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Fifty-nine bright students were yesterday awarded gold medals for their achievemenets.They had recently emerged champions at the International Competitions and Assessments for Schools (ICAS 2009).Deputy Minister of Education Datuk Wee Ka Siong awarded medals to the winners, with two students getting double medals, at a ceremony at the Parkroyal Hotel here.

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KUALA LUMPUR: Tay Shao An Isaac, 16, is the first Malaysian to bag three gold medals in the International Competitions and Assessments for Schools (ICAS) exams.

The SMK Methodist Boys School student clinched gold medals in Mathematics, Science and Computer Skills.

Organised by Education and Assessment and Testing Services and Education Assessment Australia, ICAS is a world-class assessment programme which enables schools and students to assess their capabilities in various subjects including English.

Tay, who does not attend tuition, said concentrating during lessons at school and not allowing his mind to wander was his secret of his success.

“Reading a variety of books also helped”

A perfect and a member of numerous extra-curricular activities, Tay owes much to his mother and mentor, Lee Chor Khoon, a retired Mathematics teacher who instilled the importance of excelling in studies in him.

“I would like to be a scientist or a doctor specialising in dermatology.”

By prioritising his study time, which is maximum of three hours a day, he had time to read books specially fantasy fiction,

His father, Tay Teik Phoong, a pastor, say it was important to encourage children to be outgoing and to help them achieve their dreams.

For Albert Ang Keliang, 11 winning a gold medal for Science was sweet success because it was his favourite subject.

The Standard Five pupil of SK Boys School here said watching the Discovery channel and reading science books helped him gain knowledge.

An avid chess player, Ang spends 30 minutes playing chess with his older brother or with the computer.

Ang, who won two gold medals for mathematics two years consecutively, will represent Malaysia in the chess competition of the Asean Pacific School Sports Olympiad in Jakarta.

Ang who comes from a family of doctors, hopes to pursue a degree in medicine.

University of New South Wales Australia education assessment director, Professor Dr Peter Knapp, said he was pleased with the number of Malaysian students excelling at his programme and hoped more government schools would adapt the programme.

Education Ministry secretary general Tan Sri Dzulkurnain Awang said the awards enabled Malaysian students to be benchmarked globally.

New Sunday Times—Malaysian children are receiving a world-class education, an Australian academician said yesterday.

Associate Professor Peter Knapp said with a local education, Malaysian students can get into any university in the world.

“This is clear from the results obtained by students who took part in the competition (International Competitions and Assessments for Schools),” he said.

Some 35, 000 pupils and students entered the ICAS conducted by Educational Assessment Australia (EAA), of which Knapp is the director.

The competition, open to primary school pupils and secondary school students worldwide, is a written examination which tests candidates’ core skills in English, Mathematics or Science.

“Although my view is based on the entries, the standard of answers is world-class,” Knapp said at a news conference yesterday.

Deputy Education Minister Datuk Hon Choon Kim said he hoped more students would take part in the competition.

“There are five million primary school pupils and secondary school students, so 35, 000 is a small portion. I encourage more parents to enter their children,” he said.

Earlier, Hon presented 59 students with the “ICAS Gold Medal” for scoring the highest marks in Malaysia their subjects.

Your Excellency, the High Commissioner of Australia,

Dr Peter Knapp, Director of EAA,

Honoured guests, principals, teachers, parents and students.

Thank you for inviting me to this event.

Let me say a few words on what I see as the relationship between educational testing and assessment and Malaysia’s educational aims and ambitions.

Malaysia is committed to creating a world-class educational system. We are also committed to bridging the divide between the haves and have-nots, and perhaps more significantly, between the “knows” and “know-nots”.

We are committed to excellence, and we are also committed to equity; and very importantly, to equity in education.

I do not pretend that there is no tension between these two aims. In a world scarce resource, so the saying goes, resources we spend on developing our most advanced students (in whole distinguished company we are today!) might also have been spent on helping the least advanced. Resources we put in a struggling rural school might have been put to a good urban school to make it even better, and so on. Balancing such competing requirements, making hard decisions and tradeoffs, is a big part of my job in the Ministry of Education. Some of these choices give me sleepless nights, but there is no avoiding them. I believe, however, that if we focus only n the tension between excellence and equity we are taking the short-term view. I believe that for Malaysia, in the long run, these two aims are not only compatible with each other but also necessary for each other.

This is because what we seek is not just to have excellent individuals but also to be an excellent society. An excellent society is one in which nobody is left behind. An excellent society is also one in which each person; each community has the resources and the freedom, to be their best, on their own terms. In such as society the excellence of particular individuals and particular institutions is directed towards the common good and measure by its contribution to the common good.

Educational testing and assessment play a key role in this project. They help us to benchmark our schools, students and staff. They help us diagnose problem areas and identify the right solutions. They keep us accountable by objective standards. They help us progress towards our goals. They enable us to make comparisons between schools, school district and between countries. If Malaysians are to compete in an international economy of talents and skills, we need to know how we stack up compared to others. If we want to go forward, we need to know where we are. If we want to improve, we need to know how we are doing.

