When I think back to my secondary school experience, the memories that stand out to me were never inside the classroom. Few emotions are evoked from remembering the routinely delivered syllabus or the hours spent daydreaming through it. All the nostalgias I have left for school are the extras: curling up at the base of a pillar in the open hall with a good book, group naps in the surau, and flipping burgers on ‘hari usahawan’.
It’s a serene picture, but underlying that serenity is a simple question: Do our secondary schools fulfil their purpose? (That purpose being to prepare students for the next step, whether that be further education or working life). And then we must face the answer: a resounding ‘no’.
The Repetitive and Limited Syllabus
By the end of form 3, we have been put through a complete cycle of learning in the subject of History, starting with prehistoric discoveries in Malaysia, venturing into the four early and subsequent civilisations, the entirety of Islamic civilisations, and then pulling back into Malaysia’s formation, colonization, occupation, and freedom. It’s pretty good. But then, in form 4, suddenly, we’re pulled into an identical cycle again.
The exact same syllabus, but repeated!
Why?! The world is so rich in history. Just following the threads further back from what we do learn can lead to so much more added value. Our colonisers and their wars, Malaysian pengembara and their discoveries, the memoirs left by our founding fathers, and the endless political struggles of our neighbours.
We learn about history in order to have sufficient context to assess what happens in the now. With globalisation keeping our world more connected than ever before, the historical context of our cohabitors on Earth has never been more relevant.
I believe this unwillingness of our syllabus across all subjects to venture too far from the known comes down to the attitude of our schools, that is, hyper patriotism and a crippling fear towards the corrupting power of ‘foreign ideas’.
Morals are based on religion... So just teach religion
The split between those who are part of the ‘majority religion’ and those who are ‘other’ has to be one of the most uniquely strange things about South East Asian education systems as compared to the rest of the world.
In Malaysia, this manifests as ‘Pendidikan Islam’ and ‘Pendidikan Moral’. For up to three hours a week, Muslim students sit in one classroom with an ‘uztad’ or ‘ustazah’ lecturing on religious principles (and again repeating our history syllabus almost word for word), and non-Muslims are grouped together regardless of their own religion and taught ‘morals’.
To write this article, I asked five of my non-Muslim friends what they thought about their ‘moral classes’. The consensus reached was that the classes were completely useless and a waste of time, that the exam was just a bunch of scenarios which had a fixed ‘best response’, and that no actual philosophy or insight arose from memorising a bunch of ‘nilai murni’. Moral studies seem very much to be an afterthought as compared to the care put into constructing the Pendidikan Islam classes.
Strangely enough, through primary school, many Muslim students already attend an extra religious school for four hours a day that takes them through the very same principles, morals, and history that makes up the secondary school Islamic syllabus. So again, why the repeat?
While there is an enormous debate that questions whether religion is the root of all moral principles, there’s no question of whether religion contains lessons on morality. The division between moral lessons and religious lessons is, therefore, very unnecessary.
Islam could continue to be taught to Muslims after school several times per week, while during school hours non-muslims and Muslims alike could sit in one classroom and learn about different religions together.
In addition, different religions emphasise different morals. For example, Islam heavily emphasises modesty and generosity. Buddhism places high value on patience and moderation. Hinduism dictates a person show great respect for their parents. Christianity is very big on forgiveness. While each religion on its own has a complete set of morals, combining the wisdom that can be received from each of them is bound to have a net positive effect.
For a country that prides itself in its tolerance and multiculturalism, the Malaysia education system leaves many gaps in our knowledge towards other cultures and religions. If we are to continue with the patriotic narrative, our attitude towards sharing information on religious beliefs needs to change.
Have a Unit on Sex-ed
Speaking of morality, every year at my school, we’d all be placed in a hall to listen to some 20-something-year-olds from a bogus NGO tell us about how the morality of our generation is degrading. They’d go on to show us pictures of babies in trash cans, censored photos of tudung-wearing girls kissing their boyfriends, and homeless drug addicts.
The conveyance of this ‘DON’T HAVE PRE-MARITAL SEX’ message is totally pointless.
