The fault in our education system

Malaysia hasn't been keeping up with global standards in education. So what exactly is wrong?

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Quick question: Why do you go to school for?

Ideally, the answer to that would be “to learn”. Learning is “the acquisition of skills or knowledge through study”, as the Oxford dictionary defines it.

But can we truly say that we learn in school? Can rote memorisation be categorically defined as learning? To some extent, it is. But as we commonly hear from students after exams, everything has been emptied out of their heads since that knowledge has served its purpose on a paper. Some knowledge is doubtless retained, but this is highly dependent on individual preference and interests.

The primary fault in our education system can be traced through its industrial lineage. The idea of the public school was established not long after the American Civil War by Horace Mann, and his idea was widely supported by the industrialists of the time as his system provided them with two crucial elements – obedient workers and willing customers.

It was assumed by Frederick Winslow Taylor, a prominent thinker of that time, that workers were largely uneducated, intellectually deficient, not conversant in English and unable to manage themselves. Following that train of thought, workers needed to be segregated from managers, and managers needed to guide them to accomplish specific goals in the form of KPIs and targets using various incentives. This format, still used today, forms the basis of our education system.

In short,

1. The education system exists to create obedient, not smart workers, who also double as customers who will happily part with their money to obtain the goods and services offered by the same people who employ them.
2. The education system assumes all students are uneducated and intellectually deficient, and teachers motivate using a grading system and school awards.

The graduates produced by this system have been criticised as unfit for employment as they have not had a holistic education that produces market-ready and competitive individuals. This can be especially true due to the streaming of students and the stigma associated with not making it to the Science stream and settling for the Arts stream. Students without an aptitude for the sciences are not afforded the same opportunities for social advancement due to the perception that they “did not do well in the PMR” and thus must be less intelligent than those in the science stream.

Society forgets that without art and culture, we have no sense of identity, of gravitas, of magnitude. Artists, writers, poets, singers, craftsmen and so many other important vocations that fall under the broad strokes of the arts are marginalised due to the cultural obsession with churning out ever more lawyers and doctors. Not that there is anything inherently wrong with those noble professions, but when it comes to the job market, one should always remember that when supply exceeds demand, the value of the supply degrades along with its increased availability.

A case of language and critical thinking skills

But why is this system that arguably has worked in the past now failing us? The answer lies perhaps in the type of graduates it produces. Among the criticisms aimed at our graduates, one of the most common complaints fall along the line of “lack of critical thinking skills” and “poor communication skills”, along with a lack of proficiency in the English language.

The factory system, which emphasises rote memorisation and doesn’t focus on personal, individual development arguably stunts the ability of a student to adopt a “global” mindset – an indispensable asset in today’s hyper-connected work environment, where communication across countries and cultures is key, which is on its own another argument for the English language to be given more emphasis as a lingua franca in the workplace.

Individual and interpersonal development is also important for advancement in one’s career. Certain skills, like leadership, social skills, critical thinking and such can only be wielded by strong, developed personalities that have been exposed to situations demanding they exercise parts of the brain other than rote memorisation. To some extent, extracurricular activities exercise these skills, but students are overwhelmed by the need to constantly memorise for the sake of passing examinations.

Many graduates realise they have hit a wall once they leave the safe and cosy confines of the Malaysian education system. Life can be easier, and yet harder, and often the scroll that you carry only serves the purpose of getting your foot in the door (bar scientific fields, in which a higher qualification certainly is a requirement). It’s how you present yourself, the skills you have accumulated, and how well you adjust to people that really count in getting a job.

One size does not fit all

Certainly, some elements of education need to be universal – a basic command of mathematics, local and world history with relevant context, local language and English – but the fact is that our current system attempts to force students into roles they may not even be fit to play, does not acknowledge any of their abilities outside of the narrow scope of “education”, and marginalises those who lack the talent in rote memorisation as “stupid” or “not good enough”. Is a social worker less valuable or less talented than a lawyer? No, but our society has been conditioned to think so and rewards efforts according to this bias.

Adding to the evidence that one size does not fit all, David Lubinski, Camilla Benbow, and James Steiger, writing in the Journal of Educational Psychology, said they found that the amount of education was not necessarily key, but “appropriate doses of different educational experiences mattered”. They argue that each person requires an educational programme tailored to his needs and talents to nurture his best traits. This train of thought is beginning to gain traction in Western countries as they race to stay ahead of developments around the world, and if it is executed well could prove to be the West’s next renaissance.

An alternative must be found, and soon. We must adapt to the interconnected world because it will never adapt to us. And if we fail to realise how the world really works, we’ll fall accordingly. One thing is for sure; we cannot move forward with what is currently in place.