Education is vital to enhancing the country’s growth, producing quality skilled workers and advancing society.
Many advanced and fast-developing nations will attribute their success to good quality education, but after 60 years of independence, has Malaysia or Sarawak succeeded?
New Sarawak Tribune interviewed the former director of the Aminuddin Baki Institute, Sarawak branch, Assoc Prof Dr.Shahri Abdul Rahman to seek his thoughts on Sarawak’s education progress and insights on further improvements for a better future.
New Sarawak Tribune: How would you assess the current state of education in Sarawak?
Dr. Shahri: We look at education in Sarawak since independence, which has taken around 60 years, making comparisons to 1963 when we formed Malaysia, the number of secondary schools was only 82 schools.
That’s why there used to be the ‘Common Entrance’ test where anyone who passed would be selected to continue their education in secondary school.
In the past, not all students could go to secondary school if they were unable to read. But now it is possible because the population has grown larger.
If we were to compare from 1987, in terms of achievements, opportunities and accessibility, definitely less than half of government schools had these.
Now Sarawak has 192 secondary schools throughout Sarawak with a total of 1,265 primary schools.
However, the good thing in Sarawak after World War 2, I saw that one of the things that helped education in this state was that the Australian government brought in the missionaries.
In the past, anyone who wanted a quality education had to go to a mission school because on average the qualified teachers were all from abroad.
Now we see more diversity. We have many local teachers who are capable of teaching in schools here.
New Sarawak Tribune : What are some of the main achievements on education in Sarawak in recent years?
Dr. Shahri: If we look at the academic performance, we have not been as commendable because now the ‘Ujian Penilaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) and ‘Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR) are no longer available.
So the benchmark to evaluate academic performance now is only the ‘Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia’ (SPM). Unfortunately our SPM (performance) is always second from bottom.
Some do stand out in the ‘Sijil Tinggi Persekolahan Malaysia’ (STPM) level, but generally we are still behind.
However, in terms of our curriculum, in the Malaysian School Sports Council (MSSM), Sarawak is often crowned as the overall champion.
It’s just that we are not on the same ‘playing field’. That is why I understand the Sarawak government’s approach today which means that we cannot use the same measuring tool.
New Sarawak Tribune: What are the main challenges faced by teachers and students in Sarawak?
Dr. Shahri: For me the main challenge is school infrastructure. Imagine teachers from outside such as Johor Bharu, Alor Setar or from Kuching who migrate to rural schools and have to change their way of life drastically.
This means that these are the obstacles that cause teachers not to teach outside the city.
As long as the government fails to provide basic infrastructure, we are still faced with the issue of teachers rejecting their placement in Sarawak.
The locals can’t say it’s a hardship because for them it’s a routine. We have to think about how many teachers would want to teach there. For teachers who are locals, there is absolutely no problem.
If it is new teachers we need to understand that they may not be used to this kind of situation.
Besides, the inadequacy of teachers will certainly continue and if I may say we are chasing an aimless running target.
What I mean by aimless running target is that enrollment of teachers increases, but the number of schools also increases. So we’ll always have difficulty meeting the teacher quota in this state.
New Sarawak Tribune : What needs to be done so that education in Sarawak can support the economic and social development of the region as desired by the Premier of Sarawak?
Dr. Shahri: The first one we look at from a structural point of view. If we want to be different, follow the taste of Sarawak, we need to look at the structure of the school.
If schools in Sarawak follow the current schooling system, we actually don’t have enough schools. Minus the number of schools outside the city, the schools in our city have problems because they are too big, such as SMK Bintulu, which has 4,000 students.
When the school is too big, the school management will have issues which will cause problems in managing large schools as well as difficulty managing many teachers.
Therefore there is a need to add secondary schools in urban areas so that the number of students can be reduced as well as being easier to manage which benefits management.
Apart from that, the government also needs to see how it wants to organise the accessibility to quality education, for example right now we are still following the old way of one teacher, one subject, one classroom.
