The latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report has once again revealed dismal results achieved by Malaysian students, despite the Government investing billions of ringgit on education in the last few years.
The PISA report is a triennial study conducted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) involving 510,000 15-year-old students from 65 participating countries worldwide.
Lower than average results
In the latest 2012 edition, Malaysia placed 55th overall, cementing our position in the bottom fifth of 65 countries surveyed. To make matters worse, our students performed poorer compared to neighbours such as Singapore (ranked 2nd) and even Thailand (53rd), whose students fared better in all three categories (science, mathematics and reading) compared to Malaysia.
Although Malaysian students recorded a slight improvement in mathematics compared to the 2009 study, increasing their score to 421 from 404, it is still far below the 494 average score for OECD countries.
At the same time, our students’ reading abilities suffered the most, charting an embarrassing 398 (Thailand scored 441) compared to the OECD average of 496. In 2009, we scored 414.
It is a similar story for science, which saw Malaysian students recording 420 against the OECD average of 501, and again showing a decline from three years ago.
Higher than average spending
The latest PISA results would not sting so badly had it not come on the back of record investments ploughed into the Malaysian education sector in recent times.
In the latest Federal Budget, RM54 billion or 21 per cent of total national expenditure, has been allocated to the Ministry of Education (MOE) for 2014, making it the largest ministry by funds. In fact, the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025 itself acknowledges that our country’s public education expenditure, as a percentage of GDP, is more than double that of the ASEAN average, while outspending even OECD countries as well as Asian Tigers such as Korea, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore.
It is obvious that greater investment in education does not correlate to better results. For example, the recently released UPSR examination results showed a decline in performance for the English Language paper despite the MOE spending RM270 million in hiring three consultancy firms over the last three years to provide foreign English mentors to improve the quality of English teaching in national primary schools.
Therefore, the question is not whether we are spending enough, but whether we are spending on the right things.
In the years to come, the Government is set to invest billions in various big-ticket projects such as 1BestariNet, which entails the installation of high-speed broadband in all 10,000 schools throughout the country, setting up a Virtual Learning Environment system to usher students into the age of cyber classrooms, as well as providing “1 Student 1 Device” to all school students in the country.
How any of these fancy infrastructure investments will improve our students’ performance remains to be seen. However, if past results are of any indication, then we can be assured that more public funds will go down the drain while the future of our children is sacrificed.