Is it too Late to Save Malaysian Education? (Managing Change)

Craig J Selby

Credit tes.com

In the early days of Orchan, the bootstrap phase, I was involved in teacher training in Penang – a programme designed to retrain and “help” existing teachers improve their classroom performance, or in some cases, to weed out the ones who should not be allowed in the classroom (and yes, there were a few of those). I treasured those moments because they offered a unique insight into a system that was breaking, but still could be saved.

What struck me hardest was not the lack of skill for teaching, but with many, the lack of passion. The group culture was to attend, enjoy morning and afternoon tea, socialise a bit, “deliver” the minimum on what they had to, but seldom go that extra mile. Very few of the participants wanted to be teachers – wanted to contribute to the wellbeing and development of the next generations – many simply wanted a consistent paycheque and say the education system as a guaranteed employer for minimal effort. To be fair, that wasn’t everyone (and I was retraining those identified as needing it), but it did get me thinking more deeply about the education system, and the culture of the system - a culture which doesn’t encourage or inspire excellence, but mediocrity.

The issue with the education system is not that its broken, but that those guiding it have lost their way. Successive policy u-turns have left teachers “zoned out” from their purpose – to teach, shape, influence, guide, and inspire – and left them grappling with regular changes which don’t always stack up in the nest interest of their students.

The stakeholders of the system are the students, their parents, universities and colleges, future employers, and society at large; but these stakeholders are not being engaged sufficiently by the system – they are being marginalised by a McDonaldised system where the recipe changes randomly but the crew follow orders blindly.

But rant over; this is about change, this is about stakeholder engagement; and most importantly, it is about the future of a nation – the young talent that will emerge from this mess.

Recently revived The Malaysian Insight published an opinion piece on this topic just yesterday – New Education Minister Focusses on Culture to Transform Schools (https://www.themalaysianinsight.com/s/51230). Our new Education Minister has a monumental task – to reinvigorate a system that has continued to under-deliver; rebuilding it without breaking it completely.

To transform the education system, the culture of mediocrity has to be quashed, and new ideas have to thrive. Pride has to be re-instilled into teachers before students; teachers need to be empowered to teach, and those who are seeking an easy ride need to be funnelled out faster than the speed a light. A new wave of energy is needed to inspire our teachers, to in turn, inspire and shape children.

Where does that start? The Ministry? School management? Teachers? It starts everywhere. A frank, honest evaluation of each element of the system, of each person, to see how they can deliver better, stronger performance. After all, the nation owes it to their future generations.

Change is hard, but it starts internally, and it radiates outwards. Let’s hope a fresh look at this will create positive change for the entire system.