first published The Malaysian Insight
https://www.themalaysianinsight.com/s/219585
Alarm bells as number of science pupils skydive
But the reality is that the target won’t be met because, since 2012, the number of pupils taking up science subjects has declined by about 6,000 per year.
Pakatan Harapan and Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who is acting education minister, want to arrest this decline and increase the ratio of science to arts pupils by 60:40.
This target is not new, educationists, former teachers and academics told The Malaysian Insight, as the former Barisan Nasional government had poured vast resources and effort into achieving the ratio.
“Despite conscious efforts to promote the study of science and technology, only 29% of pupils entering form four opt to study science, and only 40% of those entering tertiary education opt for science and related programmes,” the ASM said in its 2015 science outlook.
For PH to do better than BN, it needs to realise how well-meaning policies have been undermined.
One reason is that school administrators and district education officers are more interested in keeping up the appearance of good exam results, said one former teacher from Selangor.
“Pupils whose grades were not up to mark were dissuaded from going into the science stream or taking up science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects because if they failed, they would bring down the school’s overall grades,” said the teacher, who requested anonymity.
ASM said ad hoc changes in policies also affected pupils’ performance and interest levels.
“When the language of instruction for science and mathematics in schools was changed from Bahasa Malaysia to English in 2003, the performance of Malaysian pupils in these two subjects dropped in both international and local assessments.”
ASM also said the way STEM subjects are taught in schools make them look irrelevant or impractical to daily life.
“It was found that the teaching and learning process did not contribute to the development of higher-order thinking skills or critical and analytical thinking skills, hence failing to inculcate science process and manipulative skills,” it said.
“This could also mean an absence of interaction outside of the classroom, with no practical value or application of the theory taught.”
Also, parents’ expectations towards their children’s school performance and the prospects of science-based careers have changed, said STEM educator Ramesh Pillai.
“Parents are telling their children that if certain subjects are too hard, then it’s best not to bother with them,” said Ramesh, who runs a non-profit STEM promotion centre called STEM4ALL Makerspace.
“But is this the correct attitude to have? Because your mind gets sharper by pushing it and STEM teaches you to be analytical and to solve problems.”
The 60:40 science to arts proportion was created in 1986 as part of the government’s long-term plans to create more professionals to turn Malaysia into an industrialised nation.
In 1989, science was made a compulsory subject from standard one and government scholarships were awarded for secondary school pupils to pursue degrees overseas and in public universities.
Yet by 2017, data from the Education Ministry showed less than half of form four pupils enter the science or technical, vocational and technical stream.
“STEM stream enrolment has been declining from 48.15% in 2012 to 45.74% in 2017,” the ASM said in its 2017 outlook.
“This is despite efforts to introduce new learning approaches and an enhanced curriculum to sharpen the skills and abilities of teachers.”
On the ground, school principals and senior teachers are also under pressure by district education officers to produce good exam results, the former teacher said.
“Since subjects, such as chemistry, biology and additional mathematics, are ‘hard’, pupils were discouraged to take them because bad grades would pull down the school’s overall performance.
“Also, it was becoming harder to find teachers competent enough to teach these challenging subjects,” said the ex-educator.
Ramesh, meanwhile, said good teachers are often transferred out of their schools and placed in the district education office (PPD).
“PPDs act like ‘little Napoleons’ and are often obstacles for schools and principals who want to try creative ways to increase STEM enrolment,” said Ramesh, who had headed a parent-teacher group in Cheras.
But the shifting attitudes of parents towards science-based careers for their children have helped the decline and seen more pupils joining the arts and business streams, said Ramesh.
“Now, there are more choices in terms of what subjects you can take. There are subjects like accounts, economics and entrepreneurship. These subjects are seen as more practical rather than slogging through chemistry.” – February 17, 2020.
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