FACULTY OF LANGUAGES AND COMMUNICATION

THINKING SKILLS
BIK 1153
ESSAY:
HOW TO IMPROVE MALAYSIAN EDUCATION SYSTEM
(PRIMARY, SECONDARY AND TERTIARY LEVEL)

Written by
Nor Syuhada binti Mohamed Nizam | E20121004411
Maz Amira binti Mazlan | E20121004412
Written for
Madam Nur Ainil binti Sulaiman

INTRODUCTION

Malaysia has evolved over the years tremendously from every angle; politically,
economically and socially. Juxtapose to the globalisation and revolution of technology that is
evolving throughout the seven continents of the world, Malaysia needs to emerge by stepping up
a notch in order to be able to stand alongside other urbanized countries; United States, Japan etc.
Though Malaysia is heading towards being a developed country, there are still nooks and
crannies to be filled; to reinforce the importance of marketability and employment amongst
Malaysians. The competitiveness to actually secure a job is beyond nerve-wracking, considering
the fact there are thousands of graduates remain unemployed. Thus, the government needs to
figure out few alternatives in order to eradicate this problem from worsen. Being an uprising
industrial country which is home to many massive juggernauts, the government must uphold a
standard by finding initiatives to improve the problems identified. One of the initiatives is to
tackle the core, which is the education system. Education acts as the preliminary by preparing the
students, molding them to be fully equipped with sufficient skills before entering the working
life. Hence, the education must be concrete enough to counterpart the requirements needed these
days thereof achieving one of the nine challenges of the Vision 2020; establishing a prosperous
society, with an economy that is fully competitive, dynamic, robust and resilient. Though the
government has put the extra mile by improving the education system, yet the ineffectiveness
and the execution hinders the progress to achieve the goal of producing pragmatic, productive
and innovative individuals. Education in Malaysia is divided into three levels, which are primary,
secondary and tertiary level. The age range of primary level is between the ages of 7 to 12. As for
secondary school, the age range is between the ages of 13 to 17. After finishing high school,
students are given the option to pursue their studies at tertiary level which are fractioned to
diverse programs such as Pre-U, Diploma, Matriculation etc. Though some might be working
afterwards, majority will continue at a higher level to obtain their degree, masters and PhD.
whilst the structure is already solid, there are still holes need to be filled. The problems faced can
be cured, provided that all parties must amalgamate as one which thrust to the improvement of a
better education system.

CoRT THINKING TOOLS

Thinking is essential for everyone. We do it every time, everywhere consciously or

subconsciously. Edward de Bono once said that thinking is the operational skill with which
intelligence acts upon experience. As developing our thinking skills are very crucial, de Bono,
the father of lateral thinking had introduce the 10 Cognitive Research Trust (CoRT) Thinking
Tools which in no particular order are PMI: Plus, Minus, Interesting; CAF: Consider All
Factors; FIP: First Important Priorities; Rules; Planning; C&S: Consequences and Sequel;
APC: Alternative, Possibilities, Choices; Decisions; AGO: Aims, Goals, Objectives; and OPV:
Other Peoples Overview. These thinking lessons have become the most widely used school
materials for the direct teaching of thinking as a basic skill ever since it was taught in schools
since the mid-1970s (Dr. Edward De Bono (2009). CoRT 1 Breadth Tools, United States of
America: The Opportunity Thinker). Referring to the book, these tools are designed to be used
objectively with an open mind to broaden perception instead of defending a particular view. The
tools emphasize thinking as a deliberate act rather than a reactive one. There is no need to use
these tools all at once use one thinking tool at a time and only use the thinking tools that make
sense to challenge our thinking.

PROBLEMS IN EDUCATION
Whats wrong with the Malaysian Education System?

Improvement, according to the dictionary of Collins is the fact or process of getting

better. To improve something, primarily we must recognise the problem being faced and in this
case: The Malaysian Education System. The question is what is wrong with our Malaysian
Education System nowadays? What are the things that we are lacking off? Using the CoRT
Thinking Tools such as Consider All Factors (CAF) and First Important Priorities (FIP), there are
several possible roots had been identified and those includes the education being too exam
oriented;

lack of understanding of the concept learnt; uninspiring teachers; restriction of

