Anuar Ahmad of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia said many teachers are worried because numerous programmes organised by administrators, both within and outside of school, have disrupted planned teaching schedules.

“If the syllabus isn’t completed, teachers have to answer to the school principal, then to parents, and possibly to the district education office. Who wants to get into trouble?

“So what will teachers do to solve this? They’ll run express classes, rush through the lessons just to finish the syllabus,” said Anuar, who is also the deputy director of UKM’s Malaysian Inclusive Development and Advancement Institute.

He said the academic session this year is shorter, with the next one to begin in January.

In 2022, the school academic session was postponed from January to March as part of adjustments following the Covid-19 pandemic. The March start date continued from 2023 through 2025, with the academic session scheduled to return to January 2026.

Anuar warned that the rush in completing the syllabus could result in more students losing interest in their studies and eventually falling behind.

“The rich ones can afford tuition, they’ll be fine. This is the current state of our education system,” he wrote in a Facebook post.