The English-language daily The Star two Sundays ago quoted the minister of education as saying that the Malaysian education system is world class and implied that parents and citizens have little or nothing to worry about.

Worse still, the chief editor of the same newspaper continued the argument for a non-integrated education system which is producing large number of “poor citizens” who could not speak in either Bahasa Malaysia or English, at least to some degree of excellence.

The past weeks I also met a lawyer who told me that he was actually from the Tamil school medium, and then went to the RMC and now speaks both English and Bahasa Malaysia better than most Malaysians.

He appears to have mastered both English and Tamil literature more that most of us who claim to be Malaysian Indians.

That same week I also received word that my niece who finished SPM last year at the best school in the country, SMK Seri Aman, just got admitted to both John Hopkins University and Berkeley to pursue an undergraduate degree in biology, the subject her mother teaches.

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Finally, the SPM results also gave me reasons to be both proud and upset for quite different reasons, much more along the lines of what Soo Ewe Jin wrote about good teachers,  education and learning in the past in The Sunday Star .

I was proud that my youngest son finished his SPM, finally. With five children in the family and the oldest being 29, I once said that by the time my youngest finished Form 5, I should be prepared to be the minister of education.

I am not and never will be, but this column on the quality of our education system I can still write about.

My review will talk about what it takes for us to reach the world class standards, and not simply rely on village standards of performance but call everything world class.

A world class education must teach students in at least three areas and arenas of life. The first is to train and prepare the mind with some level of intelligence quotient.

In my time, after Standard 6 we sat for an intelligence test and if you got an A, everybody knew you were then an A student.

Most A students went on to score well in the LCE or the Senior Cambridge or the Higher School Certificate.

The next area relates to the whole area of training the heart; of developing the good human being.

Focus on character development

The heart relates to both one’s self-view vide the mind and self-concept, but should also be able to help us to relate to others in terms of emotional quotient (EQ) and social quotient (SQ).

The relational quotient is what really much of life is all about. And most of the extra-curricular activities in school are really developing this social and leadership skills.

Finally, as part and parcel of the foundational education there must also be teaching about how to take care of one’s body. It must include more than sex education.

It is about healthy living skills education and full-fledged focus on character development.

First, we must teach our students all about the basic care and concern for the human body; about what we eat and how we need to ensure a sustainable lifestyle, including basic family life values.

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Physical exercise during school hours is also designed to help us learn how to keep fit.

For example, a friend’s grandson, currently in the US has to make sure that he does not overshoot his body-mass-index; otherwise he has to do some extra rounds of the school field, almost voluntarily before class.

When we can do all these well and to the level of global and competitive excellence, then we can claim that our school system is second to none.

Therefore, is our school system able to prepare our children to be among the world’s best? I think we can and do but one cannot say that for all the schools.

I believe that our school system has much of the ingredients, but much of the failure is related to the lack of the right environment to nurture and grow world class individuals.

In my experience, those who make it often owe their excellence to many factors outside of the school system but which still nurtures and support such world class standards.

But I must admit that the school system appears to have consistently dropped standards over the years; and that is our biggest problem.

The biggest problem of our education system today is not those who go overseas but rather those who never get to go overseas to study.

Are they learning to be good citizens; do they know how to earn an honest living; are they of good character and can they provide good and capable grassroots leadership at all levels without dependencies?

Nicole David is obviously a world class Malaysian par excellence in her chosen sporting career.

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Nationalist world view

I got to hear her for the first time recently. Of course, she is a world class individual and has now excelled in squash so much that CIMB has unashamedly and unapologetically named their annual championship after her.

Congratulations to CIMB for a nationalist world view and to Nicole David for being such a world class individual who are both humble and sincere.

Now, coming back to our school system and standards of our education system.

My son, who was head prefect in his SMK school, was however given a final grade B for leadership, C for diligence, B for sense of responsibility, B for initiative, B for cooperation, B for confidence and  B for perseverance.

He is not happy with it and considers it unfair and his father is livid. Of course, the certificate is called a testimonial. I also presume it is a testimonial for his five years in secondary school.

Quite independent of the school system, he is currently also appointed a MBPJ Child Counsellor – a first in the world for any city council.

I leave it to the parents and the citizens out there to decide what the fundamental problem is therefore with our school system.

When the school system elects/appoints its head prefect, they presumably do not choose an academically weak student to become one.

But after he had served from Form 1 to Form 5 as a prefect and they finally appoint him head prefect in his final year, how can they now officially say he was not even good enough to be one?

All I can say is that they “ cakap tak serupa bikin ” or is it that we do not “ kotakan apa yang kita katakan ”.

I would let the minister of education answer the issues and questions.

And by the way, for the information of The Star’ s chief editor and his column piece, my son can speak English, Mandarin and Malay in that order of excellence.

And to my other friend Soo Ewe Jin, I can only say I agree with you that the primary job of parents is to help the children mature as they are learning, by unlearning and relearning all the wrong lessons in life.

We have to teach them what is right and wrong; especially when the school system cannot or does not do so well enough.

May God bless the Malaysian education system to strive to become excellent.