That is why the Sarawak government through the Ministry of Education, Innovation and Talent Development needs to be serious about making a major overhaul.
I once visited a school in Hong Kong in 1999 that used a system based on subject proficiency which meant teacher quotas, planned as such that the English subject would be taught by four teachers and all the teachers were there.
When I entered the class, I saw that there were two teachers and a total of 18 students. Their class sizes are also large.
They were allocated to teach nine times meaning three hours for English and the class starts with singing activities, followed by telling stories, writing and finally essays. From there we see that there are four skills taught which are listening, reading, writing and essays
From there I could see that not a single teacher came out of the classroom. The class is also where the teacher works because there is no teacher’s room. This reduces discipline problems also because there is always a teacher in the class. In education, physical space and social development must be well sustained.
New Sarawak Tribune : What efforts need to be taken to improve the quality of teaching and learning in Sarawak?
Dr. Shahri: There are efforts, but not well implemented. We want to be like abroad but done halfheartedly. Why? Because we politicise education. I said free education is not new. Many countries that I have visited provide free education such as Japan, China and Australia.
Why can’t Malaysia give free education? In Spain not only kindergarten, but up to university. That’s why if Malaysians study for example in Germany, they do offer free education there.
So I hope that the government can give them a chance. Don’t just settle here.
Then if possible we want the government and the Ministry to see how to coordinate schools and train teachers to manage schools.
New Sarawak Tribune: Regarding MA63, for example, autonomy in education. Let’s say the Sarawak government achieves autonomy for education, in your opinion, will the level of education at the state level increase? Will we move forward?
Dr. Shahri: Of course. This is the political courage of the Sarawak government that I see in terms of the Malaysian constitution, education is in the list of the Federal Government or rather the right of the Federal Government.
This means that when the Malaysia Agreement (MA63) certifies the authority of Sarawak, then the Federal Government must provide the percentage of teacher admission and student admission procedures.
Regarding the Primary 6 assessment that the Minister of Education, Innovation and Talent Development, Datuk Roland Sagah wants to introduce, I think that if we want to be better, we should not take a step back but instead try to take the same step. We just need to find a better way. It’s like a race, if we just follow from behind, we won’t move forward.
That is why if Sarawak wants to hold an assessment in 2025, it should have a clear objective because in the past UPSR was held to meet the requirements for admission to secondary schools, full boarding, MRSM and others.
If Form One students are randomly selected, people won’t be satisfied and because of that, UPSR becomes a benchmark.
New Sarawak Tribune: What programmes need to be done to improve the quality of English proficiency, especially among students and rural students?
Dr, Shahri: One of them is implementing or allowing space for schools that teach using English entirely. Schools that use English as they are today are better known as International Schools.
The idea of this International School is to follow the Cambridge International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCE) curriculum.
I am one of the writers who created the concept, but what I created was for an Islamic international secondary school.
So we need to take an approach to have a school that teaches 100 pe rcent English.
Secondly, we need to be more open and not be conventional. Students should not be tied to formal education at school. We can do non-formal education and formal education.
New Sarawak Tribune : What are your hopes for the future of education in Sarawak and the steps that need to be taken to achieve those goals?
Dr. Shahri: I believe in the vision of our Premier, Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Abang Johari Tun Openg. He has a mindset that tends to veer towards business for which he has an MBA degree (Master of Business Administration).
If the Premier still continues on, we need to put aside our differences and the government needs to have the courage to reform Sarawak education. Our teacher quota should not be tied to the federal government.
We also need to have a strong policy like western countries where all those who want to become teachers are trained.
In addition, we also do not need to look at the level of education because having a degree does not guarantee a good teacher.
During the time of the former Chief Minister of Sarawak, Tun Abdul Rahman Ya’kub, many individuals who graduated from Form Two were absorbed as teachers and at the same time were given the opportunity to further their studies.
Nevertheless, I have high hopes only if the government is able to take drastic measures to provide better facilities and have effective changes in the long term.
