latest workbook: science form 4

My latest workbook co-written with another two authors is finally in the market. It is published under Marshall Cavendish (or better known as Federal Publications).

Practise 'n' Excel Science Form 4 is based on the latest KBSM syllabus in English language.

Pros: SPM-type questions, reasonable price, reliable publisher, good looking cover (different from the typical workbooks you normally see in the bookshops).

Cons: Quality of the paper used, the key points are too wordy (preferably add in more pictures or diagrams).

science and math in English: the real challenge

When I read the news about students suing the government over its policy to teach Science and Mathematics in English, I was really excited because there will be a recent court case to be discussed in my educational law class.

At the same time, I felt disgusted because the four students were being manipulated just for the sake of the adults' (the people behind the scene which includes their fathers) political agenda. One of the student is only a Year Four student! For me, the father of this kid has already violated his responsibility as a father and denied his son's rights for better education (I bet many students don't know their rights yet).

I do agree that we must uphold the national language. At the same time we must also emphasize on the importance of English language. In fact, I believe students in kebangsaan schools should study both Science and Mathematics in two languages, Malay and English. However, I know this is not going to happen due to a lot of reasons like higher cost, lack of teachers and time constraint.

Malaysia's educational plan 2001-2010

As a postgraduate student, there are are many times when I failed to get enough resources to do my assignment particularly things that are related to Malaysian education. Perhaps it is because there are not enough transparency in our education system. Hence, most of the resources are either outdated or incomplete.

Not long ago I got hold of the complete Malaysia's educational plan. It is called Pembangunan Pendidikan 2001-2010. It covers the government plans for primary, secondary and tertiary levels. To download the content page of the educational plan in 10 years, kindly click here: Pembangunan Pendidikan 2001-2010

The text is in Bahasa Malaysia and in pdf format.

For more information or if you are interested to have the complete file, kindly send me an email.

utopian schools

When I was a student, I always heard of the word 'utopia'. The word fascinates me and I wonder if it's achievable. After all, 'utopia' means 'ideally perfect place'.

Lately, I've been thinking about 'utopian schools' and how we can have it to apply to Asian educational environment. Hardly anyone talks about educational utopias anymore. Instead we all seem to be too caught up with exam results, school violence, teachers burnout and so-called excellence.

I've read an article saying that the early 1970s gave rise to exciting books like George Leonard's Education and Ecstasy and John Mann's Learning to Be, which painted fantasy pictures of futuristic schools that educated the total spectrum of human capability.

In Leonard's book, children used computer-assisted technology to interact with humanity's rich collection of symbol systems. Mann's book described a utopian school where children attended "empathy classes" and simulated trips to Mars. Just 30 years later, some of these fantasies seem laughably outdated, whereas others are just now being realized. In their time, however, these books revealed a freshness of vision and an unabashed impulse to explore the heights of possibility in education. We just don't seem to do much exploring in this hardheaded era.

I've checked the UM Main Library and it seems that both books are printed in the 1960s and 1970s. I'm going to get hold of those books later.

In 1983, we saw the development of the remarkable theory of multiple intelligences (MI) by Dr Howard Gardner which sets a new paradigm for educational utopia. Most of us know what multiple intelligences are. In Malaysia, we have kindergartens and even publishers who tried to market their products and services by exploiting Gardner's model without fully understand its structure.

I love the idea of educational utopia. I wish that someday our ministry of education will be interested as well.

UM aiming a higher "Intl Student Score" in 2006

Uni has just reopened for second semester. This is my second year here in UM doing my postgraduate degree.

I've registered for the two final papers. One of them is leadership which I'll be taking together with a new batch of postgraduate students (other coursemates who are in the same batch with me already taken this paper during the first year).

I attended the first lecture last Saturday. To my surprise, 25% of the students in the seminar room are "international students" and they are all from differents parts of China. I thought they must be muslims and from Xian or Xinjiang but I was wrong. Some are from the northern part of China, others from Shenzen and Guangdong.

Perhaps this is a good sign. I believe UM is trying its best to improve the "International Student Score" in 2006.

if you have a kid or sibling in Year 4...

I have three copies of Science Year 4 revision books to be given away.

The title of the book is called New Vision Science Year 4 (published by SNP Panpac or better known as Eastview) and it is based on the latest syllabus.

