Teachers unions support Education Ministry’s move to repeal examinations in first three years of schooling
Dr Maszlee Malik
KUCHING: Examinations for Primary 1 to 3 pupils will be repealed and replaced with more objective assessments beginning next year.
Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik made this announcement earlier yesterday on Twitter, but did not disclose further information on what those objective assessments entailed.
A poll conducted by Berita Harian within the comments of the tweets indicated that users of the platform were mostly in agreement with the development as 79 per cent of respondents agreed that the repeal of examinations for Primary 1 to 3 would be a good move.
When contacted yesterday, Sarawak Bumiputera Teachers Union (KGBS) president Ahmad Malie said the abolition of Primary 1 to 3 examinations would not be an issue because they are not public examinations.
The exams are set to assess the pupils’ level of understanding over what they have grasped thus far, he said when responding to Maszlee’s tweet .
Ahmad said KGBS supported the move as long as the new method of assessing pupils’ academic performance is useful, but their only concern is that the ministry might one day revert to the old system.
With the abolition of the examinations, KGBS hoped the situation would provide opportunities for teachers to apply the standard syllabuses on a wider basis.
Ahmad Malie
KGBS also urged the ministry to review the curriculum for Primary 1 to 3 so that it would fit into the curriculum without the need to go for examination, and also one that could help to mould the pupils’ character with having more positive attributes, including patriotism.
National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) secretary Harry Tan Huat Hock also welcomed the ministry’s announcement.
NUTP has always called for holistic education for the young people, he added.
“All these summative examinations have contributed to rote learning, and the only yardstick to assess the success of our primary pupils is As in UPSR or a good position in class.
“Pupils are deprived of the need to have fun, learn good values of friendship, respect and love. The time for them to run and play has been replaced with numerous hours in the classroom and also tuition classes.
“We want more, we want UPSR abolished, which has evolved into an industry,” Tan said.
Following his first tweet, Maszlee disclosed detailed several initiatives that his ministry is or would be undertaking in the near future through several tweets from the official Education Ministry’s account.
“The ministry believes that education belongs to all and should not be narrowed to a classroom wall space, as there is a need to build a community at the same time,” he was quoted to have said in one of his later tweets.
Harry Tan
Among the initiatives mentioned were proposals for pilot programmes that would link the Education Ministry and local organisations, agencies and communities together to help curb the dropout rates among primary and secondary school students, and programmes to help empower the Malay language as the national language, official language and language of instruction.
The ministry also stated that they would be setting up a committee tasked to help streamline and reduce the burden and responsibilities of teachers in the country.
For states, the ministry announced that a total of 116 school development projects for dilapidated schools had been implemented in Sarawak, utilising Industralised Building System (IBS) construction method this year. Of the 116 projects, 67 have been completed while another 49 projects are still currently under implementation.
In Sabah, the number of dilapidated school projects this year is 120 with 37 completed and the remaining 83 still under implementation.
Maszlee also announced that all 6,636 schools that received 4Mbps bandwidth internet access under the first phase of ‘1BestariNet’ programme, have been upgraded to 6Mbps, 10Mbps and 15 Mbps based on the number of computer labs in the schools.