Education 101

I have been studying the local government syllabus since I started school. Had 6 years of Chinese school, fully packaged with caning and massive amounts of homework. I blame that for my eventual laziness btw. Those 6 years were enough to last me a lifetime of labour, even if it was just math. It is now my final year being part of our local education system and I am pretty darn glad it is!

This past week has been hectic as we have been finishing up our practical bit for our national examination: PEKA and folios etc. which are nothing short of useless. The worse one would be Moral Education which we have to write 8 essays about how to apply certain values to certain situations as well as 4 activity reports complete with pictures of how we cleaned the school or recycled etc. Half the students don't do it for real and it's just a picture complete with fictional words. What I find more frustrating is that to ace that, we have to have a string of key words in our essays - does that make us more moral or even prove us to be?

It is undoubtedly a useless subject that could have been put to better use with a better system and execution. For the examination, we have to memorise the definition of various moral values which I assume they hope we apply through that way. When will they realise that it is not working and that students simply despise it? Such a waste of brain storage space!

There have been lots of issues brought up on education. One of the most recent being Anwar's appeal for Maths and Science to be reverted back to Bahasa Melayu. I ain't exactly one for the government but what the heck was that man?! Talk about moving backwards... Sister No.1 says that he has to do that because he was the one who changed it to Bahasa Melayu in the first place, back in the days when he was Education Minister. I find that an unreasonable reason; Change We Need, hello? Or perhaps he's trying to get more supporters. That's not working on me for sure. And then, there's the whole English sexing up the Malay language which Niki Cheong blogged about.

Lastly, there was that issue about limiting the number of subjects to take in SPM to 10 just because priority has been given to those with >10As. Many seem to agree with limiting it but I do not. Firstly, why limit someone's capabilities? If a student finds him/herself able to take the pressure and able to divide his/her time well enough? WHY NOT? During our inter-house debate this year, some brought up extra tuition fees, burdens, pressure etc. There is always a choice in everything you do and I think that's part of life, part of growing up - let them choose! Whatever they pick is whatever they face.

On the other hand, there's the scholarship-giving bit. Instead of limiting the number of subjects, why not set a proper system of requirements to acquire a scholarship? Like you need a minimum of 10As meaning whatever else you get doesn't count for anything and there should be standardised criteria for curriculum etc.

Gr. How frustrating.
Can wait for college. Can't wait for college.