AUGUST 15 — About 60 per cent of Malaysians under 15 are doomed by the short end of the luck stick — low career and life prospects. Because they attend “common” public schools.
That many? Surely alarms should be rung, hysterically like Quasimodo on opioids. They would have if all of us sink in that cursed ship.
But our public school system has silent tiers — those funnelled to what I call legacy schools (boarding, missionary, government and affluent area schools) and only then the vast majority condemned to “common” schools.
The privileged live better, learn faster and prepare for a future like in Malay College Kuala Kangsar, while the less privileged survive the situation at SMK Bukit Merchu — three kilometres away.
While it was only a little crack 40 years ago, the distinction now is a chasm.
There’s this research on what are actual learning years.
Educationists quantified that 10 years spent in a Sudan school is only six years in a standard assessment, and that Japanese kids get 12 years of standard schooling from 10 physical years in school.
So, school years do not translate to equal value. On a spectrum, Malaysian “common” public schools are closer to Sudan and in turn our legacy schools nearer the Japan end.
Is it because Malaysia is too poor to sort it?
The Education Ministry’s budget by comparison far exceeds that of the other ministries, except health.
However, it is stretched because it is the most multi-tiered public school system in the world. It compromises scale and quality to appease all political and cultural demands. Malaysia ends up spending poorly, not that it is poor by objective standards.
Plus, the legacy school costs are passed over.
For instance, parents pay only RM3 for five meals — 60 sen a feed — at boarding schools like Tunku Kurshiah College. The real cost ends up extracting money that otherwise goes to the remaining “common” public schools.
To be fair though, legacy schools also fall behind elite private schools. Irony without delight.
Compare the three in Olympics terms — since it just ended — the private mob are in the final of eight lanes, the legacy types range in achievement from heats to an outside chance into the final (win, maybe not), and the “common” public school kids end up cleaning the stadium, selling tickets and manning the turnstiles.
Exaggerated? Most certainly but there is a modicum of truth.
Therefore, it is self-explanatory why parents with advanced education or money want their kids in private schools. The Chinese vernacular schools are hybrid and thrive in a separate but envy-worthy category.
Those with less money but patriotic or desire to have their children grounded aim for legacy school admission. Failing which they’ll beg, steal or borrow to enter them in modest-costing private schools.
Parents with definitive plans for their children’s future desperately want to avoid “common” public schools like they dodge leprosy.
For 40 years steadily from the 1980s the public school system slid from lofty heights into the drain. The consistency is mind-numbing, almost remarkable as the record figure of numb minds produced in those campuses.
Fortunately for the policy-makers, the victims are docile and accepting — both parents and students — because it is free and the alternative is to not get an education.
I’ve warned about private schools and suggested legacy schools charge fees to pay for their own extras, but today look at the tragedy unfolding in the “common” public schools.
What do we do?
There is the easy option. Let it be. The students can wait for whispers of wisdom while they loiter or play video games on their mobile in the school compound. Either way, they won’t complain. They make do, so let them be?
Is the system at fault if menial workers’ children end up as replacements for their parents at the factory? Should they not be glad they are now clever enough to access pay electronically and comfortable with QR codes when their grandparents were illiterates?
Politicians only have to manage the expectations of the masses, not meet them. As mentioned above, it’s difficult for the poor to demand more from free education.
But I feel for them. It’s personal as my family lived as squatters in Cheras and Kampung Pandan, and relied on free government education to bring four kids out of penury.
How can I not speak up for generations of young people who can do so much more if they get the education?
I am committed to the notion that government is a place where we come together to make things better, us better.
Yesterday was the anniversary of the legacy school I attended — all 131 years of existence, languishing far away from what it was and can still be but nevertheless a bloody good shout ahead of “common” public schools. The anniversary is always an excellent prompt for me to discuss education.
If it was not that chance, that skew in time and space, the period in Malaysian education system when that choice school had the facilities and environment to instil belief in me, I fear the glass ceiling would have been far, far lower for me.
As such, what can the government do?
The second option is only an opening gambit but one which kicks all other measures into gear.
Admit Malaysia’s education crises in all public schools, and specifically in “common” public schools.
The present government has less than two years on the clock, which offers them cover.
But if they admit it has major problems, they are committed to do more than just amble on doing the same. It puts an urgency to the education agenda.
The items which belong on the agenda range from dismantling automatic grade promotions, determine the right ratio of teachers, teaching assistants, administrators and clerical staff in the service, reorganise facilities including unite schools with low admissions, third-party assessment of teachers including retraining, inclusion of AI as teaching assistants and testing supervisor and allow real autonomy to district administrators.
I do not want the agenda to be the crux at this juncture. This government must raise this as a priority.
Every occasion in my schooling years when improvement was found, it happened usually after an admission of fault or shortfall. It seems to be direct and to admit error is not a sign of weakness but rather a statement about strength of character.
The government has to find the character to accept things are unacceptable right now at most public schools and take the heat in the short-term. It is an opportunity to change the lives of millions of Malaysians. It’s unconscionable to pass this to play safe politics.
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
