess of 94 percent, at the preschool the rate is much lower (64 percent). At this level much work remains to be done, especially in rural areas. Of the pupils who entered Primary 1 in 1995, about 3.1 percent dropped out by Primary 6. And of the students entering Form One that same year, about 20 percent did not complete their Form Five. The government estimates that the participation rate at the secondary level is 85 percent. This is overly optimistic. If every student in the age group had enrolled in Form 1, the participation rate would have been only about 80 percent, but since the participation rate at the primary level is only 94 percent, the participation rate for the secondary level should be even lower, in the low 70s by my estimation. Nonetheless this is a marked improvement over the 1990 figure of 52 percent.

The difficulties I have in checking government figures is that they simply do not add up. I do not believe that these officials are purposely misleading the public rather they do not understand the meaning and relationship of these figures to one another. They do not crosscheck one set of figures against others for reliability and accuracy.

These are national averages; the rates for rural and estate schools are much worse. In one rural primary school the dropout rate was in excess of 20 percent, that is, one in five students did not complete their schooling at the primary level. The figures for rural secondary schools are also appalling. The government does not release this subset of figures (perhaps it does not have them) but one can get a sense of this by visiting rural areas on any school day. There are kids loitering all over.

When I was vacationing in east coast Malaysia recently, the one jarring sight was seeing so many school-age boys working at major resorts doing odd jobs. They cannot do much more as few could speak English. If you ask them why they quit school, invariably their answer is, “It’s boring!” One fisherman who had his son helping him said that he could teach his son better by having the boy work with him than being at school. Before you dismiss the fisherman’s attitude, you should first visit the local school.

I was donating some books to my village school. The gift was very modest nonetheless I was taken aback by how genuinely pleased and appreciative the headmaster and teachers were. When I checked their library I understood why. Their books were old and in poor shape. They had no recent acquisitions, as there was no funding. The laboratories too were equally pathetic. There were very few test tubes, and experiments were often demonstrated rather than done by students because the teachers had to conserve those precious test tubes. Thus all the joys of experimenting – the very essence of science – were taken away. No wonder these pupils did not enjoy the subject. My village is on the west coast, much more developed than those in the east coast. Imagine the condition at a comparable school in Ulu Kelantan.

This brings to my second point of equity. Contrary to most people’s understanding, equity does not mean treating everybody the same or giving every school the same amount of funds or delivering the same package of services. The greatest inequity, as the great America jurist Felix Frankfurter observed, is to treat the unequals equally. Giving the same amount of funds and services for a school in Ulu Kelantan as that in Ukay Heights may seem as if we would be treating the two equally, in reality we would not. That Ukay Heights’ school would be able to supplement its programs with generous contributions from affluent parents. Further, those pupils would get much intellectual and educational support at home. There would also be a high level of intellectual stimulation in the community, with good libraries and other amenities. Rural schools on the other hand, have students who would not have regular breakfast and whose parents would not have high levels of educational attainment or aspirations. Further, that school in Ulu Kelantan would less likely to attract capable and talented teachers. Thus to treat both schools equally, we would have to give more to the rural school to adequately compensate for its many disadvantages. We also would have to pay its teachers more to attract them and to offset the less-than-alluring lifestyle. Its library too would have to be doubly well endowed to make up for the lack of intellectual stimulation at home and in the community.
The greatest inequity is the urban and rural divide. By whatever measure we choose, the divide is obvious and widening, from absenteeism and dropout rates to performances at national examinations. Unfortunately this divide also parallels racial lines, with rural schools having mostly Malay pupils. Thus the poisonous atmosphere of racism is unnecessarily injected into the discussion of rural and urban schools. The equally dismal performance of small estate schools attended by Tamil pupils is a ready rebuttal to that race argument.

A large part of my reform addresses the issue of how to improve rural schools so they would be better than urban ones. They have to be in order to compensate for their disadvantaged environment.

The third issue, quality, is most important. I have the vantage point of having my children schooled in America and thus can readily compare their experience with that of their cousins in Malaysia. Jarring differences emerged quickly. First is the quality of teachers. All my children’s teachers, even in the lower grades, had a degree. My son’s grade school teacher even had a master’s, but instead of taking an administrative position she returned to her first love – the classroom – and did not suffer any career loss. I disagree that primary level teachers be graduates; my point here is that American teachers are generally better trained. In Malaysia, the path for advancement is through administration, not by remaining in the classroom.

Then there are the textbooks. My children all have attractive and well-designed textbooks, with colorful pictures, thick papers, and large print for ease of reading. And they are free even for children of doctors. The school also provides free bus service. The mathematics texts have real life problems. In geometry there was an assignment for estimating the height of a flagpole by measuring the angle of the sun and the length of the pole’s shadow. Similarly the biology lesson in middle school involved examining the pellets of owl droppings and inferring from that the bird’s diet. They went further and were able to reconstruct the skeleton of the rodent the owl had swallowed. All involved direct observation and collection of data and their interpretation, which is what science is all about.

The most striking difference is the curriculum. In America it is flexible, with room for electives. Even though my children were academically oriented nonetheless they all took fine arts and crafts. The requirements for entry into the prestigious University of California system include a year of fine arts or crafts at high school. Students in America are taught early how to do independent research. In my son’s social studies class in high school, he did a report on Afghanistan. He even wrote to its embassy in Washington, DC, to obtain some materials, and discussed by phone with one of its officials.

He did such a credible report that five years later when he was in college and the Afghan war broke out, we had to ask him about the background information. He knew more about the recent history of that country than anyone else in the family or even the media commentators. The school library is also excellent, and this is supplemented by an equally well-stocked public library.

Lest readers think that I am uncritically glorifying the American system, let me cite other opinions. I meet a number of older Malaysians either studying at graduate level or working in America for Malaysian agencies. They usually have their children with them. The uppermost anxiety they have when they finish their tour of duty is how their children will cope with Malaysian schools after they have enjoyed the freedom and free-spirited inquiry in an American classroom. They worry about their children surviving the strict regimentation back in Malaysia. One parent went so far as to leave his son behind to finish his schooling.

These anecdotes give a personal flavor to the assessment, but for a more rigorous and objective take we must look elsewhere.

Next: The TIMSS 1999

Chapter 4: Deficiencies Of The System

Were Malaysians to be polled today on whether their education system serves the nation well, the overwhelming answer would be a resounding, “No!” This is not an arrogant presumption on my part, rather the evidences, both anecdotal and statistical, are glaring. Whereas before the deficiencies were noticed only by parents, teachers, and those closely involved, today they are obvious and have reached the top leadership. The problems can no longer be ignored as they are adversely impacting the nation’s competitiveness and threatening to derail the nation’s ambitious Vision 2020 aspirations. Willing or not, the leaders have to confront them. Everyday conversations as well as the daily headlines attest to the angst felt by all.

