THE SHOTFALL OF MALAYSIA EDUCATION SYSTEM

Education is a major contributor to the development of our social and economic capital. It inspires
creativity and fosters innovation; provides our youth with the necessary skills to be able to compete in
the modern labour market; and is a key driver of growth in the economy. And as this Government puts
in place measures under the New Economic Model, Economic Transformation Plan and Government
Transformation Plan to place Malaysia firmly on the path to development, we must ensure that our
education system continues to progress in tandem. By doing so, our country will continue to keep pace
in an increasingly competitive global economy (Prime Minister of Malaysia: Dato Seri Najib Tun Razak,
Malaysia academic blueprint). The question is, does our education system fulfill its requirement to
achieve our country vision? There are a few issues regarding this. So I would like to give points to
support the question which are first, our country have many graduates and yet they are unemployed.
Second, upon studying majority of student did not actually studies the program they need to so they can
have the work of their ambition. Last but not least, our education system only measure ones capability
of memorizing instead of the person intelligence.
A. Unemployed graduates
1. Malaysia have a lot of graduates but unfortunately they are unemployed
a. Their certificate did not fulfill companys requirement
i. Some of universities are not recognized by the company
2. Lack of soft-skills
a. Graduates does not perform well during interview
i. Unable to tackle interviewer thus failed to secure job
ii. Soft-skills are not being teach and practices during studies
3. Graduates facing employment woes usually had very little hands-on experience in
their education
a. Single hands-on experience alone is not enough
i. Students need more then only one practical session
ii. When working, students might be exposed to unusual situation


B. Student does not offered the program they want in furthering studies
1. Every person has ambition therefore students need to attend certain program to achieve
their ambition.
a. UPU often choose student randomly instead of their first choice of program
i. Certain jobs need specific academic certificate
ii. Without this, student will not be able to work in the job field that they dream of
2. Lack of interest
a. Does not study seriously.
i. Does not perform well in study
ii. Leads to bad CGPA
iii. Thus they will have difficulties in getting job
3. It is better to pursue your ambition and pay the bills instead of do what you hate for living
a. If we do what we like, we will do it full-hearted
b. Problem comes when we work in things that we dislike
i. Have less toleration
ii. We will get bored easily thus bad working performance





C. Examination only measure ones ability of memorizing instead of ones level of intelligence.
1. Intelligence is
a. the tendency to take and maintain a direction
b. adjustment or adaptation to the environment
c. global capacity to act purposefully, think rationally, and deal effectively
d. the ability to plan and structure behavior
e. the process of acquiring storing, retrieving, comparing memory
f. the ability to solve genuine problems or difficulties
(Sattler, J. M. (1992). Assessment of children (3rd ed.). San Diego, CA: Author.)
2. Current examinations unable to measure ones intelligence
a. our public examination (UPSR and SPM) does not measure intelligence
i. it only measures student effort in memorizing fact
3. Different people may have different kind of intelligence level
a. Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will live its
whole life believing that it is stupid (Albert Einstein)
b. We should add different types of examination rather than depending only on the
current examination that we have.


So, based on points above, we strongly believed that our education system does not
fulfill its requirement to achieve our country vision as what the Prime Minister expect it
will be. Thus there are few things the country could do to overcome this problem. First
and foremost is to actually listen and think of what citizens thoughts. Second is to offer
wide range of jobs to graduate which suits their academic results and program. Third is
to let students learn what they want, not what they have to. Last but not least is
demolishing public examinations and replace it with tests depends on their ability.
Therefore, we hope that our education system can be improve so that our 2020 Vision is
not only a dream but a reality that will bring goods to both leaders and citizens.