KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 14 — Former Youth and Sports minister Syed Saddiq Abdul Rahman today said that Malaysia’s education syllabus is trailing behind Singapore by three years.

Quoting Programme for International Student Assessments (Pisa), he said that a 15-year-old Malaysian student’s understanding of particular subjects like mathematics and science is on par with a 12-year-old Singaporean student.

"Why is our education output still behind based on Pisa's report? The report shows that a (Malaysian) 15-year-old student's understanding of maths and science is three years behind, compared to a Singaporean child, who is only 12 years old,” he told the Dewan Rakyat today.

Besides that, he also elaborated on how middle-income parents regardless of racial background would rather invest a bit more of their money and register their children in a private school.

He said teachers in public schools are burdened with a lot of responsibilities including clerical work and other duties causing them to lose focus on their main task.

"Secondly, they also have to ensure that the syllabus system follows the modernisation of global civilisation,” he added.

He said that the issue of education must be prioritised because it will lead to a class gap between the rich and poor in terms of accessibility to quality education.

"Therefore we need to dare to think outside the box and we need to have the moral and political courage to overhaul our education system,” he said.

Last year, former education minister Datuk Mohd Radzi Md Jidin said that the Malaysian education system has been stagnant due to unwillingness to make changes, leaving other countries to surpass Malaysia in terms of education.