Doubts remain despite suspension of School-Based Assessment

Parents and teachers who have been critical of the school-based assessment (PBS) system are happy over its indefinite suspension.

However, they remain doubtful whether the comprehensive review being done by the Education Ministry would solve all the issues plaguing the system introduced in primary schools in 2011 and secondary schools in 2012.

SGMM (Suara Guru Masyarakat Malaysia or Voices of the Malaysian Teachers Community), a vocal group that protested on Feb 22 at a mosque over the issue, on Monday thanked the Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin for the ‘quick response’ in putting the system on hold.

“While we are still pushing for it being abolished, this is a correct decision by the ministry,” said SGMM chief Mohd Nor Izzat Mohd Johari, who claimed that he was recently transferred after voicing out on the issue.

Teachers nationwide, said the visual arts teacher from secondary school in Pahang, are now confused over the minister’s orders as a circular is normally issued on major policy changes such as this.

“At this point, nothing is official. There are still teachers forced to do their PBS, but we are proud that the education ministry are trying their best to help the teachers,” he said.

Mohd Nor Izzat said that he hoped that the Ministry will give at least one to three years before implementing an improved PBS.

“The old PBS was tested for five years, so any improvements this time should at least take a few years to iron out the weaknesses,” he said.

Mohd Nor Izzat said that the biggest issue remains the ratio of teachers to students.

“We have one teacher doing PBS for 50 students whereas in Findland and Austra it is only 15 students. We should copy what those country are doing,” he said.

Other issues involve: the management of documents, slow internet lines, the way the students are assessed.

“We need courses from the top to bottom to make the PBS objective. We can’t have schools giving different grades too subjectively,” he said.

Meanwhile, PAGE (Parent Action Group for Education), which has also expressed happiness at the latest developments, urged for parents to also be consulted during this process of review.

“While the ministry engages teachers, they forget that parents are major stakeholders,” said PAGE chairman Datin Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim.

She also said that the PBS issue should not have been allowed to go on for three years without an intervention process.

“The minister himself should have been checking on the implementation, weekly, to quickly fix the problem when there are deviations. We should have never allowed the problem to fester to this level, now are we looking at abolishing it suddenly like the PPSMI?” she asked.

Noor Azimah said that there should be more dialogue and engagement especially at school levels so that parents know how their children are doing at school.

“One of the most upsetting things is that the assessment is so lengthy that to this day parents don't know how their children did, unless they go to the office and ask for it specifically and even that would take a few days.

“Imagine the predicament of a parents, not knowing how their children doing for the last three years, whether they need remedial action. It’s time to clean up this mess,” she said.