It’s a fact that these days, more parents can afford sending their children for private education.
Acknowledging that facilities, infrastructure, management and administration are better in private institutions, National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) president Aminuddin Awang said national schools are limited by financial constraints.
Private schools, which include religious, independent and international schools, are also not bound by national education policies and have the autonomy to decide on their staff, finances, pedagogy, syllabus and internal policies.
“Some parents send their children to private schools not because national schools lack quality, but because they want their children to have the same education background as them.
“As an analogy, the mushrooming of private hospitals in our country is not because specialists in government hospitals are not of quality, but because patients who can afford it want additional services such as convenient visiting hours, comfortable rooms and prompt service.
“So, the rise in the number of students in private schools does not necessarily mean that the quality of teachers and education in national schools is poor but because parents want various facilities that the government cannot provide in national schools.”
The performance of each school, be it national or private, is dependent upon the leadership, said Universiti Malaya Education Faculty senior lecturer and teacher-trainer Assoc Prof Dr Zuwati Hasim.
Good schools are usually managed by good principals supported by good and dedicated teaching staff, she said.
“What indicators are we using to measure the perceived decline of our national education standard?
“Some send their kids to private schools for their curricula, medium of instruction, comfort, or even for prestige.
“But there are also private schools that use the national standard curriculum.”
Our national education system has many high-performing schools with dedicated, excellent teachers, said Teach For Malaysia (TFM) chief executive officer Chan Soon Seng.
Parents, he added, should not assume that private schools guarantee a better standard of education and better teacher quality.
“It takes a village to raise a child. Collaboration is crucial to enrich our education system with resources and best practices, and create strong support systems for our students across all levels of the education ecosystem, and parents and families are a crucial part of this picture,” he said.
In 2018, the ministry introduced guidelines to allow schools to welcome parents, guardians and members of the community to volunteer in schools.
This, said Chan, proved to be an effective mechanism to ensure that students have access to more support but this has not been carried out in many schools.
“Schools should be encouraged to involve local community members to support students’ learning needs if we are to create a shared sense of ownership and accountability for the success of our education system,” he stressed.
Pointing to learning loss as the biggest problem that is preventing our education system and students from achieving their full potential, he said the Covid-19 pandemic has had severe consequences on the literacy and numeracy skills of younger children, in particular those from low-income households.
“Despite interventions by the Education Ministry, literacy and numeracy challenges remain with 42% of 10-year-olds not learning to read sufficiently well when measured against international benchmarks.“There is a need to address these challenges now because their learning outcomes will create a multiplier effect that accrues over their lifespan.” — By CHRISTINA CHIN