The book comes with a free CD-ROM. I wrote the book but the CD-ROM is not my idea. In this book, there are easy to understand notes and the questions are pretty much UPSR-oriented.

I only have three copies to be given away. You don't have to pay a single sen (shipping is free as well). Just send me your name and address to my e-mail address.

non-Malay students must take Bahasa Melayu seriously

If you are a parent and your kids are among the batches of students studying Math and Science in English, I suggest you take my advice seriously.

Most students particularly non-Malays who spend limited hours learning in Bahasa Melayu, are seeing their standard dropping drastically compared to students before the implementation. My observations are based on the writing skills of urban kids in areas such as Petaling Jaya and Subang Jaya. The standard of Bahasa Melayu for primary level is in fact more critical than the secondary level (because students in secondary level gained more exposure when they were in primary level).

Many parents and students might not take this seriously and think that Bahasa Melayu is not an important subject. But let's not forget that Bahasa Melayu is a compulsory subject in the SPM level. It is useless if you get As in other compulsory subjects and elective papers but do not pass in Bahasa Melayu.

I urge students especially the non-Malays to start looking for tutors to improve their writing and reading skills in Bahasa Melayu. Or at least start reading Utusan or Berita Harian to enhance their language ability.

the real picture of orientation programme in local university

I refer to the letter Respect Freshmen, too by Malaysian in Foreign Land (StarEducation, Aug 21).

I would like to clarify that when I stated that all orientation programmes are similar in my previous letter, I am positively aware that local universities do organise their formal orientation activities similarly to the experience Malaysian in Foreign Land had in his university.

I will share the kind of experience I had when I was studying in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). When I arrived in UKM, seniors were the ones that greeted all freshmen and parents. After registration at our hostel (college), we were equipped with a case full of necessary information we needed for the one-week programme. Then the seniors directed us to our respected rooms and ensured we were happy with our new living spaces.

During the first day of orientation, we were introduced to the seniors whom we addressed as facilitators. We went through proper ice-breaking activities which were all indoor activities. We formed groups of multi-racial members and each group was lead by a facilitator who shared with us about the life in university. We were constantly reminded by the facilitators to be grateful to our parents and not to take things for granted after all our hard work to enter the university.

We were asked to wake up at 5.30 a.m. every day. Before morning exercise, we were given speeches by facilitators who sounded tough and serious. The real challenge throughout the orientation programme was that we needed to be physically fit to jog in the morning and to go through tough activities in the evening. We also had to walk to the library, faculty or main hall to attend seminars or social meetings. We were told the places around the university that we can go and the transportation service available. These facilitators sacrificed their time and energy to guide us throughout the week. They had to be tough to jog along with us too. Every day we would sleep at 1 or 2 a.m. As for the facilitators, we knew some of them never sleep at all just to prepare for the orientation on the next day.

The problems occurred when some freshmen ignored to instructions or show no respect. They overslept, lack of cooperation among the freshmen, did not greet the seniors, forgot to wear their nametags, played truant, etc. Hence seniors will resolve to scolding or humiliating them in front of everyone. The worst punishment would be from facilitators who were in the Palapes (Reserve Officers Training Unit).

I have family member and friends who studied in UM and USM and they never complain about their orientation programmes. Instead, the UM friends and my brother who studied in USM said they were pampered by their seniors throughout their first year in university. Everything were nicely planned and prepared for them, from second-hand textbooks and notes to assisting them in the PTPTN loan applications.

In my opinion, whether it is orientation programme or even regular motivational activities, there are always some participants who are not interested to get involve and often end up labelling the activities as silly. Some of the activities carried out by the seniors might not be as creative as we want it to be. Perhaps when these freshmen become seniors they can reinforce creativity in the orientation programme. It is more proper to show their leadership skills and pro-activeness to change for the better rather than just complaining and painting the wrong pictures to their parents and public about local universities. Let us not forget that orientation programme is run by students themselves.

nightmare orientation? come on!

I laughed when I read in The Star, a comment by a worried parent about her son's "nightmarish" orientation in UM.

The funniest part was her rather sarcastic bout the seniors in the medical faculty.

Life in UM is not what he thought it would be – it's been rather like living together with a group of gangsters or in a secret society. Medical faculty students are future doctors.

