The Havoc Education Reform Inflicts: Education Blueprint 2013-2025 (Part 5)
[In the first three essays I critiqued the Blueprint’s
recommendations: specifically its failure to recognize the diversity
within our school system and thus the need to have targeted programs;
the challenge of recruiting quality teachers; and the link between
efficiency, efficacy, and quality. Part Four discussed the report’s
deficiencies. This last essay focuses on the very process of reform, or
how to do a better job of it.]
The greatest weakness of this reform effort is its exclusive
dependence on in-house or MOE staff, the very personnel responsible for
the current rot with our schools. These individuals have been part of
the problem for far too long; they cannot now be expected suddenly and
magically to be part of the solution. That would take an exceptional
ability to be flexible, innovative, and have the willingness or at least
capacity to learn. Those are the very traits not valued in or
associated with our civil service.
The Blueprint’s local consultants included Air Asia’s
Tony Fernandez, Khazanah’s Azman Mokthar, and Sunway’s Jeffrey Cheah,
presumably representing the three major communities. These individuals
are terribly busy. Unless they took time off from their considerable
corporate responsibilities, they could not possibly do justice to this
important national assignment.
The international consultants were equally impressive.
Again here I wonder how much time they actually spent talking to
teachers, students and headmasters. Another significant flaw is this:
With the possible exception of the Canadian, the others are from systems
not burdened with the Malaysian dilemma of low educational achievements
identifiable with specific ethnic or geographical groups. In Ontario,
Canada, only the Toronto School System which is separate from the
provincial has significant experience with the “Malaysian” problem. The
Canadian is with the provincial system.
Many of those impressive consultants were conspicuously
absent during the many public sessions leading one to conclude that they
were more window dressing.
As for the public meetings, there were few formal or well
thought-out presentations. Far too often those meetings quickly
degenerated into “bitch” sessions, or to put it into local lingo, cakap
kosong kopi-o (coffee shop empty talk), with a few vociferous and
frustrated individuals hogging the discussions. Worse, there were no
records of those hearings for preview, except for those amateurish
low-quality recordings posted on Youtube. Consequently, opportunities
for learning from those sessions were minimal.
The reform has its own website (myedureview.com) and uses
the social media (Facebook and Twitter) extensively. Those dialogues
in cyberspace were no better; the comments were un-moderated and simply
the spouting of anger and frustrations. As for the few serious ones,
the panel never engaged their contributors. The cyber forums, like the
public hearings, gave few insights; the signal-to-noise ratio was low.
There was no shortage of passion and strong views, reflecting the angst
Malaysians have of their school system.
A Superior Approach
There is a better approach. To begin with, dispense with the current
or past personnel of MOE; they are or have been part of the problem.
Consider that the most consequential reform in medical education, The
Flexner Report of 1910 was produced not by a doctor or even an educator
but an insurance salesman! It still is the foundation of modern
American medical education. In Malaysia, the Razak Report of 1956
transformed Malaysian education, yet its author was no educator or
teacher.
The only qualification I seek in those undertaking reform
would be a respectable education (meaning, they have earned rather than
bought their degrees), a proven record of success in any endeavor, and
the necessary commitment, especially time, intellect, and energy.
Meaning, these individuals would have to take a sabbatical from their
regular duties. I would have no more than five members, with one
designated as leader.
Then I would give them a generous budget to hire the best
independent professional staff, from clerks to answer the phones
efficiently to IT personnel to design and maintain an effective website,
to scholars, statisticians and data analysts. The budget should also
provide for travel to visit exemplary school systems elsewhere. I would
also have those panelists spend most of their time talking to students,
parents and teachers rather than ministry officials.
The panel should also have sufficient resources to hire
consultants from countries with demonstrably superior school systems. I
would choose two in particular – Finland and America. Both have
sufficient experiences in dealing with children of marginalized
communities; Finland with its new immigrants, America its minorities.
Yes, American public schools do not enjoy favorable reputation but there
are islands of excellence for us to emulate.
I would avoid consultants from Korea and other East Asian
countries for at least two reasons. One, they are ethnically and
culturally homogenous; they have no experience dealing with diverse
groups; the Malaysian dilemma is alien to them. For another, while the
Koreans regularly excel in international comparisons, they do not think
highly of their own cram-school-plagued system. Those who can, avoid
it.
I would also look beyond the advanced countries to, for
example Mexico for its Progressa Program, and Rwanda with its ambitious
and highly successful One-Laptop-Per-Child (OLPC) scheme. If poor
Rwanda could have such an imaginative initiative, Malaysia could do even
more. Rwanda demonstrates that an enlightened government approach
could actually bring down prices. Rwanda’s computers cost under RM500
per unit! It could do that because the program is under the management
of competent and honest foreign experts, not local inertia-laden
bureaucrats and corrupt politicians on the take. Rwandan leaders are
self confident and fully aware that they lack local expertise; they are
not hesitant in calling in foreigners and do not worry about being
“neo-colonized” or whatever.
