LETTER | Gone are the days when we sat down in a classroom or a massive hall; clock ticking, heart pounding, separated from each other with gaps between tables at around 5 feet, waiting for the examination paper to be handed.

How can we forget the good old days?

Yet, time progresses, and everything has to evolve in accordance with demand - UPSR and PT3 were not spared from it.

With UPSR and PT3 abolished, a new mechanism is in place, PBS (Pentaksiran Berasaskan Sekolah) and we, for sure, welcomed it as a new way to gauge students; encompassing all avenues that made a student great.

One of the components of PBS is co-curriculum. While PBS’ effectiveness is still up for questioning, we do believe in learning outside of the classroom.

Education should not be confined between the four walls of a classroom. Hands-on learning associated with co-curricular activities along with your friends for a specific goal could not only develop a person’s mental acuity, it brings out camaraderie among those involved.

Don’t lie. Do you remember your school or the people in it?

If you said the latter, then we have made our point. Co-curricular activities have to be empowered; be it uniformed bodies, or school clubs, to greater integration into a student’s life as it paves the way for lifelong learning.

In-the-class education is still at play, learning the theory of just about everything. But, hands-on learning outside the classroom provides a place to experience it, to make mistakes and be accounted for.

Most importantly, to be better day in and day in, not just for yourself, but for the team you had your co-curricular with.

In all, go out there. Play in the field. March in it. It is just another form of education - a fun way of it as well.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.