The 1A Grand Prix

17 March 2007

The SPM results were announced last week. Students throughout the country finally ended their wait. Again there was brouhaha as to who scored the most number of 1As in the country. Some people jumped the gun by announcing to the whole country that a student from their neighbourhood had obtained 19 1As even before the results were officially announced by the Ministry of Education. They later learnt an embarrassing lesson that they should have been a little bit patient when the said student fell a little short of expectation by getting only 14 1As 2 2As and 1 3B. Even the PM was dragged into the ensuing row when he told the Malay paper which published the story to apologize to the student and her family for causing false hope.

At the other end of the country a student from religious stream scored 17 1As and 1 2A, which even beat the current record of 17 1As achieved in 2004, did not get publicized in the mainstream newspapers for reasons known only to them. When asked to comment on it, the Education Ministry DG said a student was considered the best only if she got all 1As. The logic of the DG completely baffles me. So folk, next time tell your kids not to take more than the minimum subjects because she’ll risk getting a 2A, ruin her chance of becoming a best student and your chance as happy parents to put your pictures in the newspaper too.

With so many smart students trying to outsmart the others, it is a matter of time a student will try to get 25 1As and commit suicide because she only gets 24 1As. Some quarters are pushing the authority to put a cap on the maximum number of subjects to stop the rat race of top scorers. It seems we are putting too much emphasis on our girls to get more As than the girl next door. If the number of As is any indication of our improved quality of students and education we will have no problem of producing 20 Noble laureates by 2020 as inspired by our former PM. But education is not just memorizing and regurgitating facts. It needs creativity and new ideas and somebody who is dare to push them forward and challenge existing convention. A student who thinks she is worthless because she only gets 24 As out of 25 is unlikely to pursue something new because she is afraid of failure. All her school life she expects and gets perfect score but real life is not an exam with specified curriculum. Failure is part of life’s learning process. The Americans and the Europeans do not take as many subjects in their secondary school but come out as inventors and pioneers in almost all fields of knowledge. The richest man in the world for 13th year in a row, Bill Gates, failed at university and yet contributed so much to our daily life. What originality have we achieved in the field of knowledge other than blatant copying of software and intellectual property of other people? With so much emphasis on rote learning, sometimes I wonder what kind of childhood my five year old son will have when he is burdened with homework every day.

The other thing I was wondering was whether any boy took SPM last year. Does SPM really stand for Sijil Perempuan Malaysia? All the top scorers are girls. What is happening to people of my gender? Are they going towards extinction? Are we evolving into Mat Gian and Mat Rempits? Are we becoming dumber and dumber? Hey you guys out there, I need some answers.

On good economic figures, jobless graduates and the next general election

There have been a lot of speculations about the date of the next general election in the press lately. I am not sure whether this is a sign of an impending general election or just another news item to divert the public opinion from a real issue. The signs are there: good economic figures, victory from recent by-election in Batu Talam, and talks within BN coalition members of seat allocations. But despite the good economic indicators being splashed in the papers almost everyday, living expenses are up, foreign factories are closing down leaving for cheaper countries and more graduates find themselves going after fewer jobs.

I am not sure if the majority of the people are benefiting from the supposedly good economic performance. Toll rates are up and so are prices of essential goods. Unemployment is rampant. Only today the NST reports that too many people are chasing too few jobs in the public sector to the point that graduates are also applying for jobs which do not need university qualifications. For every vacancy advertised by a government department the number of applicants easily exceed the number of available places by 100 to 1. Although looking at the positive side this can be interpreted as more people are now choosing to work for the government possibly because of better perks, it could also mean these people are unmarketable in the private sector. In other words, they have no other choice. They simply are not at par with the demands of the better paid private sectors. As for the date of the next general election, I think the best indicator so far would be to look out for Umno flag poles being erected, their branch office signboards being put up or repainted, and Umno men roaming around with party membership forms. It proved to be accurate in the 2003 election. Most likely it will be accurate again this time around. I believe that when the Umno flag poles are up, the poll will soon follow.

5 March 2007.