I would like to add to the discussion as to the decline of our nation’s education standards. As I am in active service, I can only use a pseudonym.

Let me start with a positive. Our government has realised, albeit a bit late, that good teachers form the cornerstone of the efforts to nurture our education system back to health.

Let us acknowledge the fact - our education standards have been deteriorating over the years and I fear we have not yet hit bottom. So for those not in the education sector, many may not realise that the salary scheme for teachers has been much improved in recent years.

As such the Education Ministry’s efforts at recruiting high-quality people to the education sector and retaining them in the service have been successful (insofar as information received for the first few batches of these graduate teachers trained for primary schools).

Like our neighbour Singapore, we have a centralised education system but our Education Ministry has not been able to take advantage of this factor. We suffer from the political interference that had and is wrecking havoc into what a coherent curriculum ought to have achieved. They have been too much experimentation with our curriculum that are not based on sound education theories but the whims and fancies of politicians.

When a good policy like the teaching of Science and Mathematics in English (in the context that it was an acknowledgement of the importance of English in the digital age) was implemented, again it is political considerations that forced its cancellation.

If the public examinations results are valid, there can be no reason why our education standards are so low when compared against international norms. Teachers know public examinations results have been tweaked so that the government can claim improved examination results year in and year out.

It really is time to make our public examinations once again have the credibility and validity it ought to have.

Effective school leaders and principals are crucial to sustaining a high-quality teaching workforce and having strong student performance. This again is where our Education Ministry has failed because it is but part of the practice where political considerations and other factors played a large part in who gets promoted instead of whether the person is the best candidate!

Adopt best practices

Until and unless our Education Ministry starts to adopt the best practices in appointing school leaders, we will not see the benefits of having recruited high-quality people into the teaching profession bear fruits further down the line.

Professional development is very important to ensure teacher’s are kept abreast of current developments and developing creative innovative teaching strategies. Yet our Education Ministry is giving lip service to this very important component of nurturing a healthy school environment.

I can only speak of my own personal experience - the in-house training programs  given are usually an eyewash, all very good in printed form and for reporting to the authorities but lacking any real substance. This will definitely be one aspect effective school leaders can improve - they will be able to ensure such courses enable teachers to continuously share best practices rather than just go through the motions of having in-house training.

I have no illusions that anything I have written here is unknown to the powers-that-be. The only crunch is whether there really is the political will to improve our education system for future generations of Malaysians.