I did not do my undergraduate programme in UM but I can guarantee you that almost all universities have the same kind of orientation. Come on, there is no big deal with about seniors trying to intimidate the freshies just to show them what respect and the real life away from parents might be. The one-week orientation week is just a small challenge to the mostly pampered freshies.

I've been through humiliation as well during my orientation week; I was asked to sing in the public, then being laughed because of my 'Kuantan-Cantonese' (which is slightly different from KL and Ipoh. Not to mentioned the torture of wearing the same orientation t-shirt for days, waking up at 5 am having to jog for hours, having swollen feet, and lecturing from the seniors who never failed to remind us not to be cocky. And yes, we only went to bed at 2 am. And for the guys, there were room service waiting for them every night.

When I looked back or chat with my friends about our uni experience, we loved to talked about the funny and intimidating moments during our orientation. We laughed the fact that we were so naive and weak.

To the worried parents, she just need to let her son to be on his own and learn to be independent. If she wants her son to be involved in motivational activities, asked him to join camps or society. Orientation week is definitely not similar to national service.

Ministry of Higher Education vs Vice Chancellor

I supposed our Minister of Higher Education, Datuk Dr. Shafie Salleh agreed to retain the continued service of Prof Dr. Mohamad Zohadie as Vice Chancellor of Universiti Putra Malaysia despite the controversial poem issue and his objection to the transfer of UPM’s Aerospace Engineering programme to Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

And let's not forget the involvement of Dr. Shafie to recall the resignation of Dr. Terence Gomez of the University of Malaya, who was initially rejected of a two-year leave application to be based in Geneva after being appointed by the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) as the Project Manager for the research area on Identity, Conflict and Social Cohesion.

However I question the constant interference and involvement of the Ministry of Higher Education which seems to contradict with the decisions made by the VC. I somehow believe this will indirectly threatening the position and the credibility of not only the VC but also the universities themselves.

reasons to be a teacher

When I read today's paper (The Star), I came across a comment by a teacher's child who complained her dad sacrificing too much time in his job, as a teacher.

It is pretty sad because she doesn't understand the meaning of being a teacher. A teacher doesn't work from 9 to 5. A teacher must be ready to sacrifice their time for his students; to assist his students in curriculum and co-curriculum. Probably the job doesn't end there. A teacher needs to be a responsible mentor, advisor and counsellor.

From my observation, more and more teachers are spending their time not only conducting their own tuition classes but also attending undergraduate (mostly in primary levels) and postgraduate studies after working hours and on weekend. (Related blog: 8 reasons why teachers are not overburdened)

If you are thinking of becoming an educator or teacher just because you believe this is the last choice of career you have (many jobless graduates resorted to this job, if you read the forum in cikgunet), you better wait for other job opportunity instead. For existing teachers, hold on to your mission and belief when you first chose to dedicate your life in teaching.

Every Monday night, I try not to miss the show Boston Public. Each week, this gritty drama will look into the personal and professional lives of dedicated teachers in Winslow High School. Principal, Steven Harper, together with his vice principal, Scott Guber, will tackle all the issues that revolves around their school, from confronting bullies to handling irate parents and of course solving disputes between their own staff.

This show is highly recommended for teachers, teacher-wannabes, parents and students. These are the teachers that we all are looking for.

8 reasons why teachers are not overburdened

Recently the Ministry of Education and National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) claimed that teachers from four states (Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Johor and Malacca) are overburdened in their job particularly with the addition of new subjects and extra duties related to co-curricular and curricular activities. Here are the reasons why I don't think so.

1. Science and Mathematics are not new subjects. Teachers are paid extra incentives under the program ETeMS (English for Teaching Mathematics and Science).

2. Co-curricular activities are compulsory. Stop complaining or quit being a teacher.

3. Teachers spend extra hours after school to give tuition under the tuition voucher scheme (Skim Baucer Tuisyen) which financially benefited them.

4. Teachers spending 74 hours per week? That's 12.33 hours per day for 6 days? You mean they are working in school from 7.30 a.m. -8.00 p.m. on Saturday as well?

5. Teachers are spending 38 days feasting instead of training.

6. Teachers filled in 108 types of forms. For example, annual leave form, emergency leave form, cuti bersalin form, etc.

7. Teachers complain so that the ministry will sympathize and agree to shortened the time spent in school. This will allow them to have extra hours for tuition business.

8. The complaining teachers are teachers who do not have passion in teaching. (Don't they watch Boston Public?. Mr Harper and his teachers works from day to night and they never complain.)