Testing and assessment helps us to achieve our educational goals, but they are not replacement for those goals. I hear the complaint of many parents that our education system may be overly exam-oriented: there are too many tests, or we make test an end rather than a means. In such an environment, some might wonder whether we might need another test, another competition. I sympathize with such complaints. My Ministry is looking into ways to make the educational experience of our children less exam-oriented. The answer, however, is not abandon testing and assessment but to have more enlightened testing and assessment.

Better testing begins with seeing it in a broader perspective, and using it for truly educational purposes. As the International Competitions for Schools shows us, you can do many things with tests. In the past we have tended to use tests only as selection process for advancement to higher education. In this process, the gateway to increased income and opportunity for some can become a barrier to entry for others. We cannot get away from having to sort and select students, but let us make no mistake: this is mainly bureaucratic rather than an educational function. If we use testing only in this narrow perspective we will end up losing sight of our educational aims. We will end up with an exam-oriented educational culture in which students learn things only because they are in going to be in the exam. We will end up educating to test rather than testing to educate.

I commend the International Competitions for Schools for testing skills, critical thinking, and creativity, reasoning and problem-solving. All too often we test information acquisition rather than skills. In the Information Society, however, it is not information, but the capacity to process information, but the capacity to process information that is scarce. In the Information Society information is cheap. The higher order skills; creativity, reasoning and critical thinking, are expensive.

I am told that each student who participates in the Competitions receives a diagnostic report on his or her performance. This focus on skills and on diagnosis keeps testing and evaluation process forward-looking. Each participating school also receives a statistical report which helps the school to benchmark itself against other schools domestically and internationally. It also helps the school to identify underachieving students. Again, to keep this process is forward-looking this data is not available to government departments or to other schools. Like constructive criticism, educational testing for the sake of diagnosis and benchmarking is designed to help the recipient improve. (I wish more of the criticism that comes our way in a huge ministry I oversee were of the same nature).

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I believe we can use sophisticated, skills based testing and evaluation tools such as the EAA uses in the International Competitions for Schools to help us achieve our goal of building a world-class educational system that leaves no child behind. On the road to a more excellent and equitable educational environment we must continually refine the tools we use to diagnose our strengths and weaknesses and measure our progress. As we broaden our educational horizons we must also broaden our perspective on testing and assessment.

I think the EAA and UNSW for making your assessment tools available to 28,000 of our students. I congratulate the medallists, their teachers and their parents. You make Malaysia proud. Your achievements set a standard for everyone else and encourage your fellow students to do likewise.

This move by the Education Ministry is aimed at taking away the stress on teachers and administrators over their school’s overall performance.

Education Minister Datuk Hishammuddin Hussein said: “We will no longer do comparisons between schools and between the different streaming of schools but concentrate more on individual achievement.

“I hope this will release the stress on teachers and the school administration as there has been too much pressure on them to perform every year.”

He hoped the move, coming after 17 years, would be well received.

Hishammuddin said the move was also part of his goal to make the education process less examination-oriented.

“We are looking to make education more holistic and make the learning process more fun without placing too much focus on exams.”

Hishammuddin, however, said the change in emphasis would not change the examination format as its assessment and other processes remain the same.

He was speaking after presenting gold medals to 67 students from Standard Three to Form Six who won the International Competition for Schools conducted by Educational Assessment Australia (EAA) of the University of New South Wales this year.

Also present were Australian High Commissioner to Malaysia James Wise and EAA director Associate Professor Peter Knapp.

National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) president Ismail Nihat welcomed Hishammuddin’s announcement on making education less exam-oriented.

It was a move NUTP had pushed for, he said.

“It will reduce the stress on teachers and students as they can now enjoy learning about life, not just for exams,” he said.

The president of the Federation of Headmasters’ Council of Malaysia, Awang Mohmad, however, begged to differ on not announcing the names of schools that do well.

“If the schools are no longer assessed, how can they or even parents gauge their performance and effectiveness? The existing system is fine; there is no need to change it,” he said.

Ahmad Azam Latiff, 44, whose daughter, Farah, from Sekolah Kebangsaan Setiawangsa, will receive her UPSR results on Tuesday, supported the move.

“The schools are there to teach and not to compete among themselves.”

Statistician Siti Hawa Sulong, 42, whose daughter is in Sekolah Kebangsaan Setiawangsa, expressed concern that the move would result in teachers not being serious about their job.

“If the pressure is not on them, they might lose their focus and not push students to excel for the glory of the schools,” she said.

By Alang Bendahara

The Straits Times—AN AUSTRALIAN competition used to assess students’ abilities in various subjects is fast gaining popularity among schools here.

Only 700 youngsters took part in the annual contest when it was introduced here in 1992. But by 1996, it was drawing 50,000.

This year, 250,000 students or half Singapore’s student population from more than 250 schools took the test, which is organized by the Educational Testing Centre of the University of New South Wales.

The competition is open to students from Primary 2 to Junior college, and is on four subjects: English, Mathematics, Science and computer skills. It costs $7 to take the test in each subject.

Also held in Malaysia and Brunei, it started in Australia in 1981.

Top schools, including The Chinese High and Raffles Girls Secondary, have used the test to challenge their students for more than five years, crushing talk that the tests are easy and used to boost confidence before big exams.

