IT'S TIME TO RECOGNISE THE UEC QUALIFICATIONS - WITH CONDITIONS.

 by toffee
1 Aug 2020

EDUCATION AT THE CROSS ROADS - TIME TO MAKE THE CHOICE.

It is important that we recognize that the Chinese Independent schools in Malaysia have a very high standard of education, recognizing them will only enhance the standard of education in the country, and the government should seriously study this proposal.

However we must look at other ares of  National Policy and the recognition must come with general acceptance by all quarters of society.

In the UK there are  five awarding bodies for examinations and schools can choose between them, they are:

i)   AQA (Assessment and Qualifications Alliance) 
ii)  CCEA (Council for the Curriculum, Examinations & Assessment) 
iii) OCR  (Oxford, Cambridge and RSA Examinations) 
iv)  Pearson, under its Edexcel brand 
v)   WJEC (Welsh Joint Education Committee), under its WJEC and Edugas brand.


Similarly we can have the UEC and the Government type which has the PMR, SPM and the STPM and the UEC can continue with the the Junior Middle and the Senior Middle  exams continuing to be in place.

The government and most Malaysians will will find it beneficial for their Children, many of our senior UMNO ministers themselves have found the UEC beneficial for their children so let us not be hypocrites.

We have to get one thing straight first, the syllabus should be retained but the medium of instruction has to be in Bahasa Malaysia, with English as a compulsory Language and the schools of both streams offering languages of choice which shall be Mandarin, Jawi and Tamil.

I know that may be the obstacle  but if that is the obstacle then all I'll say is it confirms what I said in my last article "All Malaysian are racists or to drive home the point let me state what Nazri once said in Parliament "Bloody Racists" to drive home the point.

Another option would be the teaching of Mathematics and Science in  English, in both mediums.

The change of the Character of the Chinese schools is a must, we can't have our children being  racially segregated from the cradle stage and then complain of racism  in the country. That is totally hypocritical.

If we take a careful look at what is happening in this country we have no alternative then to admit that we are by and large a racist society, all of us the Indians, the Chinese and the Malays. We tend to always be pointing the finger just in one direction but we do not seem to recognize the racism in ourselves.

If we can do a mea culpa  and admit that we have over the years allowed our selves to become more racist and now take notice and do what is right we can overcome the biggest hurdle f our nation, racism.

There is a lot the Government educators can learn from the UEC system and that we should do to enhance the current Government type education in the country, there is also a lot that the UEC systme can do to learn from the Government end, allow the setting up of good and high standard Teacher training colleges, to ensure the teaching profession is highly professional, teachers should be accorded the mobility to move from the UEC stream to the National type stream and vice versa.

Make teaching at all levels a degree qualification, with only the best qualified being positioned in teaching, let's not settle for less, for that is tantamount to a trade off off our children's rights to the best opportunities for education.

Teachers going to rural schools must be given attractive allowances for the best to want to go there and we should conduct Personality tests to ensure that those responding to the teaching profession are seeking that profession as vocation and are not just there for the money.

Make it possible for teachers to switch streams for better opportunities for themselves and  also for the systems, there must be cross breeding, it improves the pedigree.

Teachers should be paid in accordance with their performance and to do this there must be proper performance indicators taking into consideration the types students the teachers are teaching against the performance.

Students must be able to drop a year if they can't make a grade and similarly for those outstanding students there must be an express stream.

I have written before that we should not leave education to a Minister or a Ministry but properly accredited boards  of professionals and we need to get the best, if we need source them form other countries we should.

The job of the minister of Education at best will be to  get the funds needed for education, ensure a good budget we can cut our defence spending by t lest a third if not half to spend more on education. 

Finally do not allow language,or race to come in to fault our education system, leave sentiments aside start thinking as Malaysians, and if the Chinese and Tamil Schools can't agree to a unified schools system with two streams  looking at the welfare of all, where the children are admitted not by race but by choice in a system that allows for fairness for all  shut down in vernacular schools, after so many years since independence we are still confused as to who we are, its time to start changing that.