In the past week, concerns regarding the syllabus in Malaysian schools were brought to light as the public called for an improvement to the way our children are being taught.
According to the Minister of Education, Datuk Radzi Jidin, although the current syllabus for primary school students will be used until the end of this year, they are currently re-evaluating the primary school syllabus.
MoE has also assured the people that they are open to all views and ideas from all parties, including teachers and parents themselves so that no one is left behind.
Recently, a Malaysian father who is currently living in the US shared his experience and made comparison between the syllabus in American school versus ours.
In a Facebook post, Saif Suhairi said that the syllabus of students in Grade 1 in the US (kids aged 6-7) is the same as what Malaysian kindergarteners (ages 4 to 6) learn.
Differences in syllabus
In his first point, Saif said that syllabus wise, kids in standard 1 have already started to learn the multiplication table whilst in the US, kids in first grade have only started to trace numbers like Malaysian 4-year-olds.
“Is that good or not? Seems to be a bit slow. I’m on the fence about this. They only start multiplication in Grade 3. It’s very slow but here, it will only start to pick up in middle school and high school.”
“Maybe here they want to let kids in primary school play and enjoy school more first. But if there are advanced students, they have programmes to cater to that level. There’s a mechanism for them to handle kids at different levels,” he explained.
No books to bring home!
In his second point, Saif highlighted that kids in the US do not have to bring their books back home and can just leave it at school.
“They just bring home their Dell laptops (each kid gets one), and a file for homework or what they did in school that day. Normally classwork would be done on paper. Most would be left at school unless the teacher tells to bring home to show us their progress,” he said.
Less students per class
Meanwhile, in his third and final point, Saif made comparisons between the class sizes in the schools of both countries.
“The standard here is in class there are 20 students. At most 25. Each class will have a teacher and an assistant. The teacher focuses on teaching and the other one will focus on making kids understand, pass paper, ask kids to behave and more.”
“This allows the teacher to be more calm and focused on the development of the kids” he added.
In his conclusion, he said that as a Malaysian living elsewhere, he feels that Malaysia should once and for all choose the most effective method and stick to it.
“Right now, every time there’s a change of government/PM/minister, the policy will change. I don’t think that it’s good for the education of our younger generation. The most important thing is that they have critical thinking. We must support then not cross them,” concluded Saif.
What do you think of the comparisons? Should Malaysia take a page out of the book of the American education system?
Also read: “Should’ve started an engineering class” – M’sians Criticise Tough Syllabus for Standard 2 Students
