Sunday, February 7, 2010

Top schools: Surprise exclusions

IT’S a huge disappointment. Most of us who come from premier schools must have wondered why the list of top 20 high performing schools, presumably the country’s best, excluded our alma maters.

The top names that were missing included Penang Free School (PFS), St Michael’s Institution, Victoria Institution (VI), St Xavier’s Institution (SXI), St John’s Institution and Bukit Mertajam High School.

So are schools that perform well in examinations like Chung Ling High School and Jit Sin High School.

Over in Sabah and Sarawak, the grumblings are equally loud. From Sabah, for example, the Tshung Tsin Secondary School, All Saints and the Kota Kinabalu Secondary School must surely be wondering why they were left out.

In Sarawak, my colleagues insist that St Joseph Secondary School, St Thomas Secondary School and Kolej Tun Datu Tuanku Haji Bujang are deserving names.

More from my column today, click here.

9 comments:

Malaysian Observer said...

Frankly, the quality of schools is this country has gone down the drain. All I see is a lot of grade inflation, and the lack of credibility to back up the purported academic results. There is no such thing as an "elite school" in Malaysia.

Anonymous said...

We must look into upgrading ALL schools rather than giving those already doing well further resources to widen the gap.

The schools on the list have certain things in common - active support of parents and powerful alumni.

Powerful parents can do wonders for a school. Among other things, they can make sure that good teachers are never transferred out, and also the not-so-good ones do not remain.

With powerful alumni, you get support for fund-raising projects and often have halls named after these benefactors.

I think we should by all means have a list of these top schools, but the rewards, if any, should come from the private sector, not from the government.

After all, if these schools do well, chances are their top students eventually end up working for top companies in the private sector, not the public service itself.

Chris said...

I'm not sure if I am sticking my head into a furnace. But I really need to say that teachers and students in the 20 school would have worked very hard to be able to obtain the title as a high performing school. This is not to put down other schools. I'm sure the staff and students have worked very hard too. So I really hope that no one will put down any of those 20 schools either.

Anonymous said...

Based on your list, we can infer the survey is for government school.

donplaypuks said...

First you should ask the Hon. Minister of Education to disclose the criteria applied to determine which is a top school and which is not.

What is the weightage among exam pass rates, acceptace in Unis and eventual Uni graduatioin rates and extr-curricular achievements? How many years results were used for comparison?

Otw, we are all in the dark.

Also, there's hardly any school from Sarawak and Sabah that qualifies. Are they not part of M'sia or are they regarded as 3rd World by MinEd?



dpp
We are all of 1 race, the Human Race

Wisdom said...

Datok Wong,

This is an appeal. I believe you know very well that our country faces a lot of problems and bringing changes will be very difficult because we have unfortunately allowed things to progress to a stage where there are people who cannot afford to lose power.

I appeal to you to find some way to help bring about a new better Malaysia.

Anonymous said...

Haha why are you crying so loud my friend. Don't you know what UMNO represent? Thousands and thousands every year gave up hope and joined the free world where your talent and hard work are rewarded. Otherwise just join UMNO and wait for your Alibaba contract.

You still talk of Penang Free School? Yes it was once the like of RI in Singapore but not any more. Stars should make a comparison of PFS and RI and see the difference but again who will believe you since UMNO is your master?

Anonymous said...

You should stop your blog immediately. It's a load of drivel.

Anonymous said...

I saw the DPM in Astro recently trying to convince viewers that what he did was right by having the 20 top schools. I believe we had vision schools and then clustered schools under the former Education Minister so the new Minister must 'create' something new for the students, teachers and parents to show he also got brain one. Headmasters and teachers in top 20 schools will get 'incentives'....then he said teachers must be prepared to teach in rural areas (obviously not among the top 20 schools). Which stupid teacher wants to go there and miss out on the 'incentives'? The DPM should just forget about all these slogans like ..Vision schools, clustered schools and top 20 schools but just focussed on improving the rural schools amenities, infrastructure hostels and better food so that these schools can be at par with schools in towns and cities. Don't be too ambitious at the expense of losing your objectives!