Malaysia's performance in Mathematics and Science - from Prof. Cheong Kee Cheok's lecture

Last week, in Professor Cheong Kee-Cheok's talk on The Global Economic Crisis and Where are We Going, he expressed his worries about Malaysia's inability to produce capable people to bring the country forward. As Malaysia is no longer the choice destination to produce good cheaply, in order to keep our edge, we need to migrate to high-tech ventures.

He quoted another economist who mentioned that Malaysia has AIDS - Acquired Industrial Deficiency Syndrome. Our manufacturing sector has failed to become a value-added one. I also heard before that the ubiquitous pendrive, which was pioneered in Taiwan, was actually invented by a Malaysian. Sigh...

He noted that the Malaysian government has spent billions of riggit in education; yet our university rankings seem to be sliding. It also appears that the overall standards in schools are falling. He also said that it's difficult for the universities to train quality graduates when what they are getting from the schools system is somewhat lacking. Prof. Cheong commented that most of our scholarships went to the humanities, instead of the physical sciences.

So where do we stand?

Malaysia participates in the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), an international study that tracks the achievement of 4th-grade (Standard 4 in Malaysia) and 8th-grade (Form 2 in Malaysia) equivalent students around the world. Here is the link to the TIMMS website : http://nces.ed.gov/timss/ TIMMS is conducted every four years beginning 1995.

What is worrying is that since Malaysia participated in 1999, our results have been dropping. In 1999, we were ranked 22nd in Science and 16th in Maths. In 2007, we were 21st in Science and 20th in Maths. The drop in ranking seems not much, but it is the drop in scoring that's worrying.

In 1999, we scored 492 for Science and 519 for Maths. In 2007, we dropped to 471 for Science and for Maths, we dropped massively to only 474. Now, for both subjects, the world average is 500 points. Which means that our scoring is below the world average. We are ranked lower than Slovenia, Armenia and Lithuania in some cases. Considering the relative youth of these countries and their lack of economic prowess, it is surprising we are ranked so low.

Singapore, on the other hand, scored 567 in Science and 593 in Maths, which makes them no. 1 and no. 3 in the world respectively. Their universities are ranked much higher than us. In the 1960s, University of Malaya (UM) was on par with the National University of Singapore (NUS). Today, NUS is in the top 30 of university rankings and UM is nowhere near.

You can see the tables at these links:

http://nces.ed.gov/timss/table07_3.asp

http://nces.ed.gov/timss/table07_1.asp

Of course, we have to bear in mind, scoring well isn't everything in education. Character building and fostering humanistic values are also of paramount importance. It is education that makes us human.

Nevertheless, Malaysia's performance (or lack of) in key subject areas is something we should be concerned about.