THE Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) results have not been well-received. It is necessary to analyse the disappointment, unhappiness and anger among pupils and their parents over the results.
If a child has been consistently getting A for a subject throughout his six years in tests and examinations conducted by the school, it is understandable why he is unable to accept getting a B or a C for the same subject in UPSR.
Something is amiss here. It begs the question of what has happened in schools in their preparation of pupils.
Have the content and teaching and learning approaches as recommended in the Standard Primary School Curriculum been adhered to and carried out from Year 1 to Year 6?
Have tests and examinations set and conducted by schools throughout the primary years followed the same formats as prescribed for the “new” UPSR?
Have teachers attuned themselves to the new strategies of getting their pupils, even as early as in Year 1, to think creatively, critically and scientifically?
Have language teachers emphasised to their pupils the need to express themselves clearly and correctly in Bahasa Malaysia, English, Chinese or Tamil?
Have Mathematic teachers insisted that pupils write out steps to the solution of problems? Have all these been taught and practised in classes throughout the six primary school years?
Or, has it been like business as before?
Questions in school tests and examinations were simply past years’ examination questions or modified versions of them.
Pupils were taught and trained in the old ways and they scored in school tests and examinations.
Reality struck when pupils were confronted with the new UPSR format. It is essential to find out how adequately schools prepared their pupils for the new UPSR.
The Education Ministry must do an audit on this matter lest schools continue to fail their UPSR pupils.
This is also of importance since the ministry has expressed its intention to decentralise UPSR and rely more on school-based assessments in the future.
Find out what really happened in the UPSR shocker
I REFER to the article “Sad and mad with results of UPSR 2016” (The Star, Nov 19). It is important and necessary to analyse and deliberate on the causes of disappointment, unhappiness and anger among some pupils and their parents over the recently announced UPSR 2016 results.
If a child had been consistently getting grade “A” for a subject throughout his six years in tests and examinations , it is understandable that he is unable to accept the shock of getting a “B” or a “C” for the same subject in the UPSR.
The high expectations of the pupils and their parents were simply derived from and based on their approved performances in tests and examinations conducted by their schools.
If a pupil has been good in school tests and examinations, he shouldn’t have bad UPSR results.Something is amiss here.
This begs the question of what actually happened in schools in preparing their pupils for UPSR 2016.
Were the contents and teaching and learning approaches recommended in the Standard Primary School Curriculum (KSSR) strictly and professionally adhered to from Year 1 to Year 6?
Did tests and examinations follow the same formats as prescribed for the “new” UPSR?
Did teachers attune themselves to the new strategies of getting their pupils, even as early as in Year 1, to think creatively, critically and scientifically?
Did the language teachers emphasise the need for pupils to express themselves clearly and correctly in Bahasa Malaysia/English/Chinese/Tamil? Did the Maths teachers insist that their pupils write out clearly all the steps to solve a problem?
Were all these taught and practised diligently and sufficiently in classes throughout the six primary school years?
Or was it just business as before? Questions set in school tests and examinations were simply past years’ examination questions or modified versions of them.
Pupils were taught and trained in the old ways and they scored unsuspectingly in school tests and examinations as usual.
Reality struck when pupils were confronted with the new formats of the UPSR examination.
It is important and essential to find out how adequately schools have been in preparing their pupils for the newly formatted UPSR.
The Education Ministry must do a thorough audit on this matter lest schools continue to fail their UPSR pupils.
This is also of particular importance since the ministry has expressed its intention to decentralise UPSR and rely more heavily on school-based assessments or PBS (Pentaksiran Berasaskan Sekolah) in the near future.
Schools must be found truly ready and prepared for the new tasks and responsibility ahead. Liong Kam Chong Seremban The STAR Home Opinion Letters 22 November 2016