Gerakan says the Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) and the Penilaian Menengah Rendah(PMR) should be retained but the assessment system and curriculum as a whole need to be revamped so as to mould our students to be more creative, critical and competitive in the global market.

Gerakan’s head of central bureau on education and knowledge society, Lau Chin Hoon, noting that Malaysia had fallen behind many TIMSS nations (The Trend of International Mathematics and Science Study) in science and mathematics, said Malaysia should not put the cart before the horse.

“We must not just “tinkle” only with the assessment system. Gerakan proposes that the Ministry of Education should review and revamp the curriculum and assessment system as a whole to promote the encouragement of creativity, critical thinking and competitiveness, and more important, to benchmark the assessments against international curriculum standards,” argued Lau.

“The UPSR/PMR assessments are the only available nationally standardized assessments that provide a comparable basis to identify a student’s progress. The removal of these assessments will bring chaos to the system,” said Lau.

Lau, who is also Pemanis State Assemblyman, said with school-based assessments that are not standardized nationally and internationally, the public will not be able to identify schools and students that perform and or do not perform (below benchmarked standards), so that appropriate strengthening or remedial steps should be taken early in the years.

He said Malaysians have viewed UPSR/PMR as high stake examinations and the entrenched culture of obsession with public examinations has led to the “de-professionalization” of teaching-learning, rampant rote learning, excessive tuition, etc.

“While it is true that they assess only certain aspects of learning, removing UPSR/PMR and replacing them with other forms of assessments, notably using school-based assessment, will only shift the high stake nature to these other assessments. The results will be similar if not more stressful for the students, parents and teachers.”

Lau pointed out that the most educationally decentralized nation such as the USA has now mandated standardized assessments for students in the primary to secondary levels across certain grade levels, and these standard assessments are benchmarked against international standards.

“What we need are standardized criterion-referenced assessments (benchmark against international curricular standards) and efforts to deculturalize the examination orientation in Malaysia.”

Lau, who was invited to attend the Education Ministry Roundtable on UPSR and PMR together with Dr Yong Suan, presented Gerakan’s stand and views on the issue.