Describing it as the right time for the government to rebrand the Form Six education, the National Union of Teaching Profession (NUTP) hopes that more attention will be given to achieve a balance in cocurricular and academic activities.

Its general-secretary, Lok Yim Pheng, said currently both activities in the Form Six education were uneven, with more focus being put on academic matters.

“We have to restructure this to make it balanced,” she told Bernama in Kuala Lumpur today.

Yesterday, Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin announced that  Form Six education would undergo rebranding to raise its image in line with pre-university education.

This included separating the Sixth Form students from the normal schools and placing them in special study centres.    

 

Lok said the NUTP believed that the announcement by Muhyiddin was relevant with the current demand and hoped that the move would be studied in-depth.

In addition, she said the NUTP was also of the opinion that a thorough study should be conducted on the suggestion to shorten the Form Six study programme by six months to make it similar to the duration of study for the matriculation programme.

“A study should be made to review each curriculum and syllabus as there are many of them, and there is a need to cut down the number if the Form Six study period is to be shortened,” she said.

Concurring with the suggestion that Form six students should be separated from other students, West Malaysian Malay Teachers Union president Mohamed Sabri Mohd Arsad said the students should also be treated similarly with matriculation students.

“They are actually on the same level with the matriculation students, thus they need to be separated in a new building or a another school complete with a hostel should be set up,” he said.

He said the qualification of the teachers for the Form Six students must also be improved in the process.

“For the time being, there is no shortage of Form six teachers nationwide, but if the teachers are specifically assigned to teach Form Six subjects, I believe the quality of education and the process will be more effective,” he said.

Meanwhile, a teacher who declined to be named said the rebranding would make the education system more systematic.    

“This is good, maybe after it is rebranded, the Form Six programme will have its own laws and policies and would not be mixed up with the other classes,” he said.

- Bernama