If the shoe fits ...

‘In my day…’ says the old-timer. This is the preface to yet another harangue about a world that was better, kinder, wiser, juster, healthier, smarter etc. Nobody bothers to listen to him
But if the current Deputy Minister of Education says more or less the same, they do listen!

‘Schools are no good nowadays’, the old-timer insisted. ‘The kids don’t learn anything – spend too much time playing computers – always off on sports events – holiday for this holiday for that -- can’t even read and write properly...’

Bingo! said the Minister. Some 85,000 Malaysian children in Form I are ‘functionally illiterate’, which means ‘cant read and write properly.’

School teachers didn’t need an Old-timer or a Minister to tell them that, of course. Every year the system shunts youngsters from one primary grade up into the next, regardless of what they know, or don’t know. That’s called automatic promotion, and it works for the broad average but – surprise! surprise! – not every child is ‘average’.

Focus on personal attention
The slow learner falls between the cracks of this educational conveyor belt. If he’s still in school by Grade 6 he is bored, possibly naughty, and definitely not able to read and write properly. But he will be automatically moved up to Form I, and there he is, no asset to his school or the system. Long-suffering teachers have to deal with him as best they can.
The Minister has now directed that ‘good and experienced teachers’ be assigned to the lower Primary grades, and that more personal attention be given to the slower students ‘to monitor both their behavioural and academic development’. (Right: a 1930's photo of a primary school class in rural Sarawak)

A good point. A student who can’t keep up with his class is likely to get bored, and start playing up. If his parents let him, he stops going to school – or he hangs around town all morning while his parents think he’s in school. So now the ministry will have to come up with another strategy, this time to deal with ‘dropoutism’ (no, I didn’t invent this word!).

The plan to have better teachers in the lower primary grades is a good one. But even the best teachers can only work with the ‘human material’ in their hands, especially if the classes are large. Children’s intellectual capacities range from the genius level to the sub-normal; they cannot all be taught in the same way and at the same speed.

Quite recently, double-promotion (that’s definitely one from the Old-timer’s arsenal!) has been tentatively re-introduced for exceptionally bright children. How long will it take till some of their less gifted friends will be officially allowed to repeat a grade if necessary?
There should be an informal ‘minimum achievement’ test at the end of each primary year. Students who fail this will simply repeat the same grade.

Repetition must be treated as a straightforward administrative matter. Teachers and classmates raise no fuss, nobody says: ‘Shame on you, Jimmy!’ No tearful mummies and enraged papas turn up at the school, sobbing for mercy or threatening revenge.
At a rough guess, I’d say about 3 – 5 % of children would have to repeat a grade at least once in their primary career. Go ask the primary teachers, they can tell you! A really slow learner might need several repeats. He could be 15 of 16 by the time he completes primary school, but he would have acquired the basic education and literacy he’ll need to cope with life. One less ‘unemployed school leaver’ roaming the streets!

Every Malaysian child is entitled to free education, every Malaysian child has a place in a school. Unfortunately, the implementation of this laudable education-for-all policy is based on one faulty assumption: that all children are the same.

If anybody out there really believes this, let’s extend the principle to something simple like school shoes.

Feet and heads not the same
The Ministry of Education decrees that all boys and girls in Primary School wear dark blue tunics, shirts or pants, white blouses or shirts, and white canvas shoes. As of tomorrow morning, let the authorities also decree that in Primary 1 this uniform must be worn with a pair of shoes Size 1.

In Primary 2, all have to wear shoes Size 2.

In Primary 3, all have to wear shoes Size 3.

In Primary 4, all have to wear shoes Size 4.

In Primary 5 -- aw stop already, this is nonsense! How could all children wear the same size shoes? Some have big feet, some have small feet. In one class, the height difference between the shortest and the tallest child might be four inches. How could they all have the same feet?

My point exactly. Just as children’s body size comes in a very wide range, so do their teeth, and their earlobes, and their hair, and their intellectual capacities.

I am convinced that modifying automatic promotion to permit both double-promotions at one end, and retention in the same grade at the other, will improve the standard of Primary 6 leavers. It’ll be considerably more economical than shunting barely-literate students into Form I and then providing special remedial classes for them. A 7-year-old will take repeating a grade fairly easily; a 14-year old will resent being put into the ‘dumb class’ and react accordingly.

Their feet are not the same, neither are their heads, but both have to be taken care of.
None of this impressed the Old-timer, by the way. ‘In my day, we walked five miles to school, barefoot…’





Heidi Munan