options for UPSR & PMR exams

Dear Sirs,

I wish to give my comments and possible options to the current discussion on the UPSR & PMR exams. As we are aware, in order to play catch up with the latest development in education, the country must always evolve its education system to be more relevant to meet the global challenges be it in meeting the gaps of human capital & development for nation building or for economic reasons.

All national exams are important to bench mark the students historical abilities to move on to the next level or to achieve entrants to a boarding school at form 1 or 4 levels or university entrance or to the job employment markets.

I’m now almost 50, I have observed in the last 20 years that the national exams as a stand alone and not to prepare students to go to the next level. What I’m proposing now is to reverse the viewing of the national exams orientation to progress from form 1 requirement angle to look downwards at STD 6, from form 4 views to form 3 and at university level needs to form 5 exams. The national exams have been complacent in the past. The UPSR do not really prepare student to meet the secondary school life of form 1 or to boarding school life of the first former. So as PMR to form 4 and at SPM to university? The current economic environment is that the middle class are getting more knowledgeable in education. The have one’s will spend their disposable income into their children’s education program and the have not’s do aspire for their children to receive the best education their children can hope to achieve, no one way about it. But over the years, our education system has failed them.

My option is, while we are talking about the revamping or the elimination of UPSR or PMR, we need to fully discuss & understand about national examination? What is it for? I think the concept for university as a knowledge center should also be change. I think tertiary education now should be for knowledge, research & development and also for employment purposes. We should not waste the limited resources that we have now to alienate university for knowledge based only, tertiary education for R&D and vocational & trade schools for working people. The form 1 boarding schools should formulate their own entrance exams to boarding school needs. Let UPSR be a STD 6 national general exams to gauge the historical achievement of primary school students. And let PMR exams for gauging the Form 1 to Form 3 students. Again, for the boarding school intakes for form 4’s, they should have their own boarding school entrance exams.

Regards

Ras
A 50 something student