5 questionable assumptions about schooling in Malaysia

1. The aim of schooling is to get all students to the same place at about the same time.

The education system expects students at the age of 15 to sit for PMR and by 17 or 18 to complete SPM. Hence below average students who were automatically promoted to Form 4 (although they didn't do well in PMR) struggle in SPM.

I once encountered a Year 6 student who can't even write a proper sentence in English nor Bahasa Melayu. Her parents asked permission from school to allow their daughter to study Year 6 for another year. However the school principal objected as it will affected the school track record. The girl failed in UPSR and continued to struggle in secondary school.

2. A teacher should work with 30-40 students for an academic year, and then students should move to another teacher.

Usually teachers resist working with the same group of students for two or three years period. It is understandable that teachers want to teach the same level or subjects as it makes their job easier.

By the time teacher get to know the students and their parents better, the students move on to another teacher.

3. The best form of school organization is age-grading.
This assumption is related to the previous two. The idea is very simply whereby children of the same age should be grouped together. The age-graded school system is an administrative convenience but has very little to do with what we know about child development.

4. The best way to identify schools that work well is to examine their students' test scores.

Principal, teachers, students, parents and the society judges a school through test scores. However, the function of school is broader and deeper. There is more in life than exams like co-curriculum, school's contributions, etc.

With the recent cheerleading competition at the national level, at least I see some good sign that schools are being honoured for something else besides tests.

5. The primary content that students learn in school is what their teachers intend to teach them.

Some proactive students tend to crave for more information than what the teachers intend to teach them. While teachers will teach according to the national syllabus, some teachers only teach what's in the book without further explanation or giving any good examples.

Instead of being textbook- or workbook- based, teachers should encourage students to find more information through research of certain topics that interest them.

orientation week - the nightmare

It's orientation week (or rather registration week) in University of Malaya.

Initially I didn't realise it eventhough I saw a huge number of students (freshies) in their uniforms (some wearing black t-shirts, some in pink and some in yellow). I thought there was an expo or a PMR seminar going on in the campus. These freshies look very young (or in another word childish) and you won't deny that most of them are being treated like secondary school kids by their facilitators.

It reminds me of my orientation week many many years ago. It was a dream come true for me to go to the university of my choice (I went to UKM during one educational trip and immediately had a good image of the university). However, the orientation itself was a nightmare. The facilitators and seniors were so mean that I never seek help from them throughout my entire years there.

The overused word by the seniors which I will remember for the rest of my life was "cocky" (we, the innocent freshies were already scared to death to be away from our family for the first time and this was the word used to address us in their every sentence).

Nevertheless, one thing good about the orientation was I shed a lot of weights due to heavy exercises and torturing. Then of course I didn't get used to the food and I lost appetite to eat. I easily lost 15kg after the orientation week. Pretty amazing, huh?

Coming back to the orientation week here in UM, I realised that a huge percentage of these undergraduates are female. We are aware of the gap between female and male in universities even few years back but somehow I think the issue is getting out of hand now. So, where are the guys?

even Prince William studied geography

So, why geography is not made a compulsory subject in the SPM level?

In the Chinese education, geography is said to be one of the most important subject. It teaches you about the relationship and impact between people and its environment.

Now we see Prince William graduated with a master of arts degree in geography. Then I came to know this quote by Albert Einstein, the greatest scientist ever. Here's what he said about geography:

"As a young man, my fondest dream was to become a geographer. However, ... I thought deeply about the matter and concluded it was too difficult a subject. With some reluctance I then turned to physics as a substitute." ~ Albert Einstein

He must be kidding, wasn't he? Perhaps this is the reason why our ministry of education only make it an elective subject in the SPM level.

so, all the top scorers are doctors?

It seems that all our top scorers only see medicine as the only choice for them. I really don't understand why they have to limit the sky and opportunity in other fields other than medicine?

Are our top scorers only a bunch of nerds who are only good in memorizing medical terminology but not good enough to make millions of ringgit in the business world?

There are variety of careers out there. Besides being a doctor, wouldn't it be great if we have some of the brainiest people to be the best archeologist who made important and historical discovery to our country or to the world? Or perhaps becoming an economist who win the first Nobel Prize for the country? Or even a geologist who constantly appear in National Geographic to share his expertise?

