Using textbook which is more difficult than national primary schools, mathematics result in SJKC regressing

Exclusive report

Oriental Daily News, July 29, 2016

Kuala Lumpur, July 28 – According to deputy secretary-general of the United Chinese Schools Teachers’ Association (Jiao Zong) Huang Wen Quan, the contents of the mathematics textbook in Chinese and Tamil primary schools were much more difficult than the national primary school, causing students to gradually lose interest in learning the subject, as a result, the Chinese primary schools (SJKC) which have always been proud of their math results have seen the regression of an average of 10% to 30% of the UPSR result.

In an interview with the Oriental Daily News today, he said the Petaling District P education department discovered that SJKC Lick Hung which had always been the top scorer in math subject among all streams of primary schools in the district, of which the result in the first pre-exam of UPSR in Standard Six this year had slipped, instead, the national primary school in Section 9, Shah Alam had emerged as the top scorer in math subject.

He said the district education department had also found that the result of math subject in SJKC and Tamil schools (SJKT) had dropped drastically.

He pointed out that students from Standard Four to Standard Six had gradually been losing interest in mathematic due to the difficulty of the math textbook and exam questions.

He said the education department had subsequently carried out a study and analyzed on the problem faced by SJKC and SJKT, and found out that the content and mathematic textbooks of these two types of primary schools were different from the national primary schools.

“Although the curriculum of all streams of primary school is the same, the textbooks were published by different publishers; as a result the contents of math textbooks in SJKC and SJKT are too high standard.”

“In addition, the exercises and examination questions were drafted based on the contents of the textbooks, it is therefore more complicated and tougher; as a result the performance of the students were not up to the mark,” he said.

Different from the standard curriculum

Huang Wen Quan said the syllabus of math subject in national primary schools were simpler, each page had also attached with teaching requirements and high thinking concept, students of national primary schools scored better results with the balance on learning and exam.

For instance, he said, in national primary schools, only two digits remainder was required in division, but in SJKC and SJKT, the remainder required was four to six digits.

Besides, he pointed out that the numerical words in textbook of SJKC were also too many and too tough, as such teachers would also have be more profound in teaching, resulting in the deviation from the original standard curriculum.

He opined that as the mathematic paper in UPSR was set based on the textbook of national primary schools, and was translated into Chinese and Tamil language, this had resulted students in SJKC might have to spend more time and energy in the mathematic exam paper in UPSR in the future, coupled with the difference in the requirement of the content, eventually the performance of SJKC students would be adversely affected.

Meanwhile, when asked about the issue, deputy Education Minister Chong Sin Woon who had attended a seminar on the reformation of teaching methods in SJKC said the curriculum of all streams of the primary schools were similar, only the content arrangement of the textbooks were different.

“We shall carry out study to find out whether this had affected the learning of students in SJKC, I have to wait for further report before making announcement,” he said.