Teacher unions which attended the Education Ministry's first roundtable on the abolishing of the Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) and Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR) here today, were mostly in favour of the move.

National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) secretary-general said NUTP agreed to the move but on condition alternative mechanisms were put in place to evaluate students.

"This is important to gauge the imparting of teaching and to avoid students and teachers "going off track"," she told reporters after the meeting, which was attended by 140 representatives of academia and teachers unions including from Sabah and Sarawak, at the Putrajaya International Convention Centre (PICC),,here.

Peninsular Malay Teachers Union president Mohd Sabri Mohd Arshad said the union too agreed with the move as the functions of the two examinations were not clear cut and stressed more on cognitive ability.

 

"Evaluation is based more on pencil and paper. In other countries, like New Zealand, there is no centralised examinations.

"This move (to abolish the two examinations) is good as it will help to save costs like for printing, invigilators allowances and transportation.

Teachers burden will also be lessened and they will no longer have to focus on certain classes only," he said, adding that parents would also be less burdened as they would no longer need to send their children for tuition while teachers would not need to conduct additional classes.

‘Classes are too big’

Sabah-Sarawak Teachers Union presiden William Ghani Bina said the union also agreed to the move but on condition no additional load was placed on teachers.

He said with the move, there should no longer be any attachment teachers or untrained teachers as this would help control the quality of education.

"Also, currently class sizes are too big. This makes it difficult for teachers to interact with students," he said.

 

However, Tamil Teachers Union of Malaya president P. Pharmal Lingam said his union disagreed with the move, saying there would be no effective yardsticks of measuring students' performance in the absence of the two examinations.

Meanwhile, Education director-general Tan Sri Alimuddin Mohd Dom said valuable feedback was obtained at the roundtable which lasted three hours.

He said besides the roundtable, the education ministry was also sourcing feedback on the matter through media reports, via e-mail and letters from members of the public.

"Besides all these, were are also getting inputs from teachers and students through questionnaires," he said, adding that the final report on the matter would be completed by next month before being submitted to Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

 

– Bernama