What Works for Reforming Sarawak's Failing Education System

Education reform is a top agenda of the new Sarawak state government. We have seen that despite massive spending by the Federal government and ambitious attempts at reforms, the performance of our education system has barely improved in decades. In fact, compared to school systems in the region, ours has seen a decline.

The Malaysian Smart Schools System - developed by a consortium led by Telekom Malaysia, and a flagship application of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) initiated by the then Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir in 1997, has failed to bear fruit despite the billions of ringgits being spent. The Federal government’s 2009 National Key Results Area (NKRA) for education has not produced any report card to convince us that the NKRA initiatives are delivering results.

Children in Sarawak cannot be allowed to fall victim to Malaysia’s failing education system. It is a priority of the new Sarawak government to immediately and quickly establish a new education system that works to raise Sarawak children to a level as those in Korea, Finland and Singapore – countries that have that world’s best performing education systems.

The Sarawak Community Action Network (SCAN) has undertaken a year-long study to understand how to develop a high performing education system for Sarawak. The result of the study is to be used by the new Sarawak state government to establish an education system that truly works for children of Sarawak. The new government cannot afford to have a single child fail and that is what today’s adult Sarawakians owe to the coming generations of Sarawakians.

The study involved an analysis of selected education systems from different countries that have improved significantly, analysis of education systems that have been maintaining top positions, interviews with some thought leaders in those education systems and an analysis of the annual OECD PISA results from 2003 to 2009. During the course of the study, elements that are specific to the individual system and those that are of universal relevance were explored in order to help Sarawak’s new educational leaders replicate the success of high performing education systems. This study is sponsored, in part, by Sarawak’s own entrepreneur, innovator and change agent, Mr Granda Aing.

This paper presents a summary of the findings of SCAN’s study.
The study began with these key questions: Why do some education systems always perform better and improve at a faster rate than others? Why do some schools consistently succeed where others do not? What do successful school systems have in common? What methods and tools do they employ to improve learning outcomes of students?

The SCAN study found three most important universal elements that work:
1. Selective hiring of the right people to be teachers,
2. Develop them into highly effective instructors, and
3. Ensure that the system is capable of delivering only the best instruction for each student.

The successful systems demonstrate that significant improvement in desired results can be achieved in a short time – 3 to 6 years. The systems also show that by applying these practices, significant improvements is achievable in failing school systems and that the practices are applicable to any system, irrespective of culture and geography.

The following commonly used approaches to improve education systems in many countries, including the US and the UK, have been shown to be least effective, in that they do not contribute significantly to student outcomes as measured by scores in mathematics, science and reading:

1. Increase in public spending per student,
2. Improvements in student-to-teacher ratio,
3. Decrease in class size,
4. Decrease in school size,
5. Structural reforms in the governance of schools, such as autonomy of schools governed by elected boards and decentralization of powers to local school districts,
6. Reforms in curriculum standards,
7. Changes in assessments and testings,
8. Funding of schools,
9. Inspection of quality, and
10. Reforming relationship of schools to communities.

The SCAN study shows unquestionable evidence: student learning cannot be improved without improving quality of instruction. It is also noted that almost every education system have undertaken the process of reducing class size. For example, most countries in OECD over the past 7 years have increased the teacher-student ratio. However, evidence shows that this effort does not significantly result in better student outcomes, except at the very early grades. More teachers translate to less money per teacher and systems cannot be selective about who could be teachers.
Evidence from the SCAN study suggests that the new Sarawak educational leaders must focus on quality of teachers as this is the main driver of the variation in student learning. The quality of any education system cannot be higher than the quality of its teachers.

For example, a seminal research in one education system shows that if 2 average 8-year-old children were taught by different teachers – one a high performing teacher and the other a low performer, the learning outcomes of the students diverge by more than 50 percentile points within 3 years. Reducing class size from 30 to 15 students improves an average student’s performance by, at most, 8 percentile points. In a study of another system, evidence shows that students in earlier years of schooling, when placed with low-performing teachers for several years consecutively, suffer from irreversible educational loss. In some systems, students who score in the top 20% on literacy and numeracy at age 7, are twice as likely to obtain a university degree as children in the bottom 20%.

Sarawak’s new educational leaders now have evidence suggesting that even in good education systems, children who do not make good progress in their early school years because they are not taught by teachers of sufficient skills and competencies, have very small chance of recovering the lost years. All top performing education systems depend ultimately on the quality of its teachers.

All top performing systems from Dallas to Seoul and from Singapore to Helsinki, dispel the common belief that it is impossible to make teaching a preferred profession for good number of high-performers and that attracting better people requires the government to pay higher salaries. These systems have shown that making teaching the career of choice does not depend on high pay, but more on small, simple policy choices such as: designing and establishing robust hiring and training processes, giving attractive starting pay, and managing the status of the profession more carefully. For Sarawak’s new educational leaders, it means legislating an entirely new policy on education so that a new education system can be implemented rapidly.

By continuing the education system of the Federal government in Sarawak, we will only fail Sarawak’s future generation.

http://tinyurl.com/edsys2012

BAKUN DAM IS GOING TO BE ANOTHER WHITE ELEPHANT

You want another dam????