As of late 2002 these concerns have been expressed in a series of reform proposals. Nothing concrete has been done or implemented. In the colloquial, it is all talk. As a parent I became aware of the shortcomings of the system way back in the late 1970s when my oldest child was about to enter school. I had enrolled her at a private preschool and could not help but notice the difference in her attitude towards school as compared to that of the neighbor’s daughter. Whereas my daughter was keen and eager every morning to put on her uniform and knapsack raring to go, the neighbor’s child was screaming and had to be literally dragged into the car.

This prompted me to investigate the school where my neighbor’s daughter was attending and where mine would be going the following year. I was not impressed, to put it mildly. Hot, noisy, and overcrowded classrooms; playground with uncut grass blasted by the blistering sun, as the principal had earlier cut down the shade-giving trees for reasons only he knew best. There were nearly 50 pupils in the classroom, as compared to 18 in my daughter’s preschool class. As the school was on the main bus line, the diesel fumes were nauseating. The children in turn were uncomfortable and listless, their teachers haggard. The last hour of the day was completely wasted with the noise and hassle outside of pupils coming in for the afternoon session.

I shuddered to think what my daughter would have to endure. No wonder the neighbor’s girl was screaming every morning. She was trying to say something important, but nobody was listening.

In conversations with fellow parents of my daughter’s classmates, to a person they have all decided to send their children to schools in Singapore. They were already discussing car pool arrangements. This was in 1978. The trickle of carloads then is today a steady stream of family cars and bas sekolah (school buses).

A year earlier at the opposite end of the scale, I had an equally jarring experience teaching medical students from UKM. I related this in my first book The Malay Dilemma Revisited. The university was an all-Malay language institution, but there were no textbooks. As a result the lecturers were haphazardly translating as they went along, making their lectures sound like Pidgin English. I did not see the wisdom of such an approach; it would simply confuse the students. So I decided to lecture in English.

It was slow and tough in the beginning, but gradually the students caught on. What was most gratifying was their increasing confidence as their English improved. This transferred to their ward performances; they were much more confident and eager to participate in the clinical discussions. By the end of the year I could not tell them apart from the students I had from UM where English was used.

Looking back, this should not have been a surprise. These students had been exposed to English throughout their school years. It was just that everyone – teachers, lecturers, and leaders – had not impressed upon them the value and importance of knowing a second language well. Somehow they had been brainwashed into thinking that English fluency is tantamount to being colonized.

Actually my misgivings of our education system began much earlier. In 1963 I was a temporary science teacher at a Malay secondary school. The first class was started six years earlier, so it was not something new or novel. After all those years I would have expected that they would have ironed out the problems with textbooks and terminologies. Yet there I was, struggling with inadequate and technically poor textbooks. As if that was not bad enough, early in August and a month prior to my leaving, my principal called me in and asked me to speed up my teaching and finish the year’s syllabus. He informed me that there was no replacement for me for at least the next few years as no science teachers were being trained. Those poor Malay students would be stranded.

Imagine starting an important program without careful planning. I felt terrible for those young minds that were being sacrificed not just at that one school but also throughout the nation. There must have been thousands.

Those in authority knew then that they did not have the system ready. Why did they aggressively push it? Why didn’t they start small or with some pilot projects, iron out the problems, and then once running smoothly, expand the system? Did they think that those precious young minds were expendable, so much cannon fodder in the politicians’ battle for supremacy of the Malay language? What was most disgusting was that while these leaders were exhorting parents to send their children to these new schools, the ministers and top politicians were sneakily sending their own children into English schools. Some including Minister of Education Tun Razak was sending theirs to Britain.

These leaders expected the best for their children. Malay schools were good enough for children of the rest of us. Such hypocrisy!

Today I still see some of those students. A few are successful because they had the initiative to learn English on their own and thus enhanced their employability. The rest are stuck in the village, their education system had failed them. They have every right to be angry.

I have one other episode to relate on my experience teaching medical students. During my first few lectures my students were all very quiet. Tried as I would, I could not ignite any spark. So one day I spent the first fifteen minutes of my lecture telling them the right material, but then in the second fifteen I went ahead and purposely contradicted what I had said earlier. Of course I saw many perplexed faces, but I pretended as if nothing had happened. Then as was my practice, I paused and asked them if they had any questions, and waited patiently.

As usual, there was dead silence; only glum confused looks. Finally one brave soul put her hands up and said I had uttered something different in the early part of my lecture. I feigned surprise and asked which part I had contradicted, and she rightly pointed it out. Scratching my head while pretending serious contemplation, I admitted that I had indeed made a mistake and thanked her profusely for bringing it to my attention. I complimented her for saving the class and me. She beamed.

Soon there were other brave souls eagerly pointing out my errors. I thanked each one of them, and concocted some lame excuse for my errors. At last the ice was broken. The obstructing iceberg began to break and the class discussions began to flow. I had disabused these students that professors are not infallible and all knowing, and that they are quite capable of, and indeed frequently do, utter something erroneous if not downright stupid. Earlier I had done the same trick with my house officers in a seminar, and that too worked wonderfully. As a result my students and house officers soon became a lively bunch. They did not hesitate in challenging me, and I enjoyed the banter immensely. For one it kept everybody awake, for another it gave them a chance to practice their spoken English.

All went well until a new colleague returned fresh from his postgraduate studies abroad. He should be “red hot.” I suggested that he give a seminar to my students and medical officers, and he readily agreed. On the appointed day I warmly introduced him and then as was my custom, left him to carry on.

Following the seminar, my students and junior doctors joined me on the ward. They all had glum faces. I inquired how the seminar went, and no one was keen to volunteer a response. Finally one sputtered, “He is a strange guy!” It turned out that this lecturer, as was (perhaps still is) typical of local professors, did not take kindly to being asked many questions. Later at lunch that new lecturer pounced into me, and his first comment was how rude and impudent my students and junior doctors were. “No respect for professors and elders!” was how he put it.

More than 25 years later I still get a tickle in relating this incident. The undue reverence students have of their teachers and professors still exists today. This is common in Asia, a reflection of the culture of reverence towards elders generally. Reverence and respect yes; blind obedience and uncritically accepting what is being uttered, no!

On another front, I often get letters from readers who disagree with me, but instead of rebutting my arguments they would challenge my competence or right to put forth such views. When I write about Islam they would argue that since I am not an ulama, I should not comment on religious matters. When I write on Malaysian affairs, their immediate rebuttal seems to be that since I live abroad, my views are no longer valid. Not once do they consider the merits of my arguments. Worse, they would say that some professors or ulama somewhere with better qualifications have said something different, and since they are professors ipso facto, their views must automatically be sahih (correct). These readers suspend their critical judgment, and spend more time evaluating the credentials of the writer than on the merits of the arguments. I am not surprised that Malaysian students have these views as their professors too exhibit similar insularity.

Such anecdotes and incidents, hilarious as they are, do not indict the system. For that I need more solid empirical evidences. I will do this by systemically dissecting the system and critiquing each segment.

