KUALA LUMPUR: 'Was Malacca's defeat to the Portuguese inevitable?' This is the type of question which Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin would face if he is a student sitting for a history exam set by DAP MP Tony Pua.
According to the Oxford-trained Pua, it is questions like these which promote creativity, critical thinking and innovation.
The Petaling Jaya Utara MP said that while the government's proposal to scrap the UPSR and PMR exams is well-intentioned, it however failed to address the core issue.
Instead, Pua believes that only a total revamp of the education would stop schools from churning out robots.
"We are in complete agreement that we should reform our education system. But we must first understand the cause of failure which isn't a result of having examinations per se.
"Without changing our teaching system to encourage creativity, critical thinking and innovation, removing examinations would make little or no difference," he told reporters in Parliament.
The plan to scrap the exams was announced by Muhyiddin "as part of the government's efforts to restructure the learning system that is seen as too exam-oriented and has failed to provide holistic education.”
He was backed by his deputy, Wee Ka Siong, who believes that the move would stop "producing machines" and create more critical and analytical students.
This is part of Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak's measures to enhance human capital development under the five-year 10th Malaysian Plan.
Government-Pakatan cooperation on education
"For example, a question on history at the PMR level may ask what year did the Portuguese conquer Malacca. In this case, the student has no choice but to memorise the year 1511," he said, adding that the examination method only teaches students to memorise and not think.
"Alternatively, the question could ask why did Malacca lose to the Portuguese. There's a greater element of subjectivity, but the students may still... memorise part of the answers,” he said.
"But if the question is 'was it inevitable that Malacca would lose to the Portuguese?', then the students would have no choice but to evaluate the facts which he has in hand and provide measured answers as to whether defeat was inevitable," he added.
Pua also stressed on the importance of quality teachers, adding that the proposal to scrap examinations "is not the miracle cure”.
In view of this, he proposed a non-political bipartisan government-Pakatan Rakyat cooperation on human capital development.
"We call upon the government to create a high-powered committee of MPs as well as educationists to debate, review and recommend reforms which would take our education system to greater heights,” he said.
In a related development, Konsensus Bebas (Independent Consensus) also disagreed with the proposal to scrap the two exams.
The consensus, which comprises former PKR MPs, said there must be a holistic system which gives equal importance to academic and co-curricular achievements.
“Therefore, the training of teachers and the syllabus must be re-looked,” said the MPs, adding that the education system changes according to the “taste” of those who helm the Education Ministry.
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