Many schools use the competition, which runs from April to July, to see how their students compare with others in Singapore, even though the material covered in the tests is not related to the local curriculum. They are able to do this as students are ranked against others here, although the scripts are marked in Australia.

About 20 teachers and principles interviewed by The Straits Times said they encourage students to sit for the test because the questions are well-structured and force them to think of solutions, not just regurgitate memorised ones.

St Hilda’s Primary’s head of English Andrew Soong said: “For example, poems are used as comprehension passages. A student has to understand and interpret them to answer the question correctly.”

‘THE QUESTION IS A FAR CRY FROM THE ONES IN THE TESTS AND EXAMS WE DO. I LIKE THE USE OF POETRY IN ENGLISH PAPER AND GRAPHICS USED IN THE MATHS PAPER.’
– Benjamin Lim, a Secondary 4 student from Chinese High

About 80 per cent of the English test consists of multiple-choice questions. The rest required a word or sentence to be filled in.

Many of the questions are also multidisciplinary and test a student’s general knowledge.

For instance, a science question on astronomy may include elements of geography and statistics, in the form of graph or table.

Chinese High physics teacher Steven Su said: “To answer a question correctly, a student would often have to understand the question and analyse a set of data.”

More than 85 per cent of the school’s 1,800 students entered the maths and science competitions this year.

Sixteen-year-old Benjamin Lim, a Secondary 4 student from Chinese High, said: “The question is a far cry from the ones in the tests and exams we do. I like the use of poetry in English paper and graphics used in the maths paper.”

Students should also receive feedback on their errors. But three out of five students interviewed do not find this useful as the questions are unrelated to Singapore’s curriculum.

A Secondary 4 student from Raffles Girls School, Sarah Chian, 16, who sat for the competition last year, said: “Since there is a time lapse of three months, by the time I received the feedback, I’d lost my answer booklet.”

Despite the competition’s popularity, at least one principle, Mr Ang Wee Hiong of Hwa Chong Junior College, said his school prefers to use its own form of assessment.

Asked about the value of the competition and whether it encourages participation, an Education Ministry spokesman would only say: “Schools see value in participating in the competitions because analytical components are infused in the tests, which complement what is learnt in our schools, and comprehensive feedback is given. They have the autonomy to decide whether or not to participate.”

By Jane Ng

“People in education are becoming more and more accountable to the government and to those who fund them,” says Dr Peter Knapp, acting director of research and assessment of University of New South Wales’ Education Testing Centre in Australia.

“At the end of the day, they want to be able to say not only what their students can do but also whether the students can measure up to what is expected of them. This situation is not only specific in Australia but affects education systems around the world.”

The development, according to Dr Knapp, has had an impact on the field of test research and design.

“The traditional test theory looks at testing programmes as having the sole function of ranking students from lowest to highest achievement or vice versa.

“In old-style tests, you have the scores. You turn that into a percentage and then you get your means and standard deviations, and after that you’ll be able to rank the students on that scale.”

He notes that although the function has the desired purpose of informing teachers, students and parents where a student’s performance is located in terms of the testing population, it often tells very little about what students actually know or don’t know. “All you can say at the end of the day is if the student is good enough or not.”

The modern test theory however sees the potential scope of testing programmes expanding further than that. Tests, says Dr Knapp, can be designed to carry diagnostic elements.

He quotes Australia as an example where tests are now designed to help identify student achievement in relation to relevant syllabus outcomes. This means that the results are able to provide rich descriptive data on student performance that will enable teachers and parents to make informed judgements on the students’ future educational needs.

“What we are trying to do with our assessments is to be able to see where students are in a continuum, beginning from where they start in the education system and how they’re moving through it.

“So, rather than just seeing it (the test) as a “Yes, they have gotten a question right’ or ‘No, they haven’t’ situation, we’re trying to see a whole range of skills and knowledge that are integrated into the test items, plus a whole lot of other factors that need to be taken into account.

“The technical term for this (approach) is called the ‘item response theory’. In simple words, in modern testing programmes, we’re not just looking at the student’s ability to get the items right, but we’re also looking at the student’s ability itself.

“We calibrate the items before the test in terms of student ability and item difficulty. Once students have done the test, we should be able to see whether students who should have gotten it right, did or didn’t.

“If they didn’t get it right, then diagnostically there’s something wrong here. The next question to ask is why?”

Dr Knapp says the question in itself is interesting, especially to the teacher. The teacher may then ask herself, “Is it my teaching?”, “Should I think about how I teach the students?” or “Do I change my teaching programme?”

“It’s a whole lot of issues which traditional testing can’t tell you. (With old-style tests) all teachers can say is, “These are my best students’ but they can’t tell you why. So, modern tests are diagnostic in that they actually inform teachers how they could improve their teaching.”

Teachers in general, claims Dr Knapp, are keen to improve themselves. “They very much want to know how to do things better but one of the things we don’t do well enough is to show them how.

“With this (new) approach, we’re not only showing students what they’re doing correctly and not, we’re also showing teachers how they can more effectively teach their students.”

By Choo Hooi Peng