students creativity; inefficient educational plan and not to forget the high expectation of the
society.
Examinations in education have been there in the systems for as long as I can remember.
It acts as a medium to test and challenged our knowledge and ability in a particular areas, fields
and subjects. Originally it supposed to help students for a better understandability of their
learning process but not anymore. Nowadays, the systems has been too exam oriented where
examinations have become a war, a battle field for students to see who can achieve the most As.
They are no longer studying to comprehend and gain knowledge; they are studying solely for the
sake of getting and competing for good results on paper. It is all about the quantity rather than
the quality. Our mind and perspective had been brain-washed with this ideology of students with
excellent results are better in all level which lead them to have a brighter future. These had
impact negatively on the students and corrupted them in so many ways. Schools are for
educating the minds of our young men and women and not a place to collect As it appears to be
at present. Dr. Chris Anthony in his blog entitled MALAYSIA PAST, PRESENT &
FUTURE.
Since all that matters in these days and age are about the grades, it leads us to the second
problem of the Malaysian Education System students minimal understanding of the concept
learnt. One of the biggest issues that fear us currently is that students do not actually know what
they are learning. Most of the syllabuses in schools are based around concept and theories and

the lack of application in it make the students fail to understand. Instead of comprehending those
concept and theories, students tend to memorise everything they learnt. For example, in the
subject Additional Mathematics or commonly known as Addmath, they had been taught topics
like Indices & Logarithms, Permutations, Integrations, Vectors, etc. but to be honest did the
students really knew what is all that has to do in the real life? I doubt they do. I am positive about
it because I used to be one of them and back then I have zero idea about what is going on. I only
learnt them because I knew that I am going to be tested on it during the examinations. As a
result, once the schools had finished, so does all the concept and theories gone from our head.
Uninspiring teachers is another factor that could contribute to the difficulty we face in our
educational system. Teachers are someone whom the students look up to. They motivate the kids
to love what they learnt, help them to discover the potentials that the students do not even know
they had in them and lead them to the right path in whatever field they are interested in. At least
that is what the teachers used to do. But now, the teachers seem to be losing their passion in
teaching. They just teach for the sake of the job and waiting for the cheque to come in at the end
of the month so that they could continue on living. Everything is too book-based, making the
lesson becoming even more boring and unmotivated than it is. To make it even more depressing,
sometimes teachers do just give their students notes to go through by themselves and leave them
with some exercises to practice their comprehension. Maybe it seem too harsh for me to say
things like that and I know that not all the teacher are like that but still, these group of teachers
exist in schools. And due to those reasons, students are uninspired to learn and perform poorly in
schools.
Next we have on the list of problems we encounter in the system is, the restriction of
students creativity. Has it ever crossed your mind that students in schools are more or less the
same as a computerised system? Everything that we do in schools are arranged, formatted and
instructed. I know that it is what the schools are there for but sometimes it can be too much and
rigid. Okay for your perusals; let me break it down one by one. In schools there are times when
students have to conduct experiments especially for the science-based classes. So before the
experiments is conducted, the teachers already give the instruction with a little bit of
demonstrations to their students. The come the fun part; part where the students themselves were
given the chance to do their own experiment. Some did it successfully and some just did not.

Once the experiments had been conducted, students have to prepare a report on their experiment
and here is where the disappointment begins. When it comes to the report, teachers want the
results to be correct as it should be and every student should have the same one which I think
very absurd as we already know that not every one achieve the same result during the
experiment. Why can they have a very different result from each other? Is that so wrong? I am a
believer of the concept learning from your mistake. Let the students experience their mistake,
failure or whatsoever and from there teachers could help them to analyse the problem then give
them the chance to redo it. What is the point of letting your students conduct an experiment if
you are not going to let them make and experience some mistakes? If you ask me, I would not
call that an experiment, that to me is a procedure.
I do not know if anyone notice or not but the educational plan and the syllabuses in our
educational system keep on changing. Every single time that a new Minister of Education has
been elected; there will be a shifting of idea in the system. Changing is a good thing actually but
in this case it is been done too drastically. For instance, PPSMI or Teaching Science and
Mathematics in English programme. I mean, one minute the students are ought to learn the
Science and Mathematics subjects in English and another minute it is back to basic which using
Bahasa Melayu. Some might say that the changes of language used do not affect anything to
these students but I say it does. It may be just terms and sentence structures but it affects
students understanding. What would you feel when you had spent your time learning and
struggling to adapt the Science subject in English during the primary schools and suddenly when
you enrolled the secondary level, Bahasa Melayu is back as the medium language? Would not
you be frustrated? The inconsistency in the establishment of the syllabus does not help the
students to perform better in schools. In fact, it only makes them to be even more confused with
their education.
Last but not least, it comes down to the society. Parents and the community nowadays are
depending way too much to the schools and teachers. They put high hopes to the schools and
pressuring the teachers in producing excellent and high quality students which refer to their
children. In their defence, sending their kids to the schools already make them good parents but
what they do not realise is that is not the only part of their job. Sending the children to the
schools and rely the rest of to the teachers does not and will not make them a responsible parents.