Next: The P-13 Years

Chapter 3: The Present System (Cont’d)

Private Sector Involvement

Until recently, private sector involvement is permitted only at the polar ends of the education spectrum: at preschool and tertiary levels. The government monopolizes education from Years 1 to 11. This was not always the case. In the 1950s it was common to have private English schools to complement the few government ones. But with independence and the aggressiveness of Tun Razak in building many more government schools, these private schools fell by the wayside. Even my own village in Sri Menanti had a private English school started by the parents with no governmental support. The students were either flunkies from or those unable to secure a slot in government schools. The point I wish to highlight here (and I will revisit later when discussing private universities) is that when there are good public institutions, private institutions do not thrive. The corollary is that when private institutions proliferate, that usually means the failure of public institutions.

The government does not presently control preschools but that too is set to change. By 2003 all preschools must follow MOE’s guidelines as to the curriculum. There is no shortage of preschools in urban areas provided mostly by private entrepreneurs and “mom and pop” operators. The government does not regulate them either with regards to quality or for compliance with health and safety regulations. This is strictly a situation of buyer beware or more correctly, parents beware.

This prohibition against private sector involvement has one glaring exception – religious schools. Typically these are nothing more than the one-teacher huts or pondoks and madrasahs that are scattered all over the villages in heavily Malay populated states. Not much is expected of such schools and not much is delivered. In the past such schools were meant primarily to provide religious instructions to students from the regular schools. Today as all national schools are mandated to provide religious classes, these madrasahs have become redundant. Nonetheless they are still active to cater for those who believe that the Islam propagated in the secular schools is less than pristine. In light of the 9-11 terrorists’ attacks on America, these madarasahs are getting greater scrutiny from the government. They preach a particularly suffocating brand of Islam, more along the Taliban variety.

These madarasahs and other private religious schools are in technical violation of the education code. The government does not credential their teachers nor approve the curriculum. Despite such glaring breaches, the government does not dare close them for fear of being tarred as anti-Islamic – a politically very damaging accusation in a religiously obsessed nation.

There are also subsidized religious schools, Sekolah Agama Rakyat (People’s Religious Schools). These too preach a narrow brand of Islam. Recently (October 2002) the government, piqued with the alleged anti-government propaganda preached at these schools, suspended their grants.

Apart from the madrasahs, there are private international schools to cater for children of expatriates. Malaysians are barred from enrolling except in rare instances, and only with the special dispensation from the minister himself. This stricture against private schools is slowly relaxing; there are now emerging private schools that are extensions of private colleges. There is no proper policy governing these institutions and their permits are being issued on an ad hoc basis.

Malaysia, like East Asian nations, has many private “tuition centers” to give extra help for those able to afford their fees. Thankfully the Malaysian system has not yet degenerated into the brute competitive atmosphere that gives rise to the torture chambers that are the Japanese “cram schools.” The government recently introduced a voucher system enabling children of the poor to partake in these extra hours tuition. It would have been smarter to incorporate these sessions into the regular school day.

Moving on to higher education, until recently only public institutions can grant degrees. But with the increased demand, the government finally relented and allowed private universities. The situation was made acute following the 1997 Asian economic crisis when the cost of an overseas education became prohibitive with the ringgit devaluation.

Since the passage of the Higher Education Act of 1996, and with it the removal of the prohibition against private universities, there has been a mushrooming of private colleges and universities. No less than 700 at last count, with the overwhelming majority set up within the last few years. This reflects either extraordinary vigor of the private sector or more likely, trivialization of higher education.

Even before the Act was amended, there were private colleges but they were not allowed to grant degrees. They offered instead their own diplomas or prepared their students for foreign (usually British) professional qualifications in accountancy, law, secretarial, and engineering.

Many easily circumvented the stricture against degree granting by offering courses for external degrees of British universities. Others had linked academic programs, popularly known as “twinning,” where students would complete their first few years in Malaysia and then spend the finishing years at the host university abroad.

Private universities are set up primarily by four entities. First are the established colleges like Taylor and Stamford. With the liberalization of the rules, they are able to expand significantly their academic offerings to include not only twinning programs but also their own degrees, usually in conjunction with foreign universities. Next are the large public corporations like Petronas (the national oil company), Telekom (phone company) and Tenaga Nasional (utility). These companies are only nominally private as they are owned and controlled principally by The Ministry of Finance, Inc., and statutory bodies. In ambiance and character, their universities operate no differently from the public ones. The overwhelming majority of their students are Bumiputras, just like the public universities. The third entity comprises institutions sponsored or owned by the governing political parties. The Malaysian Chinese Association (MCA) has Universiti Tunku Abdual Rahman (UTAR), and the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) has TAFE College and the Asian Institute of Medical Science. The fourth group consists of branch campuses of established foreign universities like Monash and the University of Nottingham.

In 2002 there are 16 private universities with an enrollment of nearly 25,000, including four branches of major foreign universities with fewer than 2,500 students total. As can be seen by the average number of students per campus, these institutions are still very much work in progress. These private institutions use English as their medium of instruction (except for the few operated by Bumiputras that use Malay). Thus their graduates enjoy a premium in the marketplace. Their tuition and other fees are, as expected, considerably higher. While tuition at public universities runs at about RM1,400 per year, the private ones charge in excess of RM20,000. Despite that they are still very popular simply because expensive as they are, they are still cheap as compared to going abroad.

Many of the private universities including the local branch of reputable foreign institutions have a long way to go before they can be regarded as anything close to a traditional campus with dormitories, athletic facilities, and cultural amenities. The University of Nottingham for example, is located in a shopping complex, although it is planning a brand new traditional campus outside of Kuala Lumpur. Universities like Uniten that are associated with large government-owned corporations have traditional campuses.

Some of the private universities also offer graduate degrees. Like the public institutions, the disciplines offered are mostly in the soft sciences and management. The one exception is MUST (Malaysian University of Science and Technology) set up in conjunction with Boston’s MIT. This arrangement was a short circuit attempt to ride on MIT’s prestige, but in matters academic, close association means nothing. MUST will have to develop its own reputation. Thus far the practical effect of the association has simply been for MUST to pay exorbitant consulting fees to MIT. Unlike other universities in Malaysia, MUST is exclusively a graduate school.

There is one other institution that is exclusively a graduate school, The International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC), started by Syed Naquib Al-Attas and sponsored by the International Islamic Secretariat. It boasts an impressive faculty of PhDs from leading Western universities like Princeton and McGill. Its enrolment of 55 doctoral and 66 masters’ students easily makes it the largest graduate academic unit in the country. Though ISTAC gets rave reviews from Islamic scholars, a number of its features disturb me. First is its physical location, away from other academic institutions. Its scholars and students thus do not get to mix with those from other disciplines, a situation that can easily lead to both social and intellectual isolation. Second, it accepts only Muslims as students and staff. ISTAC has the ambience of a monastery rather than an academic institution. It perpetuates the intellectual and social insularity typical of many present-day Islamic institutions.

