Brickfields Asia College (BAC) Education Group co-founder Raja Singham said students now face their first national examination when sitting for SPM, without prior exposure to the first two assessments.
This makes them less prepared and under greater pressure when sitting for SPM in Form Five, Raja added.
“These students are not ready, which is why more students can be seen dropping out in earlier years,” he said in a panel discussion at the 2024 National Education and Learning Summit here.
Elajsolan Mohan, president of the National Association of Private Educational Institutions and the moderator for the panel, had shared that only 380,000 students sat for SPM this year, as opposed to approximately 460,000 students in previous years.
In April 2021, the education ministry announced the abolition of UPSR and the cancellation of the PT3 examination for that year. The latter was abolished in June 2022.
In March last year, education minister Fadhlina Sidek said the ministry did not plan to bring back the previous system of assessing students through examinations.
Nina Adlan Disney, managing director of social enterprise LeapEd Services Sdn Bhd, said the younger generation, particularly Generation Z’s, were losing interest in learning due to a lack of an engaging environment in the classroom.
“Curriculum does not actually matter. What we need to improve on is not content mastery but sparking the interest of students to continue learning.
“We should engage in active learning to create an innovative generation where they can be creators of knowledge,” she said.
Meanwhile, UCSI University faculty of social sciences and liberal arts dean Rogayah A Razak said parents needed to shift away from using examinations to gauge the academic performance of their children.
“It is within our culture that parents are very exam-based but if we were to change our approach, the student’s learning experience would be different.”
She also raised concern about the high expectations employers have of fresh graduates, adding that universities alone cannot fully prepare students for the working world when on-the-job training and interactions with colleagues is part of the learning experience.