UPSR and PMR

Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said the Ujian Penilaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) and Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR) examinations may be abolished. Should we agree with the suggestion? Well, at least this is something that we can discuss about. Well, I think it’s inappropriate to abolish the UPSR and PMR examination. There are so many things that will affect if the education ministry should abolish these two exams. As we all know, UPSR is a public exam that has to be taken for all the standard 6 students, before they proceed from primary school to the secondary school. While PMR is a public exam for a form 3 student, for them to be divided to enter the difference streams, such as science stream, art stream and etc. First question, how to decide whether the child is in Arts or Science when they face SPM if the PMR to be abolished? The minister said that these two exams will be replaced with the school assessment. "As such, the UPSR and PMR could be used to pick students for residential schools or streaming. " Base on the comment made by DPM. How do we measure the student performance if both exams held internally? Different schools will definitely have different standards. This will be unfair and it will lead to the fight among the parents, among the teachers and among the students. Second question, how they want to choose students who get to study at boarding school or daily school? Are they going to pick the name randomly like what they did with the National Services candidates? This will also lead to the misunderstanding and trouble in the future. Third question, how about the so-many-type of school such as cluster school lah, smart school lah, and others to be classified if these two exams be abolished? Coz there would be no proper yardstick for the students' performance and schools' ranking. It seems like they try to create something that oppose to their first creation. Then, regarding to the teachers, when public exams are abolished, teachers will not be as creative as what the minister expected. When there is no public exam pressure, most teachers will take teaching likely. Syllabus need not be completed and students will take lessons likely. Weaker students will just ignore lessons in classes. Truancy will increase. Currently, teachers teaching exam classes face the pressure to produce good results. They have to conduct extra classes if they cannot finish the syllabus. With no public exam, teachers will not be bothered if they cannot complete the syllabus. Since exams are conducted internally, they just set questions on topics that they had covered. And the rakyat must be wonder how much research has been done on this? What is the alternative PRACTICAL mode to be introduced to help students to become more imaginative in their approach in their reasoning and adaptation to the changing world. All the details are unknown and with a declaration, changes are made. As it is, the fault in the educational system needs more than just a mere announcement that we are going to do this or that. We need a total revamp in the approach, not just the abolition of tests/examinations. And will the minister, please explain what are the actual changes? One day, he says we need to add 1student 1sport, next to include Tamil and Mandarin and now abolished UPSR and PMR. It is very confusing with these flip flop decisions. Because there were so many plans, so many idea to change this and that. It should be done with the proper study first before easily put it on practice. We are just trying to kid ourselves that we can find revolutionary method to change the level of education overnight. Please stick to the fundamentals first before introducing further changes which the majority of the students will not be able to cope with. Maybe the real thing that should be abolished is the Education & Higher Education Ministries instead of UPSR and PMR. What the country needs is an Education Commission appointed by the King to supervise and set standards. At the state level, there should be Education Boards. Allow greater choices in education. But if they still want to abolish these two exams, I would love to suggest a step further. Just mention that there will be NO EXAMS at all and everybody will be guaranteed a job after completing SPM. No need for teachers or schools or books for that matter. So it will be easier when the student go for the interview later where the interviewers don’t need to ask anything at all. Otherwise, just be firm and enough of with the flip flop decisions.

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