YOURSAY 'Lots of our students are getting 10, 11, 12 or more A1s for the SPM, but none are good enough to even be interviewed for Harvard.'

'Get real, Muhyiddin, fix the education system'

Ycf: Malaysia specialises in ‘quantitative management', i.e., we are the best ‘number cookers'.

The Education Ministry is one of the faithful practitioners. It decides the SPM ‘results statistics' even before the exams.

The modus operandi is, if this year the passing rate is 85 percent, then next year it has to be 86 percent and 87 percent the year after, and so on.

After which, the ministry will adjust the curve to decide the passing marks and the grading mechanisms.

This explains why year after year, we have higher and higher passing rates and more and more straight A students, and yet the world ranking for Malaysian government universities are deteriorating by the year, i.e. inversely proportionate to the number of As our SPM students obtain.

Soon, the government universities will be able to operate e-university certificate businesses like the shophouse universities found in some remote small towns in the US.

Ah Gu, Ah Beh: In the 60s, you are at the top of the world when you score Grade 1 in Senior Cambridge O level. Only a handful of super bright candidates scored 6As.

Getting a full certificate with 3P or 4P was the dream entry to MU (University of Malaya). Only 1% of the student population were awarded first-class honours.

Today we have students with 10As, 17As, and yet they failed miserably in the universities, costing us billions of ringgit in sponsoring these ‘brillant' scholars.

Sunflower: In view of the recent discovery about the quality of our education system by Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, I suggest we place advertisements across the US directed to students aspiring to study in Harvard and MIT to come to Malaysia, which according to the minister, has the highest standards.

Also why send our children overseas? Does our Education Ministry understand what education is?

One Hand Cover the Sky: Our country's education had gone from 'worse' to 'stupid'. If you had ever gone through my experience, I do not know whether you will cry or laugh.

Last year, I conducted an interview with a group of UTM (Universiti Teknologi Malaysia) graduates for various vacancies in my company.

There was one woman who really surprised me when she could not even answer how many letters there are from A to Z.

And she had a diploma in marketing from UTM. This shows how bad our education system has deteriorated in the past 10 years.

I feel shame for many of those who graduated from our government-supported universities and colleges. There is really something seriously wrong with our education system.

DeCorruptDetester: If our education system is better than that of the US, UK or Germany, why are we getting English teachers from them?

Why are the rich and famous sending their kids to these countries for their education?

The views of the 87 successful businessmen do not reflect entirely on the education system in our country. Are they all educated in Malaysia?

Please go to the ground for once. Get views from the actual stakeholders in education - teachers, lecturers, parents, educational bodies like the various missionaries who were among the pioneers in education in Malaysia.

Get views of the people who will benefit from a better system - the students themselves. Engage them. It's time to wake up.

Jedi_Who: In business they say the most important thing is integrity. So too with education. When our exams were graded by the Cambridge Board, the results were accepted without question.

Accordingly, students with good results lived up to expectation in top universities.

Today, we have 'bolehland grading' in the SPM and STPM, and in the shortcut that is matriculation. Deserving students are graded downwards and others, in the name of race, religion and political affiliation, are graded upwards.

It can only happen so many times before international educational circles lose confidence in the Malaysian educational system, the integrity of its grading process and thus the quality of its students.

Advocatus_diaboli: Our education system has indeed deteriorated very badly. Look at the quality of teachers we have now. Look at how our students think.

The education minister is not qualified to hold on to his post. Today, government schools are more interested in race and religion than in providing a good education.

Look at the history books for secondary schools. Our education system needs a massive overhaul. Take out race and religion from schools and education.

Absolom: I, for one, am inclined to agree with the education minister - that we have one of the best education system in the world, if the objective of the system is to churn out generation after generation of very compliant, non-questioning citizens who would not find fault with the powers-that-be, who will very loyally stay put employed in the country (since they will possibly not want to or be able to be employed elsewhere).

This could be one strategy to maintain peace and harmony. Perhaps in some not-so-distant future, we can also be eligible to take up those skilled jobs of housekeeping, etc., in our neighbouring countries that their citizens have no time to do since they are advancing very rapidly.

That could turned out to be a major income source for the country, particularly if our manufactured exports were to dwindle and our petroleum resources depleted.

Amused Malaysian: Dr Mahathir Mohamad tried to improve the standard of education and what happened, the educated ones voted for Pakatan Rakyat.

Why take the risk? It easier to convince the less educated that we are the greatest and it's all thanks to Umno (and a bit of BN).

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