In addition to this already frustrated issue, parents today do not even bother to take part in any of
the school events and get to know on the development and progress of their children. And then
where there is problem regarding their kids, these parents will be piss off and blame everything
on the schools. Worse come to worse, they will not hesitate to sue the schools and teachers for
laying finger on their children without even care to investigate the matter first. As depressing and
cruel as it sound, that is the truth and reality about our society these days.
Since learning is an ongoing process, eleven years in school including both primary and
secondary levels had mould the students thinking and their way of learning in which reflects in
their tertiary education. Due to the problems that had been discussed earlier, these students are
having a hard time to adapt themselves into the university life. Being too dependable to the
teachers and learning materials given by them has making them less productive to actually think
more critical towards the tasks given to them. They are so used to the spoon feeding practice
which had been going on and on for years during the schools days, thus contributes to their lack
of maturity to deal with assignments and problems.

SOLUTIONS
How to Improve our Malaysian Education System?

As I have extracted and identified the obscurity and inefficiency of the system, I have come out
with few solutions on how to improve the Malaysian Education System. I have broken it down
to three categories, to counterpart the problems that I have stated; the Education Delivery
System, society and also Ministry of Education. Since I have emphasised on these three major
categories, therefore I am implementing another CoRT Thinking Tools, which is Alternatives,
Possibilities and Choices (APC).
From APC, it can be assumed that the problems are fixable therefore improve the
Malaysian Education System. Eleven years of being in school really influence the students, in
becoming of what they are, therefore bringing the outcome learnt to the tertiary level. The
government should look into the Malaysian Education System thoroughly. Most importantly,
they should tackle the backbone of the delivery system, the educators. The teachers and school
leaders need to have the passion and high commitment in cultivating the students. Students are a
blank canvas and the educators are the ones who draw the outline and paint the students
thinking. Therefore, the government should verify the teachers approach on how the educators
carry out the system been established. The system is not the predicament, yet the educators
execution and performance; methods of teaching should increase from mediocre to exceptionally
outstanding. This can be done if the teachers do not rely solely on learning materials but more on
letting the students to practice more application rather than theory-based tasks. By this
indication, students can actually observe and draw conclusions, as a result it leads to be students
be more analytical and critical by asking questions and finding solutions. They can be more
reflective and pragmatic rather than being spoon feed all the time. The best example is during
Science lessons, students should not be restricted to obtain the exact result of a particular
experiment been assigned. It does not matter if the results vary, the objective is to make the
students participate actively and attain something from the task. Students also should be given
the learner autonomy thereof improving their soft skills by knowing and embracing their
strengths, rather than being forced to opt for particular subject which they have no interest at all.

The output gained in school are carried away to the tertiary level, which somehow affects the
students ability to speak during presentation and finding information for assignments given as
they were so used to being of what to do instead of figuring out by themselves. Hence, students
must be polished by building their self-esteem to be presentable in public. One of the alternatives
that can be done is to launch a campaign for students to improve their interpersonal
communication skills. Students these days are so book smart, they fail to refine their
communication skills. Instructors and lecturers too should play the part of encouraging their
students to constantly improve themselves for the better subsequently creating a healthy learning
environment.
Society is the most influential platform in the ecosystem. One person perspective can
twist anothers belief. In the contrary, it is manipulative which makes it as the second solution
that needs to be cured. I have managed to classify and broke the people involved into groups:
parents and community. Parents can be also said as the internal factor of the inefficiency. Parents
obsessions towards having a stable life by focusing on their career to earn money, really affects
the children. Some parents who are too busy, they might have to an extend where they neglected
their children. As children need to be nurtured with tender, love and care especially adolescence
as they are going through a pretty bumpy time of their life. Hormones start kicking and they need
someone to share with. Yet, parents these days are only interested to know if their children
obtained all As in exams rather than the children progression. Therefore, students tend to rebel as
a sign of hatred towards their parents of not caring enough. This actually can possibly lead to
various cases; severe depression, crime involvement and even suicidal. This can be prevented if
the parents make some time to participate actively in their childrens life. Yes, their children are
all grown up but that does not mean you as a parent need to neglect your child and easily put the
burden to the teachers who are painstakingly dealing with thousands of students every single day.
In my opinion, parents should be more responsible by not relying too much on teachers in
shaping their children, but actively involved in their childrens development. Parents should
make time for their children, at least by attending Open Day to know their children progress and
build up any necessary characters from there. Meeting the teachers is actually a huge turning
point, as it automatically opens the eyes of not only the parents, but also the children, of their
parents concerns towards them. It does not need to end there. Parents involvement is Parents,
Teachers Association meetings are crucial too as it reflects the parents seriousness and

