From Siti Safariyah Shahar

The decline of Malaysia’s schooling system isn’t a sudden implosion – it’s a quiet unravelling. You see it in the teacher who no longer smiles at the morning assembly; in the student who has stopped asking questions; in the parent who’s given up complaining because “it won’t change anything”.

It’s not noise that kills a system like this; it’s fatigue.

When I was training to become a teacher, I was told that the ideal classroom size was 20. Instead, I walked into a class of 46.

You can’t talk about literature or culture when half the class can’t even hear you. You spend more time maintaining order than nurturing minds. Teachers around me were teaching back-to-back sessions daily, each with over 40 students – all with different learning speeds, personalities and challenges.

At some point, I stopped wondering how they did it and started asking why they had to. Was it passion that kept them going, or just survival?

The so-called “21st-century learning” initiatives are hollow when teachers are forced to buy their own projectors and print their own materials, often without reimbursement. The ministry loves to talk about “innovation”, but innovation doesn’t survive in overcrowded classrooms and collapsing morale.

Two Malaysias, divided by a school gate

Working in corporate writing now, I’ve seen both sides of Malaysia’s education divide. In Kuala Lumpur, students flourish in schools that boast robotics clubs, archery programmes, debate teams and fully equipped ICT labs. They’re encouraged to explore, to lead, to question – and they do.

But drive just two hours out of the city, and the story changes entirely. You’ll find schools where toilets have no doors, pipes are left broken for months, and ICT labs have computers that died long ago. Teachers often scrape together their own salaries to purchase basic teaching tools – markers, manila cards, even whiteboards. Sometimes, they pool money just to fix a ceiling fan.

Meanwhile, elite public institutions thrive under the generous donations of successful alumni. Their students enjoy international exposure, access to competitions and state-of-the-art facilities – all under the banner of “public education”.

But what about the rest? Who supports the schools that serve the underprivileged – the ones without well-connected alumni or corporate sponsorships?

Policymakers rarely see this disparity because their children never live it. Their children attend private institutions or elite public schools – the kind with imported syllabi, well-paid teachers and polished campuses. So when they talk about “education reform”, it’s through a lens of privilege. They don’t understand what it’s like to teach in a class of 46 students under a ceiling fan that barely works.

Scholarship programmes, too, are distorted by inequality. On paper, they’re meant for the underprivileged. In practice, they often reward the already advantaged – students from well-funded schools who have access to English-speaking camps, personal tutors and extracurricular exposure.

I’ve seen it first-hand: talented rural students who outperform academically but who are overlooked because they lack polish. It’s not corruption – it’s structural bias disguised as meritocracy.

But beyond policy and privilege, something deeper is breaking – the classroom spirit itself.

Students today are different. They’re sharper, more digitally fluent, yet alarmingly detached. Teachers whisper what official reports won’t say: students are ruder, more restless, less curious. They talk back, tune out and disengage.

During my teaching practice, I saw it every day. Students scrolling under their desks, snapping back when corrected, refusing to cooperate on group tasks. Lessons that once sparked discussion now dissolve into silence or, worse, indifference. You’re no longer teaching minds; you’re fighting for attention against TikTok’s algorithm.

According to education minister Fadhlina Sidek, schools nationwide recorded 7,681 bullying cases in 2024, up from 6,528 in 2023 – a 17% increase despite ongoing disciplinary reforms.

Meanwhile, recent surveys and classroom observations highlight growing concerns over students’ digital distractions during lessons, with many reportedly turning to social media during class time, affecting their focus and engagement.

It’s easy to label this generation as lazy or disrespectful, but that’s the lazy argument. These children are growing up overstimulated and under-supported. They’re competing in a world that values virality over intellect, yet studying in a system that hasn’t evolved since 2010.

When respect for teachers erodes, when schools feel irrelevant, when learning no longer guarantees opportunity – what incentive do they have to care?

A system that pretends to care

Every few years, the ministry launches a new “education blueprint”. It’s got a sleek logo, the promise of digital transformation, and pages of jargon about “empowerment” and “21st-century readiness”. But on the ground, nothing changes.

Teachers still clock extra hours. Students still memorise to pass. Parents still pay out of pocket for the things schools should provide.

Malaysia’s PISA results – which measure international education standards – have stagnated for three consecutive cycles. We are teaching more, but learning less.

Accountability, if it exists, must start with those who have the privilege of not experiencing the rot. Politicians should sit in a real classroom – one without air-conditioning, where the teacher hasn’t had a break since 10am. Scholarship boards should start rewarding potential, not polish.

And the public must stop romanticising teachers as martyrs who “do it for love”, because passion doesn’t fix broken toilets.

The tragedy of Malaysia’s schooling system is that its decline isn’t visible. It’s quiet, bureaucratic and slow. A little compromise here, a little neglect there – until the cracks become the foundation. If education is supposed to be the great equaliser, ours has become the great divider: rewarding those already ahead and leaving the rest to make do.

Because once a society accepts mediocrity in its classrooms, it starts accepting it everywhere else.

Siti Safariyah Shahar is a corporate copywriter and a former teacher trainee.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.