More than fourty years ago, Malaysian students sat for their SRP (Sijil Rendah Pelajaran) which is now known as PMR (Penilaian Menengah Rendah or simply Lower Secondary Assessment). This public examination has to be taken by all Form Three students – the third year into secondary secondary school after graduated from the primary school. Of course prior to SRP, there was the prestigious LCE (Lower Certificate of Education), which of very high standard and quality.

 

So, you have LCE (1957) to SRP (1960) and then PMR (1993) evolution since independence. Those who had tried their luck on SRP exam in the 1970s where the questions were in objective can testify today how rare and difficult it was to get straight As. If a school could produce a single student with 7A or 8A, that school would become famous and the student becomes a celebrity.

Back then, SRP was so important that parents would normally scare the shit out of their kids that if they couldn’t pass the exam, they would end up as rookies in motor workshops, lorry drivers, durian sellers, fishmongers, rubbish collectors and whatnot. In a nutshell, the quality of education was superbly high in the 1970s. And you can read there were only a handful of students who managed to score straight As.

 

Fast forward to 2013 – a whopping 30,988 candidates who sat for the PMR examination scored grade A in all subjects. That’s excellent because it shows more and more students have become “smarter” and “cleverer” over time. But wait a minute – at the same time, Malaysian Education Ministry also admitted that between 30% to 40% of graduates have no job after finishing university.

If you were to tell people you couldn’t get a job despite having a degree back in 1970s, nobody would believe you. But today, people have accept the fact that local universities are just another factory churning out large quantity of junk graduates, minus the quality. Sadly the ethnic Malays form the major portion of this unemployable graduates.

 

So, what had happened to the top quality Malay students produced in the 1970s, that couldn’t be replicated in today’s modern society? Non-Malay shouldn’t laugh at this because their quality were equally nowhere better than their parents who sat for SRP in the 1970s. Perhaps the answer can be found from former premier Mahathir’s latest comment regarding the present hot topics – primary school UPSR exam leakages.

Actually, ever since British’s LCE, MCE and HSC exams were scrapped and replaced with new brandings especially customized to satisfy politicians’ lust for power, the local education systems have been going down the toilet bowls. Heck, if a former meter reader can be your deputy prime minister, what more can you expect if he doubles as your education minister as well?

 

In fact, exam leakages happen every year, as if it’s like the Aidilfitri, Chinese New Year or Christmas annual celebrations. Since it happens at secondary school exams but well contained, it didn’t explode to the magnitude as what happens to UPSR now. In reality, the education ministry wants to show a yearly improvement in the students’ achievement – without fail. And to do that, they can do two things.

First, they lower the standards so that more students can “artificially” made to pass their exams. But you can only go so much before you hit zero percentage point in order to pass them. So the second step – they deliberately leak exam questions so that they don’t have to keep lowering the bar but at the same time students (hopefully) can pass their exams. That’s fine if the exam leakage didn’t go viral as what is happening to UPSR now.

 

Now, back to what Mahathir said. He whined and bitched that he failed in his 22 years in power as the Malays did not feel ashamed when they failed, whether in examinations or in life. While it’s true that Mahathir was the father of racism and corruption, he also dare to speaks out against the government when things get really out of hand. And this speaks volume about the seriousness about the country’s education problem.

After Science papers were leaked, now English papers join the party of leakages. And the innocent students are made to resit for the papers again on September 30. What did the deputy prime minister cum education minister, Muhyiddin, do? Well, he cried, bitched and screamed about people trying to sabotage his ministry? Like it or not, he had just proven what Mahathir said – Malays are lazy and know no shame.

 

Yes, Muhyiddin know no shame to conveniently put the blame on sabotage. He was so lazy that he didn’t even pretend to be serious about tackling the problem once and for all.  Mahathir also commented that “In the past, when a Malay was sentenced to jail, the offender would hang his head in shame as it was not something to be proud of … But today, when a Malay is sentenced to jail, the offender will walk with his head proudly in the air, smiling as if he has achieved something.”

Apparently, Mahathir also reveals from his experience running a bakery business after his retirement from politics that the Malays are not only lazy, but also lack of honesty and integrity. Amusingly, he admitted Malay managers, the same ethnic he tried to promote in every aspect during his rule, have been stealing from his own bakery business.

 

Dr Mahathir also reminded Malays to repay their debts so that they would not be looked upon poorly. It seems Mahathir, in his attempt to be bias towards the Malays in his bakery business, have accumulated tons of debt, hence his urge to the race not to become bad paymasters. Seriously, was he so dumb as not to realize that it was his racism policy that actually have worsen the “lazy Malays” problems?

Question – what happens to the already lazy people when you continue to give them freebies in the form of free projects, money, stocks, contracts without the need to pay? To be fair, they can either become appreciative and work harder; or they can become parasites and ask for more as if they’re drug addicts. And do you need to be a rocket scientist to figure out the ratio for both categories?

 

Fortunately, such admission – that Malays are lazy, dishonest and lack of integrity – came from the Godfather Mahathir’s mouth. Can you imagine what will happen if such statement comes from Lim Guan Eng or Anwar Ibrahim’s mouth? It seems the problems of laziness, dishonest and probably corruption have spread its tentacles to even primary school – examination board members selling UPSR questions for some quick bucks.

Nevertheless, Mahathir shouldn’t generalized the whole ethnic-Malay as being lazy, dishonest and lack of integrity. There’re two Malay stalls outside my house – one selling Ramli burgers while another selling fried fritters. The burger sellers will only setup his stalls after 6pm while the other stall starts early in the morning. While the one selling fried fritters always do business on daily basis, the burger sellers could AWOL for weeks or months for whatever reasons.

 

Today, the stall frying fritters have upgrade – owns their own mobile van with more varieties and their business is booming. And what happens to the burger sellers? They continue with their business as usual, whenever they feel like to do it, but without much improvement to their customer base. If Mahathir still couldn’t understand why certain Malays are getting lazier, here’s why – they’re getting more innovative and creative from the lazy seeds planted by the premier himself.

 

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September 12th, 2014 by financetwitter

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