In the end, it really makes no sense to me that top scorers only wants to be doctors.

SPM is not a record-breaking ground

I'm totally agree with V.K. Chin's comment in The Star today. It is definitely the time to give scholarships to those who do well in STPM and who have been offered places at local and foreign universities. It is time for us to recognise STPM instead of focusing and giving all the credits at SPM level.

Each year we generate a long list of students who score strings of As (and not to mention the increase of passing rates in almost all subjects). And each year, we can also expect students breaking records with the most number of As. I was wondering since when we have turned SPM into a record-breaking event. Perhaps early next year, we are going to witness another great story about our SPM 2005 top scorer who strikes 18As or more.

STPM losing it's value

Recently there's a lot of debates about the transparency and credibility of PSD. So, I'm not going to talk about that issue but rather discuss on the quality of SPM and what is the value of STPM.

Each year the Minister of Education will announce good news on how students improve in almost all the subjects. We all know how the scoring system works. And each year, we will read in the paper how students breaking records by scoring strings of As. I'm not sure if this is only happening in our country. Probably in the coming years, we will have a top SPM scorer achieving 20As. It's not impossible, really.

Although STPM is known as one of the toughest examination in the world, I really believe that it's losing it's value in our very own country. We emphasize too much on SPM and life after that which is going to college or doing matriculation. In the end, STPM is like the last choice.

It is the time for the Ministry of Education to uphold the standard of STPM. Instead of focusing on SPM students and its problems each year, PSD should emphasize on STPM high achievers by increasing their chances of getting scholarships. PSD should make it necessary for their scholars to have a better foundation through STPM before sending them off to overseas. STPM students are more mature thinkers and have better understanding of their dream career. An extra 2 years of studies do make a lot of difference in a person character. After all, PSD is not only looking for high achiever but someone who's a well-rounder with good personality.

Malaysian education system is not the worst

It is simply ridiculous when I read someone's blog saying that local universities websites are so Frontpage. Perhaps these people should do some homework before they make such judgment.

Our education system or universities are definitely not something that we are proud of. However, if anyone of you do read educational journals you will realize that our system is far from being the lousiest. Even countries like the United States and Great Britain are dissatisfy with their own systems.

Most of the time, the people who complain about the local education system do not experience the system themselves or they failed. They complained about the double standard treatment against non-bumi, disagree with the usage of Malay language, make remark that local uni graduates are usually jobless, etc. I would say that if you work and and strive for what you believe, entering the best local uni and offered the best course is not even a problem. Most local graduates (who are non-Malays) are well-versed in English and Malay (and even Mandarin) and they were offered some of the best jobs. From what I've observed through interviews, local graduates (mostly Chinese candidates) are the most hardworking, ethical and fast learners.

advance in technology but not quality?

Yesterday, I read with interest the report on “E-report card” (Sunday Star, May 15).

Credit should be given to the Ministry of Education (MOE) for initiating to build a comprehensive database of all primary and secondary students. Being an educator who are technology savvy, I truly support this project. Similar concept has been widely used in higher education institutions and proven to be successful.

However, there are a couple of things that MOE should look into when implementing this project.

If you ask any teachers why he or she choose to teach, the answer is most likely the same: they love to teach and want children to learn through the process. The first thing that I learned (and will always remember) during my first lecture was the mission of a learning institution.

Teachers’ job function is to ensure effective teaching and learning. As mentioned by the National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) secretary-general Lok Yim Pheng, teachers should focus more on teaching and less clerical and non-professional work.

Database entry and information updates on monthly basis are tedious work. Moreover, teachers are used to record students’ attendance, grades and co-curriculum achievements manually.

It is not clear if this implementation will transform these tasks from manual to paperless. There should not be double work whereby teachers have to upload and transfer their manual records into their individual school’s server. If these need to be done, teachers’ assistants should be appointed to do the administrative work instead.

While it is convenient for parents to check their children’s performance online, we should continue the tradition whereby parents are invited to attend schools’ Open Day to get their children’s report cards.

This is a better way to keep an excellent two-way communication between parents and teachers. With the many issues revolve around the schools, personal touch is still the ideal medium for information exchange between the two parties.

We are slowly transforming our education environment to become technology-enabled. While there are many positive changes taking place, teachers should remain focus on their core duty and build better relationship with parents to ensure effective teaching and learning.