There are other private specialized training institutions like the nursing school run by a private hospital in association with an Australian institution, as well as numerous technical institutes. Their aggregate contributions are still minimal.

There are still many teething problems with private sector involvement in education. The government has yet to unleash the maximal potential of this sector to contribute to the training of its citizens.

My next chapter will review the weaknesses and strengths of the current system.

Next: Chapter 4: Deficiencies of the System

Chapter 3: The Present System

Public Universities and Other Post Secondary Institutions

Until recently, all universities in Malaysia are public institutions. There has been a proliferation of new universities built to cater for the increased demand brought on by the expansion of the schools.

University of Malaya (UM) was the first. It began in Singapore in1949 with the merging of Raffles College (a liberal arts institution) and the King Edward Medical College. In 1959 it established an autonomous branch in Kuala Lumpur, and in 1962 it severed its link with Singapore, taking with it the original name. The University of Malaya that was in Singapore then became the National University of Singapore. Being a colonial institution UM used English as the medium of instruction. With the introduction of Malay as the sole medium of instruction in Malaysian schools, UM later switched to Malay. As it has a strong tradition and foundation of English, that language is still widely used especially in the professional faculties.

The first university established to use exclusively Malay was the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM–National University of Malaysia). It took its first students in1970, a year following the race riot. The institution represented the pinnacle of achievement of the Malay language nationalists. Up to this day the university remains the hotbed of these extremists.

All public universities except one are under MOE, and it keeps a very close tab on them. The minister appoints not only the governing board but also senior academic officers. No surprise then these institutions ended up as pale clones of one another. The mistakes of one are quickly replicated at other institutions.

The one university not under MOE is the International Islamic University (IIU). It was started and thus partly financed by the International Islamic Secretariat, and set up under the Companies Act, and thus came under the purview of, of all things, the Ministry of Trade and Industry! It uses English as the medium of instruction. This was the only way to circumvent the then national policy of using only Malay in all institutions under MOE. On paper at least IIU is an economic enterprise, not an academic institution. How ingenious!

Because of their superior English proficiency, IIU graduates are highly sought after by private industry. Its student body is also the most diverse in Malaysia or even Asia. It has the largest percentage of foreign students, attracting many from all over, including America.

Interestingly there were no howling protests from Malay language nationalists with IIU using English. For one, the Islamic cachet caught them at bay; they did not have the courage to criticize something with an Islamic label even if that institution grossly violated the stated national education policy. In Malaysia, Islam is a much more powerful symbol among Malays, much more than that of language or culture.

IIU also proves that when there is the political will, even the most stringent regulations and insurmountable bureaucratic obstacles can easily be bypassed!

Today Malaysia has over a dozen (15 to be exact, and counting) public universities enrolling a total of over 320,000 students (2000 figures). Hardly a day goes by without some officials announcing the planning of yet another campus to keep up with the growing demand. Obviously to them, the setting up of a university is a trivial affair, perhaps akin to building another kampong hut. The results show. Most of these new universities have the academic atmosphere of a junior college, at best. Because officials do not pause and learn from each experience, the same mistakes get repeated and amplified. It reminds me of the wise observation of the legendary American surgeon William Mayo to the effect that some surgeons make the same mistake a hundred times and call that experience. Malaysian officials unabashedly boast of their vast experience setting up new universities. In contrast, California, a state with considerably greater financial and academic resources, managed to build only a couple of new campuses in the last decade.

The mediocre quality of these new institutions led former Deputy Prime Minister Musa Hitam, himself a former education minister, to call them kampong kampus. Kampong is the Malay word for village, but idiomatically it refers to an insular state of mind.

As part of the general plan to allow greater autonomy, the government embarked on legally incorporating public universities. This began with UM, and thus far it remains the only one to be “corporatized.” The premise of the exercise is to allow these institutions to operate more as private entities rather than as government agencies. They would be able to raise funds independently and be given more room to innovate after being let loose from the tight strictures of the civil service code. Sadly like everything else associated with MOE, the reality is far different.

The plan was enmeshed with controversy right from the very beginning. Even though it was ultimately concluded and UM is now a corporation, in reality and ambience, nothing has changed. The key personnel remain the same and senior appointments are still made by the minister with no input from the faculty. The transformation happened only on paper; on the ground nothing changes.

Public universities in Malaysia are essentially, in the words of a foreign academic familiar with the situation, “teaching factories.” Their commitment to research is minimal. There are no special funds set aside to support such activities. Worse, those few productive scholars and researchers are not even appreciated. Professors in the sciences are rarely provided with funds for research and laboratory assistants. Senior academic appointments are given more to political types. Perusing the resume of senior university officials, one is hard pressed to discern their significant (or any) academic achievements.

In the last few years the older public universities are beginning to emphasize research and setting up their own graduate schools. Except for Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM), most of the graduate degrees are in liberal arts and social sciences rather than the natural sciences.

Apart from universities, there are numerous other public institutions of higher education like teachers’ and technical colleges, polytechnics, and specialized training institutes. Most, like teachers’ and technical colleges, come under the purview of MOE, others under Health (nursing schools), Human Resources (various training institutes), Entrepreneur Development (various MARA training centers), Defense (Military College), Agriculture (Cooperative Colleges), and the various state governments.

The entry requirement for these non-degree granting institutions is usually SPM (Sijil Perseketuan Malaysia–Malaysian Certificate of Education, given at Year 11). There is minimal transferability between these institutions and universities; no formal mechanism for students to continue on to universities.

Malaysia has not succumbed to the Western habit of puffing up its other tertiary institutions into universities. In America what was once teachers’ colleges are now full-fledged universities. Britain too is doing the same thing with its technical colleges and polytechnics. Whether such moves enhance these institutions or merely debase the status of universities is debatable.

Public universities and other tertiary institutions are heavily subsidized. Tuition covers less than 10 percent of their operating costs. For teachers’ colleges and nursing schools, students are paid in return for their services on graduation.

In 2000, about 25 percent of the 17-23 age cohorts are in higher education. The government hopes to boost this to 25 percent by 2005, and 40 percent by 2010. By 2020 that figure should exceed 50 percent, and will place the nation in the same league as the developed countries, thus fulfilling the aspirations of Vision 2020.

Next: Private Sector Involvement

Chapter 3: The Present System (Cont’d)

Malaysian Schools Today

Education in Malaysia is federal responsibility. It is highly centralized with MOE controlling every detail of the system, from the curriculum and syllabus right down to the choosing, printing, and distributing of textbooks. At one time the ministry also had its own architectural and public works department responsible for designing and building schools. State governments do not partake in education except for some religious schools in PAS-controlled Kelantan and Trengganu.

This may change soon, as there are other states like Selangor and Negri Sembilan that are planning to have their own universities.

Malaysia provides for 11 years of free but not compulsory schooling; 6 primary, and 5 secondary. As of 2003, primary schooling would be compulsory. There are preschools for 4-5 years old, mostly run by private entities and as expected, located mainly in urban areas. There are some public ones run by MOE as well as the Ministries of Rural Development and of Unity and Community Development.

