MOE cannot manipulate data to show favourable results

IDEAS says MOE is manipulating data on students’ level of English and making "careless statements" about their proficiency.

KUALA LUMPUR: A senior researcher at a Malaysian think-tank has said that the Ministry of Education must be more responsible when making declarations about the level of English proficiency among students and remain focussed instead on improving the level of education delivered.

Tamanna Patel of IDEAS Malaysia was referring to a recent statement by Deputy Education Minister P Kamalanathan who told a conference that Malaysians had a better command of the English language than Singaporeans.

She said the methodology used in the survey he quoted was questionable as the respondents had volunteered for it and therefore the results were not “robust” enough to be considered representative.

Saying he was not the first in the ministry to make such generalised statements, she added she was concerned about the ministry’s use of “unreliable indicators and information to make blanket statements” as these did not give an accurate picture of the true state of our education levels.

She also said data should not be used to mislead as this caused mistrust among parents. She was referring to an IDEAS’ education survey of parents from low-income households in 2014 which showed that 69 per cent of parents actually believed their children were learning proper English at school.

“The information gap between parents and the actual state of education widens when careless statements continue to be made by our leaders”

She concluded by saying, “I urge the MOE to be more responsible and remain focused on its task to improve the quality of English teachers and education delivery to ensure that students who are taking their English subject SPM next year are proficient in the language and are able to pass.”