AFTER one too many policy changes in Malaysia’s education system over the years, educators are urging the government to ensure close supervision of the new classroom-based assessment system, which does away with exam-oriented learning.

They said the Education Ministry must closely supervise and coordinate its application in schools, following its introduction this year for Year One to Three pupils.

The assessment system removes the mid-year and year-end final examinations in favour of other assessment methods to track a student’s academic and character building progress.

If not, they predict that the new approach’s implementation will suffer the same way as other introductions to the education system have.

United Chinese School Teachers Association (Dong Zong) president Ong Chiew Chuan welcomed the classroom-based system but cautioned that it should be streamlined among schools, since there will be greater subjectivity in the way students’ performances are assessed.

Under the new system, students are graded through class tests and their learning progress is assessed using various non-exam-based methods.

Ong, however, said that three months since the new assessment system’s launch, teachers are encountering problems with applying it to the current standard-based primary school curriculum (KSSR), which adds more time to Bahasa Malaysia lessons and emphasises more problem-solving, project-based assignments.

“The ministry did not give comprehensive teacher training to master the KSSR curriculum and the school-based assessment system. Related agencies did not coordinate with one another, causing schools to be unsure of what to do,” he said, referring to the lack of training given before the classroom-based assessment was launched.

“In the end, it increases the teachers’ administrative work.”

A primary school principal who spoke to The Malaysian Insight on the condition of anonymity said Year One to Three teachers had to track and assess students by their participation in class, motivation, and test scores by preparing tests to assess their progress periodically.

Another principal interviewed welcomed the abolition of the mid-year and year-end exams but also worried whether the ministry was supervising educators to ensure the new classroom-based assessment was being implemented appropriately.

He said that all schools had sent representatives to attend training on the new system prior to its launch in January, but wondered if teachers were cooperating and working according to the system now.

“We are worried that if there is a lack of preparation in the implementation, this new policy will eventually fail to meet its original target,” adding that the KSSR curriculum was designed to require school-based assessments instead of using exams as a fixed yardstick.

The KSSR has been plagued with complaints from teachers after its launch in 2011 that schools were not well-prepared for it and the ministry did not give teachers sufficient time to master the curriculum.

It was last revised in 2017.

Last year, Education Minister Maszlee Malik announced that exams for pupils in Years One to Three will be abolished next year to restore the spirit and principles of the school-based assessment system .

Ong also noted that despite the positives of school and classroom-based assessment systems over fixed exams, the ministry still had to develop indicators to track schools’ performances in order to measure schools against one another.

“Exams and academic performance are still important indicators for the ministry and to evaluate schools. However, this is contrary to the KSSR’s objective, so the ministry must look into it and review, and take action to improve it.’’ – March 27, 2019.