The term “free schooling” requires clarification. It means only that there are no tuition fees, but parents still incur other expenses for sports and other extra curricular activities, in addition to books, transportation, uniforms, and lunches. These are substantial. For rural students, transportation can be a major cost although now with many schools built in villages, this is becoming less a significant factor.

After preschool, children enter primary school at age six, and after six years move on to five years of secondary schooling. This is the national stream where the medium of instruction is Malay. English is taught only as a subject, and although it is taught at all levels, it is not a compulsory subject in the sense that students need not pass it.

To cater for the needs and sensitivities of the vernacular groups, there are the “national-type” schools at the primary level where pupils are taught in their mother tongue (Chinese or Tamil), with Malay offered only as a subject. After Primary 6, the pupils would spend a year in Malay immersion class (Remove Class) prior to entering the regular “national” stream for their secondary education. The old Chinese secondary schools still exist physically but they now use the national curriculum with Malay as the medium of instruction.

Students sit for standardized national tests at the end of Primary 6; Form 3 (Year 9); and Form 5 (Year 11).

There is a separate parallel Islamic stream, starting at preschool and going all the way up to Year 13 and the university. Here as expected, the emphasis is exclusively on Islamic Studies. These schools claim that they also teach other subjects like mathematics and science; in reality those are being taught at the most elementary level. Their laboratories (only in the most generous way can they be called as such) would be lucky to have a few test tubes–for demonstration purposes only! The Islamic stream has its own matriculation examination where only Islamic Studies subjects are tested.

This education dualism of two separate and mutually exclusive streams operating independently is the dilemma facing Malaysia today, especially when the philosophies and goals of the two streams contradict each other. One is essentially secular, the other religious. One tries to be inclusive and integrative, the other is exclusive and prides on its insularity. The divisive potential of this dualism is finally dawning on policymakers, but because of the powerful symbolism of Islam, the challenge of reconciling the two would be immense. Worse, there has been little or no attempt at doing that.

There are also special education schools, few in numbers, to take care of those with special needs. In addition some of the regular schools also have limited facilities to handle these students.

For Bumiputra students, the Year 6 examination is critical as the top scorers are offered the opportunity to continue their secondary education at residential schools where tuition and boarding are free. The Form 3 examination is also critical, as students would be streamed to enter the academic, technical, or vocational stream at the upper secondary level. Students chosen for the academic pathway are further streamed into Arts or Science.

Beyond Form 5 the system gets messy. Students either leave to enter the workforce, enter two years of pre-university class (Form 6–Upper and Lower), or seek further training at teachers’, technical, and other colleges. As expected, those chosen for Form 6 would be the top scorers.

Within the last two decades Form Six has been emasculated, with students now increasingly choosing the faster path of matriculation classes (matrikulasi) run by local universities. Matrikulasi, designed specifically for Bumiputras, is popular as it cuts the pre-university years to one. Non-Bumiputras too are shying away from Sixth Form; instead they enroll in the many private colleges and sit for foreign matriculation examinations. Of the 350,000 candidates who sat for the Form V examination in 2001, less than 30,000 continued on into Sixth Form.

Most schools are day schools, with some providing limited hostel facilities for students staying far away from campus. The government also operates a number of fully residential secondary schools both under MOE as well as the Ministry of Entrepreneur Development (through MARA). There is also one under the Defense Ministry (The Royal Military College). The oldest is the all-boys Malay College Kuala Kangsar (MCKK), established in 1905 by the British to educate children of royal families and nobility to prepare them for junior positions in the colonial civil service. Such modest goals notwithstanding, to Malays that school is revered as Babut Darjat (Gate to Heaven). Evidently Malays then (and perhaps now too) did not have high aspirations; they were easily satisfied with the crumbs handed to them by the British.

After independence the college began admitting those from the peasant class. This was not an attempt at meritocracy or democratization, rather a reflection of the dwindling numbers from the upper class who could benefit from the college or could fill the classes.
Despite the moniker college, MCKK is merely a residential school. During the 1960s and 70s with the influx of talent beyond the royalty class, the college did produce some luminaries. Its top students routinely matriculated into elite universities. Come the1980s with the general emasculation of Sixth Form, MCKK also dispensed with its Sixth Form. Its graduates now have to spend an additional year or two elsewhere for finishing school prior to entering university; a definite step down in mission.

A comparable institution for girls, The Malay Girls (now Tunku Kurshiah) College (TKC) was set up in 1949. Like their counterpart at MCKK, TKC graduates too now have to go elsewhere for matriculation.

Following the successes of these two schools in the 60s and 70s, the government expanded the program and set up dozens more. This substantially increased the number of Malay undergraduates. One of my recommendations back in the mid 1960s was precisely to expand these residential schools, but to limit them to children of disadvantaged Bumiputras. Today these schools are a mere shadow of their former glory. Few prepare their students for matriculation, the rest like MCKK and TKC goes only to Form 5. The few exceptions include the MARA Junior College in Banting that prepares students for the rigorous International Baccalaureate (IB) program.

The government is committed to expanding these very expensive schools. The Eighth Malaysia Plan calls for building at least a dozen more such schools. These schools cater exclusively for Bumiputras, but in March 2002 the government announced as part of a general plan to introduce meritocracy and greater competition, that 10 percent of the slots be allocated to non-Bumiputras, at least for MARA residential schools. The residential schools emphasize the sciences, all part of the national effort to increase the number of Malays in the sciences.

The figure that is most interesting is that less than 5 percent of Chinese students choose the national schools, and that number is fast declining. The figures for Indians are only slightly higher. Thus national schools are essentially schools for Malays. In contrast, in the last few years there is an increasing tendency for Malays to choose Chinese schools. Additionally many more Malays are opting out of the national stream into religious schools.

The much-vaunted national schools are now losing students from both Malays and non-Malays. The Razak Plan, tinkered once too many, is finally unraveling.

Other relevant statistics to ponder are these. Out of a population of over 23 million, there are about 2.9 million students in primary and 2 million in secondary schools. There are over 6,000 national primary schools and 1,700 secondary ones. The Chinese and Tamil schools number 1,300 and 530 respectively. The pupil to teacher ratio at the primary level is 19:1; at secondary, 17:1. These ratios look impressive but I have yet to see a class with less than 40 pupils. These figures, like others emanating from MOE, are suspect.

Next: Public Universities and Other Post Secondary Institutions

Chapter 3: The Present System

The present system of education is based on the Razak Report of 1956. There had only been minimal modifications at the periphery since then. The core assumption of that report is that Malaysians should have a uniform system of schooling with a common curriculum so as to foster national unity.