See what the Bakun was "behind the scene".... by Malaysian Observer

The whole 15 Billion Ringgit Bakun dam project (Supposed to produce 2400 Mw) was conceived by corrupt Mahathir to steal the 10 Billion ringgit worth of Timber from the Chief Minister of Sarawak Taib Mahmud who “owns” all the Timber in Sarawak.
The timber from the forest the size of Singapore (otherwise would be extracted by the CM) is now stolen by Mahathir as Bakun is a federal project.

Mahathir asked his favorite crony Ting Pek King to extract the Timber. Ting Pek King Subcontracts the extraction to Hii Chang Pee who underreported the volume extracted thereby ‘cheating’ Ting. Mr.Hii subsequently had a high profile court case with Ting. That is another story. Hee just opened his new "Pullman Hotel", 2 years after Ting's "Four Points Sheration", both in Kuching. Ting is building another Sheraton in Miri, his 2nd hometown, after Bintangor his birthplace.

Now Bakun can provide enough electricity to supply Sarawak’s need 4 times over. Yet Taib Mahmud wants to build another dam Murun,amongst many. WHY?

His brother in law Aziz Hussein runs the company building the dams. His sister's company provides the construction work. Taib’s company CMS is producing the cement! And he also controls and profit from the steel imports!

Now Sarawak electrical company Sesco is now privatized and owned by the CM Taib and his ministers who call it Sarawak Energy Bhd. Taib does not want to buy the electricity from Bakun because of his Timber 10 billion worth was stolen by Mahathir, therefore he wanted to build another 900 M v Murun dam upstream from Bakun costing 5 billion (1/3 the size of Bakun) Now Murun is 10% completed and need more funds which international banks will not lend to Taib’s company Sarawak Energy because it is privately owned by Taib and his cabinet. So Taib now wants to reverse ‘privatize’ the Sarawak Energy company after striping the assets to the government of Sarawak and then obtain loans from foreigners.

So they say Rio Tinto an Australian co is interested to use the Bakun electricity which is not true. Then they say a Chinese co maybe keen. This is a lie as the federal groups now realize Bakun is becoming a white elephant.

Now the 600 mile cable from Bakun to west Malaysia has to pass 70% of the way near few islands owned by Indonesia and only 30% of the way is Malaysia owned. So Indonesia has not given permission and is also not keen on to buy Bakun electricity as it cannot afford. There is not a single company in the world that can make a 600 mile long cable. The electricity loss would be tremendous. (80 %?) And the earth quakes would break the cable. Sabotage and damage due to ships anchors and other passing ships have to be factored in.

I would not be surprised Bakun will produce electricity in few years time but remain a white elephant – much to the credit of the reckless and corrupt PM Mahathir with many stupid ideas and corrupted CM of Sarawak Taib Mahmud who is reputed to be one of the richest men on earth.
"A Malaysian observer

June 12, 2010 5:23 AM

Our Real Assets

If you haven’t read, the book entitled “What Color Is Your Parachute?” is recommended reading, even if you are having a steady job and progressing in your career. A best-seller, it’s about more meaningful work, changing career and job-hunting. More so, it’s about exploring and discovering what you want out of life and who you are as a person. The book takes a relook in a different perspective at the question, “What type of work am I willing to do?”

What’s the significance of a book that talks about meaningful work?

Often, within the short time spent in a lift with office workers getting to their offices, the common conversation is about share price and stock market. All news channels in print or electronic, have something about share market performance. There’s no shortage of stock market news on the Internet. Company board meetings certainly touch on boosting share price.

Is the stock we own our most valuable asset?

An employee share option scheme left a number of a company’s employees in debt and their savings nowhere to be seen following the drop in share price that came in tandem with the recent financial crisis. The hope and expectation of making some money from exercising the ESOS turned tragic.

A Nobel Prize-winning economist, Gary Becker, said that in modern economy, up to 80% of a person’s economic output comes from human capital, against land, machinery and others. Many people are mesmerized by how rich they can be with the portfolios of stocks and properties they own, but do not see the crucial asset they have in their earning power. Our education and training are worth a lot. We can get value not just from shares, but from ourselves and the mechanism of getting the value is a job. Our salary is the dividend on our human wealth.

Those of us who’ve been affected by economic recessions and financial crisis or those of us who’ve lost our jobs may already relearn how to create wealth as we relook at our jobs differently. Especially so if that thing we do in the office every day is our sole financial lifeline. Those who have not been affected would not know the true value of what we have until it’s gone.

These days, a predictable salary seems more appealing than big bonuses and ESOS. Government jobs, one of the last bastions of security, is definitely getting even more appealing. A better option now is to use whatever money we have to take a class, instead of spending on shares, unit trusts or properties. Perhaps, soon we’ll find ourselves perusing a list of the best-paying, fastest-growing professions as we visualize ourselves as a network engineer or wellness therapist.

Sarawak's Growth Agent

One of the objectives of Sarawak's several huge dams is to generate economic activities. But there are more pragmatic, easily executable alternative actions that have been proven to achieve that objective.

More than 70% of all businesses have less than 6 employees. This demonstrates that thriving small businesses generate the most jobs and economic activities. Microenterprises created 37% of all new jobs between 2001 and 2007. For Malaysia, small and medium-sized enterprises account for over 75% of all enterprises and are responsible for more than 60% of private sector employment and 55% private sector turnover. Massive hydro-power dams or huge aluminium smelting plants do not create the kind of employment opportunites that small enterprises do. Find out more at,

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/notes/sarawak-community-action-network/sarawaks-growth-agent/429969021553

One speech Najib will be infamous for