I won’t argue about whether the message is right in the first place, it’s too embedded in religion and culture to be touched constructively here. But I believe the concern from a society that has birthed those messages come from a good place. Bear in mind, no birth control method is 100% effective. And even in less conservative societies that have legislation for this kind of thing, having a child before marriage disproportionately affects the mother’s ability to fulfil her potential in life, leading to a difficult existence for both mother and child.
In Malaysia, regardless of race and religion, a premarital child is a very harsh sentence to both parent and child. The father cannot be registered as the father, meaning he’s free to sod off, leaving the mother to bear the financial cost of the child with no recourse for child support.
Not to mention the societal taboo. The child would become the victim of bullying from both other children and adults alike unless the secret was very well kept - which is difficult when the birth certificate does not list a father.
To explain these complications to teenagers, while treating them with dignity and respect, would, in my opinion, be much more effective than the fear-mongering PowerPoint that schools like to deploy. Appealing to the rational side of the brain while further educating on what exactly sex is would be the best way to handle such a delicate subject.
A recent study showed 60.5% of secondary-school aged girls do not know how pregnancy occurs. These results are frightening because it implies that many girls who get pregnant do not know that their actions will lead to pregnancy. They do not understand that they are performing unprotected sex or its consequences. There is no consent if you don’t know what you’re consenting to.
A comprehensive unit on sex education would:
Be delivered by a trained health official - It should not fall to teachers to teach sex-ed, because, respectfully, what teacher is professionally qualified to talk about sex?
Segregate the classes between males and females - the classes should be segregated by sex (not gender) to properly address physiological aspects such as cleanliness and safety
Emphasise the need for protection in order to minimise the risk of unwanted pregnancy and contracting STIs (or even worse: AIDS) - While this may seem to ‘promote’ or ‘validate’ the choice of premarital sex in spite of our culturally conservative values, avoiding the topic isn’t helping anyone.
Provide a syllabus that also covers the emotional aspects of sex - it is important to emphasise consent, understanding, and self-respect while showing empathy for the often frightening strength of desires that teenagers often face.
Empowering Art Stream Students
The ingrained belief that ‘science stream is for smart kids’ must end if our country is to progress economically. And, yes. I’m pinning our stagnant economy on the disenfranchisement of creatives by our schools. This belief originates from the roots of our education system which was developed on the model left behind by the British. That model was developed during the industrial revolution which was trying to mass produce ‘competent workers’, not innovators who could lead a country towards economic and social prosperity.
The term ‘art’ includes visual arts and literature, but also business and economy. While art degrees in Business or Literature are all the rage now (thanks to how lucrative running a private university is), in school, art subjects are seen as ‘lesser’ as compared to the holy quartet or ‘Chem, Bio, Physics, and Add Maths’. This bias diverts ‘A’ students who have natural artistic or entrepreneurial talents into suffering for two years through technical subjects they have no interest in (cough cough).
Meanwhile, ‘C’ students who have an actual interest in Science aren’t given the chance to flourish intellectually among science-loving peers, all because some standardised test found them unworthy. Instead, they’re relegated to the Art stream where school culture dictates their education and development will not be taken seriously by teachers. This practice of dividing students into streams based on their grades cuts both ways: limiting the potential of artists and scientists alike. Students should be free to choose which stream to enter. And Art students deserve to be empowered just as much as Science students deserve encouragement and respect from the institution.
To Wrap Up
While a new syllabus has been introduced to secondary schools and is being rolled out across the different forms and subjects, it still isn’t enough.
In theory, it provides flexibility for students to choose any combination of elective subjects and emphasises soft skills in learning. Yet, the new syllabus does not fully solve any of the problems pointed out above. It merely makes the left behind weaknesses in the system stand out more, such as the lacklustre quality of teacher training and lack of resources.
We need to demand more from our government than what we’re getting. As I’ve mentioned before, economic-wise, Malaysia is stuck in a rut. Academically, we are continuing to face a debilitating brain-drain. Socially, the same old problems of drug abuse and sex crimes are becoming more and more abundant.
It’s pretty bleak, but the pause caused by the pandemic offers an opportunity for our education ministry and committees to rethink what school will mean to our society once they reopen.
Next time...
The final article will talk about how higher education policy restricts academic freedom of students and academicians alike, leading to a stagnation in the development of certain sectors of our country. It will also talk about the deliverance models used, the myth of the QS rankings, and why the Malaysian students we send overseas tend to stay gone...
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