Prior to the Razak Report, Malaysian schools were based along the British model. There were essentially two systems: English and vernacular schools. English schools were mainly in the major towns and catered mostly to urban dwellers. These happened to be mostly non-Malays at the time. Some were missionary schools, and with such names as The Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus they not surprisingly did not attract many Malays. The curriculum was entirely British, right down to the choice of textbooks, with no attempt at modifying to suit local conditions.

These schools were not free; in addition to tuition fees there were other incidental expenses for sports and library for example that added up quickly. Then there were the textbooks and uniforms. Even students’ exercise books were imported, making them very expensive. Students were not allowed to use the cheap local variety. For rural children, an additional significant cost was for transportation. Not surprisingly many dropped out; their families unable to afford to keep them in school.

The British tried to accommodate rural children by having hostels attached to these schools. It also gave scholarships to promising Malay students based on need.

Malay schools were state supported and free. They were also conveniently located in the villages. There were no additional assorted fees and expenses; the pupils need not even have uniforms. Many were barefooted. Such schools were referred to as sekolah kaki ayam, schools for the chicken-footed (barefooted). The school years did not extend beyond six, most only for four – very elementary. The pupils learned only the minimum of arithmetic, reading, and writing, all in Malay.

The brighter graduates would have a chance to undergo two years of teacher training and then they were let loose to teach. My parents were two such teachers. Teaching was the only avenue of employment for the lucky few. A few more could find employment as police constables, the armed services, or as petty clerks in the civil service. The vast majority would continue with their village life as before; nothing would have changed for them. As Roff noted, from the point of view of utility alone, many Malays saw little advantage in vernacular education.

In 1903, of the 2,900 boys who passed Malay schools in Perak, 24 became domestic or office servants, ten schoolteachers, one a clerk, and another a policeman. That pattern persisted throughout the entire British rule.

Tamil schools were just as sorry. Chinese schools were much better as they were better funded by their community. They also provided education up to the upper secondary levels. They essentially used the textbooks available in China. Because these schools emphasized mathematics, their students were able to transfer their skills readily to the marketplace.

These vernacular schools were left entirely to their own devices, the colonial version of benign neglect. Consequently they developed along divergent paths. Students in Chinese schools learned more about China and Mao Zedong than about Malaysia and Malaysian heroes. Students in Tamil schools were more concerned with events in India and knew more about the Indian independence movement than Malaysia’s own history.

The country’s first Minister of Education, Tun Razak, quickly grasped the potential danger to the new nation with the young being educated separately. His bold plan called for the setting up of national schools, a fully integrated system with a common curriculum and language, Malay.

Chinese educationists strenuously opposed Razak’s plan. During the first few years following its adoption of the plan, Chinese schools were hotbeds of protests and student radicalism. These groups appeared at times to hold the government and the nation hostage. Only the resolve and firm handling by Razak prevented the issue from tearing the young nation apart. Today nearly five decades later, all acknowledge the wisdom of Razak’s premise and approach.

Next: Malaysian Schools Today

Chapter 2: It’s More Than Just Education (Cont’d)

Education, The Economy, and Demographics

The two most important factors that bear on the quality of education lie outside its sphere: the economy and demographics. Stated differently, Malaysia cannot have a strong education system with a weak economy, nor a First World standard of education with Third World demographics. If we look at countries that have superior education systems, the remarkable correlates are that they all have healthy economies and low birth rates.

A strong economy does not guarantee a superior education system. Indonesia had an impressive economy under Suharto, but it squandered that golden opportunity by diverting it away from improving its schools. The Indian state of Kerala has a much superior education system and other social services despite an economy one hundredth that of Canada and a population of comparable size. Kerala’s literacy rates and educational attainment are the highest in India and near that of the First World. Similarly Cuba, despite a crawling if not stagnant economy, has universal literacy and high caliber education. Because of that it is a major force for biogenetic engineering, producing such sophisticated products like Hepatitis B vaccine.

A robust economy enables the nation to devote the necessary resources to improving its education system. Superior schools and universities in turn help buffer and sustain the economy. Much has been written on the rapid recovery of South Korea, Taiwan, and to a certain extent Malaysia following the 1997 economic crisis, but I venture that a major contributing factor is their superior education system. Indonesia and Thailand did not bounce back fast because their education system is that much more inferior.

The other important correlate of a superior education system is low population growth. Cuba and Kerala may have moribund economy, but their slow population growth enables them to devote their resources towards improving their social services instead of just trying to keep up with the population growth. China will leapfrog into the First World simply because it has tackled the most important factor, that of reducing its previously horrendously high birth rates. This together with a rapidly expanding economy ensures that China would be a major power soon. Indonesia and India on the other hand are still struggling merely to keep up, whatever gains they have in their economy are quickly absorbed and diluted by a rapidly expanding population.

Malaysia has the typical Third World demographics, with a pyramidal age distribution, in contrast to the more cylindrical First World pattern. Meaning, Malaysia has the greatest proportion of its citizens in the lower age groups. Additionally it is also at a dangerous transition with a rapidly increasing aging population to boot, thanks to its improving health care. Graphically the apex of the pyramid is broader, meaning more resources would have to be diverted to serve the needs of the elderly and consequently less for schools.

Assume an inflation and population growth rates of 3 percent each. This means the government would have to spend 6 percent more every year just to maintain the status quo, with none going towards improvement in quality. Every year Malaysia spends millions more on education, but these additional funds are simply consumed with building new classrooms and training new teachers just to keep up with the number of additional new school children.

I estimate that the number of births in Malaysia last year was around 600,000, and increasing at 3 percent annually. That means that country will have to build classrooms and find new teachers for 18,000 new children every year until those children finish their schooling 11 years later. The following year we will have to repeat the same process all over again. The cumulative costs are astronomical. But if we have an effective family planning program and manage to keep the number of new births constant, we do not need to build those extra classrooms and train those new teachers. Or if we do, then we could use the extra resources to reduce class overcrowding and pupil/teacher ratio. This would inevitably lead to improvement in quality. If we go beyond and reduce the number of births by only 1 percent, then we could use the resources currently used by the 6,000 fewer children to further benefit the rest. Note these savings would recur every year and be cumulative and additive.

Seventeen years later we would see even greater savings when we do not have to provide the additional spaces at the colleges and universities.

It is not enough to merely stabilize the fertility rates as you would then still have a steady increase in the number of births because the present cohort of childbearing women would continue to increase for at least the next 30 to 40 years. Thus Malaysia must go beyond and actually reduce the number of new births. To do this it has to markedly reduce the fertility rates to compensate for the increasing number of childbearing women now already in the pipeline.

Countries like Singapore and Ireland have improved their education system immensely not so much because their leaders are particularly smart or astute but because their nation’s birth rate has plummeted. Thus they can devote their resources to improving the quality instead of merely trying to cope up.

It is beyond the scope of my book to discuss ways to curb population growth; suffice to say that that is an important strategy to improving the quality of education and other social services. Malaysia can significantly reduce its population growth by making family planning readily available. It does not have to resort to the crude and intrusive ways of the Communist Chinese. Unfortunately Malaysia has the perverse policy of pursuing increased population growth rate with its misguided 70 Million Population program. This will make attaining the goal of a quality education that much more difficult to achieve.