consideration towards the kids future. Furthermore, parents can convey and exchange ideas and
somehow improve the children, strengthening the bond of student, teacher and parent thereof
improving the students performances. Good performance equates to better grades therefore
proving that the Malaysia Education System can be improved.
As for the community, I personally think that they should be more acceptable and not
prejudge and discourage the students if they do not perform well in examinations. The
community should change their way of thinking of quantity > quality rather than comparing
one student with another of their achievement. It is not healthy to always compare the students
capability of scoring As in examination. Though the excellent students may excel in class, but
they may be lacking of soft skills as they are so oriented to study for exams rather than preparing
themselves for the working. As a community, they should portray their support by encouraging
students; therefore they have the boost to actually improve themselves. Next, the community
patronage is vital as it somehow help uphold the positive vibe amongst students to study even
harder. They should never put the anticipation that the school will mould the student to be
Einsteins and surpasses their expectation. Here to emphasise again, acceptance is the key to
improve the Malaysia Education System. If they do not succeed in primary and secondary, that
does not affect their performance in the future. The government have built various vocational
institutions to polish the students interests in specific fields of their choice. Students can
embrace their skills in the things they are truly passionate of.
The last solution to overcome the problem and improve the Malaysia Education System
is the Ministry of Education itself. To counterpart the issues of the inefficient education plan and
lack of understanding of the concept, the Ministry of Education must play their part in
reinforcing the education plan. Though the plan is already sufficient for the students to gain
adequate knowledge, yet the higher authority should look into this matter, as the teachers are
facing difficulties in adapting the inconsistent syllabus establishment. Yes, change is good but the
execution is vague as most of the educators are still in the midst of understanding the change
been implemented. In my opinion, the Ministry of Education is being too idealistic with the
structural plan. The drastic change affects both students and educators, which both are struggling
to fully comprehend the new idea implied. I am not opposing that the ministry does not have a
target to improve the system yet the lack of preparation to change and adapt is prosaic. Maybe

the ministry should dig deep and start to finesse the root of the system, which are the educators
themselves. The recruitment or new, inspiring teachers is essential as they are still fresh and
easily to grasp whatever matter been thrown to them. As for experienced teachers, they should
assist the new teachers on the method of teachings been used. I believed experienced teachers are
more likely to imply past experience to their teaching, by dragging the students attention in class
using different approaches; learning materials and relating what have been learnt into their daily
life which I may add teachers are lacking these days as a result not being able to generate
students who are competent in other skills outside the classroom. This collaboration, in my
opinion can really change the students progress, therefore working alongside each other to
produce balanced students, both efficient in theory and application practises.

CONCLUSIONS

Succinctly, we cannot deny that the Malaysian Education System is not in its greatest
shape yet. Teething troubles that had been deliberated before such as the education being too
exam oriented; lack of understanding of the concept learnt; uninspiring teachers; restriction of
students creativity; inefficient educational plan and also the high expectation of the society
could hinder our way to the top. Though we are struggling with a few glitches but that does not
mean that we are hopelessly cannot be better. There are and will always room for improvement.
Implying another CoRT Thinking Tools, C&S: Consequences & Sequel, I find that if we do not
make the effort to improve our education system, do not be surprised if the quality of our
education decreases. Soon the academic qualification of our future generation would not be
valuable even in our own country and absolutely incomparable to others. Thus it will lead to a
much worse phenomenon which is the unemployment of fresh graduates since all the position
that are available is filled with those who graduates overseas.
If we ponder deeply into those problems and take it into seriously consideration, we will
be able to find the solution and make way for improvement which had been divided into three
major parts which are the education delivering system; the Ministry of Education; and lastly the
roles of society. The responsible parties that had been mention previously should not take things
lightly and further action regarding this matter should be done as soon as possible in order to
avoid other massive issues in the future. In order to solve the problems and improve the
Education system in Malaysia, support and involvement from each and every one are crucial. We
cannot just complain all night long but do nothing with it. Therefore, every party from the
government, schools, teachers, and parents should contribute their commitment to the fullest. In
a nutshell, we should not only talk the talk but also walk the walk.