Rwanda offers many other useful lessons. Foremost is
that children from even the most physically and socially challenged
environments could leapfrog the technological gap. That is pertinent
for our children in Ulu Kelantan and Interior Sarawak. For another,
reform in the classrooms spills into the wider community, spurring
further reforms and developments there. Those Rwandan children dragged
along their parents and grandparents into the digital age. Those elders
are now open to the wider world; consequently they demand more of their
leaders, like their villages having electricity so they could use their
computers longer. They view those machines as agents of liberation and
emancipation; now they can find out the price of the commodities they
sell and the goods they buy directly from the market instead of being
captive to the middlemen.
The only time I would call for ministry’s input is to
have the staff enumerate the problems and challenges faced under the
current system. This would also show whether they are indeed aware of
those problems and whether their assessments match those of parents.
I would arrange the public participation component
differently and also encourage input from all, individuals as well as
groups. The initial submissions however, would have to be in writing.
That would force presenters to think through their ideas. For groups I
would stipulate that their report be accompanied by an attestation that
it had been endorsed by their executive committees or general
membership.
All submissions would be in Malay or English, with a
translation in the other language. For those exceeding 300 words there
would have to be an accompanying executive summary not more than 200
words, again in both languages. All these submissions would be posted
on the panel’s website, with readers free to post their comments. Those
comments as well as the original submissions would have to be edited
(again by the panel’s professional staff) for clarity, brevity and
accuracy, as well as to avoid embarrassing grammatical and spelling
errors. That would lend some gravitas to the website as well as provide
useful learning opportunities for those who surf it. The website as
well as other media outlets must reflect the professionalism and
excellence of the reform effort.
One does not get this impression now on reading the Blueprint or perusing the reform’s website.
The panel would then select from those submissions the
few that are worthy for further exploration in an open public hearing.
The purpose of those structured open hearings is to give the panel
opportunities to elucidate greater details from the submitters, and for
them to expand on their ideas. Those hearings are not meant to hear
from new or on-the-spur commentators. Such a scheme would effectively
cut out the grandstanders. Again, those proceedings, their transcripts
as well as the video and audio recordings, would be posted on the
website.
Only after all the public hearings have been completed
would the panel gather to write their final recommendations, with
freedom for each member to produce his or her own separate or dissenting
comment. That is the only way to be credible.
The current process produces nothing more than a
sanitized press release of MOE, embellished with the imprimaturs of
those impressive corporate and international consultants.
Measures of Success
There are only four reliable indicators of success with education
reform, and all are readily measured. The simplest is to stand at the
Johor causeway on any school morning and count the number of school
children going south. Trend those numbers. If five years hence that
number were to dwindle, then you know that Malaysian parents have
confidence in their schools. To be really sophisticated you could
factor in the birth rates and other variables. However, those would not
add much.
Similarly, you could take the train on a Sunday afternoon
and count the number of youngsters in Johor heading south for the week
to stay with extended families or boarding houses in Singapore to attend
schools there.
Those chauvinistically inclined might be tempted to
conclude that regardless how good our schools are, those predominantly
Chinese students would still go south. If that is so, then I have two
other trends to monitor. One, visit the top universities abroad and
survey the Malaysians there. How many (or what percentage) come from
our national schools? In the 1980s I could count many; today, hardly
any. That decline correlated with the deterioration of our national
schools.
Another would be to trend the number of Malaysians
enrolled in local international schools. Now that quotas for local
enrollment have been lifted, that number would be inversely related to
the level of confidence the elite has of our schools.
These statistics are easily collected and trended; you do
not need fancy “labs” for that. PEMANDU should assign a junior staff
member to collect them.
Reform must be approached thoughtfully, both with the
process and the people selected to lead it. The full consequence of the
changes we put today would not be felt till decades or even generations
later. We are only now realizing and paying the price for the follies
of the 1970s.
As a youngster my father would admonish me whenever I did
something sloppily. Not only had I wasted my effort, he reminded me,
now somebody else would have to undo what I had done before he could do
it the right way. Triple the work and effort, essentially.
These reform efforts consume considerable human,
financial and other resources. They distract everyone, from politicians
and ministry bureaucrats to parents, teachers, and most of all the
students.
We have to do it right, beginning by having the right people.
The writer is the author of, among others, An Education System Worthy of Malaysia.