Next: Chapter 3: The Present System

Chapter 2: It’s More Than Just Education (Cont’d)
Education and Technology (Cont’d)

Numerous studies show the benefit of early musical education. I would thus provide musical instruments and music classes ahead of computers. Music lessons are also much cheaper. Music would teach these youngsters the concept of symbols and abstractions, and also teamwork. Very few Malaysian schools now have music programs.

While we have been bludgeoned with the mantra that information is power, in truth it isn’t. As Stoll so rightly points out in his book, librarians are famous for having the most information, yet they lack power. Politicians on the other hand have no or very little information, yet they are very powerful. Having the information is only the first step, the more important issue is how to evaluate that information and put it in the proper perspective. That requires a faculty for critical thinking, rational reasoning, and a high degree of skepticism.

Again comparing with the car, the skills or level of understanding needed to use one is very simple. Start the engine (two seconds instructions: insert and turn key) and then practice steering and braking.

With those simple instructions you could drive the car safely on a deserted road. But if you want to take the car on the freeway, then you will need more skills lest you become a menace to yourself and others. You would need to improve your steering and braking, and learn defensive driving and rules of the road. If you want to fix the engine then you would need to learn to be a mechanic. Going further, if you want to design cars or build a better suspension system, then you would need to go to design or engineering school.

Likewise with computers; if you want to write software, then you would need to learn one of the programming languages. But for the vast majority of users, all you have to know is which key to punch to get a certain result on the screen. That is all. The most frequent question asked when I was learning the computer was, “How do I do…?” You do not need special classes in the school curriculum to teach how to use word processor and e-mail, connect to the Internet, or access data from the Web. A visitor from Malaysia learned all these in one evening, and by the time my wife was ready with dinner, he had already sent his first e-mail. Yet this gentleman and his colleagues back home had been clamoring for the government to set up special computer classes for senior civil servants! If you want to get fancy, you could learn other slightly involved software like spreadsheet (good for accounting), PowerPoint (for slide presentations), and web authoring. Once you have the basics and are comfortable with computers, then you wonder how on earth you coped in the days before word processing! Today I rarely compose an essay on paper anymore, I do it straight on the keyboard, editing as I go along.

While learning how to use word processor is easy enough, writing is not. That requires a patient teacher, frequent exercises, and the availability of good books. If your prose is of the variety, “It was a dark and stormy night…,” no amount of fancy fonts and jazzing up on the word processor will improve it. Had you written, “I could barely make out his wet face amidst the rough rustling of the reeds…” then regardless whether you have fancy fonts or merely scribble it on a yellowing piece of paper, your readers would know that it was a dark and stormy night.

More importantly, they would likely to continue reading. It is more important to teach students how to write using the word processor rather than simply teaching them how to use the software. Likewise it is better to teach them how to collect, present, and interpret data using the database and spreadsheet rather than simply teaching them about the software.

The government has a high-level committee looking into bringing IT to the schools. I agree that schools should have computers, but before spending billions in wiring our schools, I would first attend to the basics. Having done that then I would introduce IT, starting at the upper levels, the universities. I would provide every faculty member with a free computer and unlimited Internet access. I would also ensure that the campus is “wired” and encourage the faculty to post their class assignments and reading lists online. Students too should be encouraged to submit their assignments electronically. All incoming students must be computer literate. I do not mean that the university should run word processing classes rather students would have to spend the months while waiting to enter the university acquiring those skills. There are plenty of proprietary classes where they can do this.

Even the mosque in Section 14, Petaling Jaya, has such classes. There is no need to waste expensive university personnel or resources for students to acquire these basic computer skills.

Having computers in schools would be useless if there are no changes with the present Internet hook up fee structure. In America there is a fixed fee for unlimited access; in Malaysia it is hourly rates. Thus users are inhibited from reaping the vast potential of the Internet because of the additional costs incurred.

Deputy Prime Minister Badawi in a fit of enthusiasm recently proposed that IT be taught in schools. The curriculum is already crowded. Besides, I do not know exactly what he meant by it. Teach programming, software writing, and website designing? Surely our students have plenty of time acquiring those skills after they have mastered the basics and developed critical thinking. But if he means that students should be able to use computers and be comfortable with them, then you do not need to have a separate subject for that; it can be done in computer clubs and as extracurricular activities. Frankly I do not think Badawi himself knows what he is talking about. To him IT is only the latest buzzword to sprinkle his speeches.

The government demonstrated its commitment to IT by funding it massively, nearly a billion ringgit for 2003. In contrast, only RM 850million for implementing single session schools. The amount allocated for teacher training was considerably less and did not merit a separate line item. The prime minister is deluded into thinking that teachers could be mere facilitators, their job reduced to turning on the computers and letting the students learn via electronic modules. Nothing could be further from the truth.

We have to differentiate computer literacy from computational literacy. The former as it is commonly understood means the ability to use the computer; it is a tool. In a way this is a misuse of the word literacy. A better term would be computer familiarity or facility. Computational literacy on the other hand is the ability to use programming language and to think, visualize, and extrapolate concepts in that medium. An illustration and comparison with text literacy would clarify my point.

Text literacy means more than just being able to read and write. It is a basic instrument to understand and communicate with the written word. Text literacy produces the works of Shakespeare and Steinbeck, and also the countless memos, letters, and little notes we write each other. It is a basic tool: an intellectual infrastructure. Through it we can communicate our deepest thoughts and emotions, a significant advancement over communication via cave wall drawings and oral traditions.

The discovery of the printing press brought a quantum leap forward in enhancing the utility of and democratizing text literacy. It brought literacy to the masses.

Computational literacy is also an infrastructure, and computers enhance it in much the same way that printing presses do to text literacy. With our understanding of the language of computers we would be able to think and project our messages and thoughts or otherwise communicate in this new medium.

Andrea di Sessa (the man who coined the term computational literacy) in his book Changing Minds describe an experiment with computational literacy using his Boxer programming language to teach the physics of motion and other abstract mathematical concepts to Grade 6 students. The students were asked to picture someone on a roller blade sliding down the street with a tennis ball in his hand. He then dropped the ball from his chest while skating. The class was asked to visualize the motion of the ball from three perspectives: the skater, a miniature man looking up from the skateboard, and an observer standing by the roadside. This was an exercise on relative velocity, a difficult concept to teach.

The student who was asked to present the view from the skateboard explained his very simply. He pressed a function key and a small dot appeared in the middle of the computer screen. This then rapidly enlarged to fill the entire screen. He had to write only a line of codes in the program to effect this, and it captured accurately in a visual and concrete manner the image of a ball dropping and landing directly on the eye of the miniature observer on the skateboard. It would be tough to explain the motion of the ball using conventional text literacy or even standard mathematical formula. With computers, the message and the concept are readily grasped – very graphic representation and easily understood.

