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Question 3: Public exams should be abolished. Do you agree?

Public examinations play an important role in a students life in Malaysia. In his eleven years of

schooling, a student has to sit for three major public examinations, the UPSR, PMR and SPM. These

examinations are taken seriously by all parties involved, especially students because the results are used

for a wide range of purposes ranging from placement of students to awarding of scholarships. Despite

these advantages, I strongly believe that public examinations should be abolished as they have several

drawbacks.

To begin with, public examinations to some extent merely test a students ability to memorise and

regurgitate facts. Blooms taxonomy of learning ranks these skills as lower order thinking skills. Higher order

thinking skills such as application and inference are often neglected. Students with excellent memory do

well in such examinations while those with poor memorising skills do poorly. Thus, it is not surprising that

many students with poor recall skills loathe subjects like History and Biology.

Another case in point is the Moral Education paper, which requires students to memorise moral

values. This is not a valid test as it tests only a students knowledge of values, not the practice of these

values. An A in this paper does not guarantee that the student is a morally sound and virtuous individual.

And what about the student who gets an E? Are we suggesting that he is not a morally upright individual?

Another reason why I am not in favour of public examinations is that they are not the

best way to identify a students strengths or weaknesses. This is because these examinations test only

certain skills. Allow me to illustrate my point. The language papers, for example, test a students reading

and writing skills only and even so, the range of sub-skills tested is limited. An A in these subjects does not

reflect a students competency in all areas of the language. For all you know, he may be an incompetent

speaker. Or for that matter, does a C mean a student is about average in all the language skills? Do these

grades tell us where a students strengths and weaknesses lie?

Another major drawback is that teaching in schools today is largely influenced by public

examinations. Teachers teach to prepare students for exams and not for life. As such, many of our

students are ill-prepared to face the challenges of the real world. This also goes against the grain of our

National Philosophy of Education where the emphasis is on character building and the development of

human capital. All parties involved are to be blamed for this as they are more concerned with student

achievement and not student development. At the end of the day, parents want straight A s for their

children, principals want excellent performances from their students and teachers, and the list goes on.

Finally, in their quest for excellent academic results, school becomes a bore and a chore. Students

are overwhelmed with homework, extra classes and tuition, and teachers are over worked, leaving both

parties with little or no time for relaxation. Thus, it is not surprising that students choose to ignore co-

curricular activities. They see these as a waste of precious time. Parents too, are affected by the emphasis

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on academic achievement. Some go to great lengths to secure private tuition for their children, hiring only

the best.

Thus, we can conclude that public exams take the fun out of learning. We cannot deny the fact that

public examinations enable us to assess thousands of students using a similar instrument but the question

one needs to ask is who eventually benefits from such a system? What happens to students who are not

able to master test-taking skills? Is academic excellence the only indicator of success as suggested by the

public examination system? In a world which is changing rapidly, we need to prepare our students for the

many challenges they will have to face as they will form the backbone of our nation in the years to come.

Taking into consideration the flaws of the public exam system, it is clear that we should seriously consider

other means of assessing students and do away with public exams.