Suriana Welfare Society Malaysia chairman James Nayagam had said on Saturday that students who found themselves in lower-performing classes felt a “sense of hopelessness” when it came to education and often dropped out of school all together.
Speaking to FMT, UCSI professor Tajuddin Rasdi proposed that students be placed in different classes for each subject based on their level of proficiency for each particular subject.
This, he explained, would remove the labelling of students as those who did well academically and those who did poorly as some students may do well in certain subjects but not so well in others.
“Let’s say you’re teaching English to a class of students. You first test their level of proficiency in English in three levels. Based on that proficiency, you can group them in different classes.
“Do the same for the other subjects as well,” he said.
“If a child’s English proficiency is at level 2, there’s no point in putting him in a level 3 or level 4 class because he’ll just fail and that’s something we must avoid.”
He also noted that Form 4 and 5 students branched out into different streams with some studying subjects such as economics and others studying subjects such as physics. This, he said, should be implemented earlier.
“Allow the students to choose what they want to study. That way, you don’t sideline anyone. Of course, at the same time, you cannot have this mentality that those who are studying economics are any less than those who are studying physics.”
Another thing Tajuddin pointed out was some teachers’ tendencies to highlight students who have done better than their other classmates.
“When you go to international schools, if you have 20 students in a class, then you will have 20 essays on the soft board in class,” he said.
“In national schools, however, you only put up the essays from students who got A’s as a means to glorify these students. The idea of individuality is totally lost in this race to find the best.”
Tajuddin said he believed the crux of the problem was how education blueprints were designed.
“The problem with education blueprints is they only change the manner of teaching, such as using computers. I’m not against using computers but you’re not looking at the core problem, which is that you need to change the content.”
He said as time goes on, knowledge of the things around us also becomes wider. The trick, he said, was to know what still needed to be taught and what had lost its relevance in the changing world.
“You have to restructure the way things are being taught every three to four years, but no one wants to touch content because it’s so ‘sacred’. So instead they keep adding on to the things you have to learn.
“So when you compare how things were back when I was in school and now, I have people telling me: ‘Of course lah prof! You were studying 40 years ago, knowledge expands.’
“Yes, it’s true that knowledge expands but don’t tell me that you have to learn everything? Come on!”
He said one of the things the education ministry could attempt in solving this issue was to hire heads of department in subjects they were not experts in.
“If you have a head of department of history, make sure he doesn’t come from a history background. He needs to come from some other field so that he can look at the subject and see its relevance to the rest of the world.
“A different lens is needed. Someone who isn’t an expert in the subject will only emphasise what is important while an expert – because of his passion in the subject – will want to emphasise everything.”