Education in Malaysia II

Next, it's primary education, which consists of six years of education, beginning at the age of 7 and ends at 12. Education at this level consists of more memorizing. I remember being forced to memorize 2 essays, one column of synonyms or antonyms, one page of idioms...plus homework, and this is just for the Chinese subject...and more than 10 years ago!

Kids nowadays have it worse...let's take a look at a Primary Four student (10-year-old), living near Bukit Aup but studying at SR Methodist, Sibu...and I'm not exagerrating here! Wakes up at 5:30a.m. Leaves house at 6:00a.m. Arrives school at 6:45a.m. Lessons start at 7:20a.m and continue till 12:50p.m. That's 5 hours and 30 minutes of studying in one place!

Then let's look at how the lesson is conducted. We will take the Chinese subject, as this happens to the most important subject in most Chinese Vernacular school. The students are required to memorize something equal to my time, plus more homework and corrections. The Chinese paper 1 consists of 40 objective questions which four choices each (A, B, C and D). The students will do the paper in class and as for homework, the teacher requires the students to write out the answers for all choices. For example, answer to Question 1 is A. Okie, so why is choices B, C and D unacceptable? The students are required to tell the teacher the reasons. Which is why...just for this subject, students need to carry more than 2 types of Chinese dictionary (Idioms, PinYin, Proverbs, etc.)!

Then it's home for lunch, then back to to school for their extra-curriculum activities. After that, it's time for their daily tuition classes. Then, back home for dinner. Then off to their night classes for some additional tutoring which ends at 9p.m. Finally, it's back home for bed! This goes on from Monday till Friday.

Saturday and Sunday will see them going to some music classes (dancing, singing, piano) or art classes (drawing, painting, calligraphy). Then afternoon time is for weekend classes, which usually consists of more turtoring for language subjects. It seems that parents nowadays want their kids to be able to score well in school and dance in a production of Swan Lake as well. This may also contributes to the the fact why kids nowadays hate reading...books just make them sick! I will probably be ill too, if this is what I have to go through week after week. Who got mood or time for Enid Blyton?

At the end of primary education, students in national schools are required to undergo a standardised test known as the Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR). Participation in the UPSR is not compulsory, but all vernacular schools also administer the UPSR to their students as this allows for re-integration of their students into national schools for secondary education. Students are promoted to the next year regardless of their academic performance, but no As in your Malay papers will make one go to "Remove" class, taking up an extra year to complete secondary school.

Only Primary Education in Malaysia is mandated by law, hence it is not a criminal offence to neglect the educational needs of a child after six years of Primary Education, WHICH attain to high number of school dropouts in Malaysia after Primary Six. Personally, I think this is the start of the Malaysian education system's problem. NOT MANDATORY??? What!!! After Primary Six, a kid is still only 13 years old! What's the kid supposed to do at that age without education??? They can't even finish reading Roald Dahl!!!