PARENT-TEACHER associations agree that the abolishment of the Pentaksiran Tingkatan Tiga (PT3) will allow students to better embrace lifelong learning, but question whether schools can effectively execute this form of education.

Parent Action Group for Education chairman Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim said change is necessary to ensure outcomes are improved and students are kept abreast of global standards and remain relevant.

She said while the move to replace PT3 with school-based assessment (SBA) can better measure student learning, some are sceptic about the ability of teachers and readiness of the education system, she said.

Whether the removal of a national-scale examination ends in success comes down to the attitude of students and teachers, she added.

“The framework to evaluate education standard quality within schools are done at only 40% accuracy,” she told The Malaysian Insight.

“This means that schools are still grappling with assessing themselves. Until this is addressed, the repackaged PT3 will fail to produce the desired outcomes.”

She said there must be a yardstick to ensure no one is lacking or lagging behind, and remedial measures put in place for those who need them – for both students and teachers.

Education Minister Mohd Radzi Md Jidin earlier this month announced the abolishment of PT3, to be replaced with school-based assessment to strengthen the education system.

This comes after the abolishment of the Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) last year.

The SBA, introduced in local primary schools in 2011, aims to incorporate assessment in the teaching and learning process.

Teach For Malaysia training and support head Jessica Lim, however, is of a different opinion.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, she said, teachers had to ensure students continued learning while schools were closed and examinations were no longer a cause to study.

This proves just how adaptive teachers are in a system that has undergone many changes, she added.

With the abolishment of PT3, she said, teachers are less pressured to “finish” the syllabus and can teach according to their students “speed”, or conduct fun learning sessions.

“We hope the abolishment means teachers can focus less on grooming students to become excellent test-takers, and instead cultivate a sense of curiosity, love of learning and higher-order thinking skills.”

With the SBA, however, there will be difficulty to align assessment standards and quality across different teachers and schools, she added.

Lim said school leaders and teachers who are not supportive of the assessment may be inclined to see it as mere paperwork and not implement it to meaningfully assess student learning.

She said the SBA works best when parents, students, school leaders and teachers are convinced of its purpose and supportive of its implementation.

Poor execution

However, the SBA has not been working well, a teacher who wanted to remain anonymous told The Malaysian Insight.

He said there are six scales to rate a student under the system, called Tahap Penguasaan (TP), and teachers have been forced to award their students a minimum mark of TP 3.

“If they do not, they will be reprimanded by school administrators and asked why students are not achieving a (minimum mark of) TP 3.

“It is a problem as teachers need to fake the data. With SBA, sometimes teachers have to fake the data and cannot be transparent about it.”

When teachers are forced to do this, it is difficult to make room for meaningful interventions, he added.

He said the current SBA is poorly executed and implemented, but added that with proper implementation, it can allow room for growth and improve students’ mental well-being.

“It would allow students to look at learning as a lifelong process.

“It is important that this new assessment gives autonomy to teachers to decide what level their students are at, but right now that is not the case.” – June 18, 2022.