It is this ability to look at concepts differently that is so promising about computational literacy. At its most optimistic level, computational literacy would have the potential to do what text literacy and mathematical literacy do to our present understanding and level of communication. Galileo’s theory of motion took pages to explain in texts but only a few crisp lines of formulas to explain fully using modern algebra. He took that long because algebra was not yet invented in his time. Similarly with calculus; we could not begin to describe such concepts as acceleration without it. But with calculus, acceleration is merely a differential of velocity (dv/dt), or in words, the rate of change of velocity. Today calculus is taught at high school and is widely used to describe relationships and phenomena in the social as well as natural sciences.

Computational literacy is still rather primitive, or to use the ubiquitous phrase of the web, “under construction.” Past attempts at teaching programming in schools using first BASIC and later, LOGO, have floundered. But with better programs like Boxer, developed at the University of California Berkeley and tailored specifically for learning purposes and not to write applications, computational literacy may yet prove to be as infrastructural as text literacy. Malaysia must participate in these leading edge trials at selected schools but only under strict research protocol. But this is a totally different idea than the current mindless agitation for teaching IT in schools.

I am cynical of the current move to bring IT to the classrooms and provide teachers with laptops. This has less to do with enhancing the quality of education and everything to do with business. If it were the former, I would expect the ministry to provide computers to university lecturers and teacher trainees first; they need them more. Think of the billions worth of contracts, enough to make any executive drool at the prospects. Not to mention interested politicians who would gain by being the lucrative intermediaries. The whole scheme is business driven and corrupt, the pupils’ interest is only incidental. This program will end up like the computer ownership scheme sponsored by the Employees Provident Fund. It failed because EPF did not get substantial discounts or wholesale prices. Instead there were significant markups because of the “commissions” paid to politician middlemen. Likewise the schools and teachers will end up paying highly inflated prices.

The literature on the effectiveness of computers in classrooms is mixed and contradictory. Where they are successful it is because the authorities have clear and definable goals, and the efforts initially focused on few demonstration projects where the kinks could be ironed out. Once the project is running smoothly then it can be replicated and expanded. In choosing the software, teachers must have clear goals: computer assisted learning (CAL) as with self-directed drills in mathematics and language learning; for simulation and exploration; as computational tools as with word processing, spreadsheet, and Power-Point; part of a communication network; or merely as pedagogical administrative tool to keep track of students’ achievements.

Once the objectives are clear and agreed upon, key personnel can then be trained. It is better to concentrate the effort initially, once we can have a nucleus of competently trained experts, they can then spread their skills. The most logical place to start would be the teachers’ colleges and with teacher trainees. Once these are done only then could we consider selecting the hardware. With the goals and objectives clear, the hardware and specifications would be that much easier to define.

In 1999 Malaysia embarked on an ambitious “Smart School” project of bringing IT to selected schools. This program had yet to be digested and its lessons learned when the government embarked in its current and more massive project of providing laptops and LCD projectors to all schools. This is exactly the wrong approach. First, the teachers have yet to be trained and two, the objectives are not yet be clearly delineated. By next year all those expensive gadgets would be stored untouched or more likely be reported “stolen”. The students would be no further ahead.

There is one place where computers would be useful, and that is to help with the administrative chores like monitoring student attendance, payroll, accounting, and keeping tabs on supplies and budgeting. Not only would this be very efficient and accurate but it would also force the headmasters to be familiar with computers.

While it is easy to teach students how to use computers and surf the Net, the more difficult part would be to teach them the limitations and dangers lurking in cyberspace. The Internet is not filtered or censored; Einstein would have the same prominence in cyberspace as the simple villager. Those using the ‘Net must have the ability to think critically and be skeptical of the materials they get. The age of IT calls for even more emphasis on such traditional higher order intellectual activities like critical thinking, abstract reasoning, and information processing.

These can only be learned with the help of a good teacher. This point was illustrated to me recently when my readers asked me which websites they should look up on some questions about Islam I had discussed in one of my essays. How could they be sure that the information is genuine and the site authentic, and not the work of some anti-Muslim groups masquerading as believers? The answer is, you cannot be sure. Thus you must be able to evaluate critically the information as to its veracity and validity. There is nobody out there in cyberspace who will put a stamp of approval or to check the facts. The web is uncensored; that is its beauty.

This fact is extremely pertinent especially with medically related web sites. If someone suggests taking arsenic as a cure for baldness, you take that advice at your own risk. One needs to use one’s judgment. There is a lot of what is called “noise,” that is, irrelevant and nonsensical if not downright dangerous materials on the web.

There is also much hype on using IT for distance or e(electronic)-learning. I am in favor of this to a point. The Internet is much better and more efficient than the old correspondence schools. It is immediate; you do not have to wait for the mail and you can post your questions and have them answered immediately. It is also cheaper (after you invest in the computer) as there are no postages and papers. But this does not mean that e-learning could replace traditional classrooms.

There is much more to learning than the mere transfer of information from teacher to student. The class discussions and the social interactions are also very important. In a classroom you learn to relate with those you like and tolerate those you don’t – very important lessons in life. You cannot get that sitting alone before a computer screen. We must appreciate what can be achieved through e-learning as well as the limitations. I use e-learning for my continuing medical education (CME) but only as a supplement. It does not replace the live conferences and seminars.

The best e-learning programs are precisely those that combine distance learning with in-depth and intensive face-to-face class and residential experiences. One of the best executive e-learning programs is that of Duke’s Fuqua School of Business. Students gather every two months at various locations around the world for concentrated “live” sessions with their fellow students and instructors. In between they communicate and receive lessons via the ‘Net. Such programs are ideal for working executives who would have difficulty taking long stretches of time away from their jobs.

My small hospital has an electronic hookup with a tertiary medical center where we could participate in live CME conferences. Through a two-way cable hookup we can see the speaker and he could see us, and we could communicate in real time as if we are in the same room. This is entirely different from e-learning via the computer. Such hookups via satellite would be ideal to connect a Third World university with an elite institution in the West. MIT has a similar program with the two public universities in Singapore to conduct joint “real-time” seminars.

Malaysian universities should have similar links. With the 12-hour time difference, an early morning lecture would be an early evening one in Malaysia. There is a great potential for IT in enhancing the learning experience, but in our enthusiasm we should not forget that the basics remain the first priority.

The second more important issue of how well the education system prepares Malaysians for the age of IT can be turned around by asking the more fundamental question: What are the skills required to thrive in this age of IT? The specific and basic skills required are English fluency, high mathematical competency, and science literacy. Our students must also be adept at critical thinking and higher-level reasoning. They must have flexible and transferable skills. We should also inculcate early the need and importance of life-long learning.

It is in all these areas that our education system has failed miserably. The good news is that the government is finally waking up to this fact, forced by the overwhelming evidence that it can no longer ignore. The entire premise of my reform is to prepare Malaysians for the competitive era of IT and globalization.

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