Lessons school heads must be taught first

IT APPEARS that some schools are obstinate about making students buy more workbooks than the number prescribed by the Education Ministry. So much so that they are willing to resort to deception.

Parents have complained of schools bundling together two or three workbooks and selling them as a single item. This practice sidesteps the rule that for certain core subjects for Years Four to Six, students should not be required to buy more than one workbook per subject.

On Friday, Deputy Education Minister Datuk Chong Sin Woon warned schools not to defy the ministry’s circular on the use of workbooks in primary schools.

He said the ministry would investigate the matter and there were ongoing discussions on the action to be taken against the errant schools.

There is no way the culprits can claim ignorance about the Government’s policy on workbooks. Over the past three decades or so, the ministry has issued several circulars on the use of workbooks in schools.

At times, these circulars were seemingly in response to brouhaha over parents being compelled to buy many workbooks and children being weighed down by heavy schoolbags.

In October 1991, the Education director-general came out with a circular that covered the use, selection and sale of workbooks for primary schools.

Back then, workbooks were such a big part of life in school that it had become a talking point among parents and teachers.

The ministry noted that workbooks had been used so extensively that textbooks had been sidelined.

Its stand was that workbooks and practice material should be prepared within schools by the teachers themselves because they knew best their students’ ability levels.

The circular reminded school heads and teachers that textbooks were the main teaching and learning resources and that workbooks were meant to be supplementary.

In this circular, the ministry made it clear that there ought to be only one workbook for each of these subjects: Bahasa Melayu, English, Mathematics, Chinese and Tamil.

However, the message must have faded in the minds of some school heads and teachers, prompting the ministry to send out a reminder in December 1993. The Education director-general lamented that despite three previous circulars on the use of workbooks, a number of schools did not follow the rules.

The 1991 guidelines were refreshed and expanded in February 2000.

According to the circular, pupils in Years One to Three do not even need workbooks because the ministry’s Textbook Division produces activity books. The older primary schoolchildren should have only one workbook per subject for Bahasa Melayu, English, Mathematics, Science, Chinese and Tamil.

But bad habits die hard. Concerned that the widespread use of workbooks had become an “unhealthy practice” that threatened to lessen the role of textbooks, the ministry put out another reminder in September 2014.

The schools were told to heed the guidelines released in February 2000. Is it time for yet another reminder? And what does that say about the schools that persistently ignore the rules on workbooks?

Stern action against the stubborn school heads and teachers will surely be a deterrent. But the ministry should also thoroughly study the reasons for this fixation on workbooks.

We know that the workbook publishing business is substantial and that there is much profit to be earned in persuading people to buy these books for their kids.

That is the supply side. What about the demand factors? Can it be purely a matter of parents being forced by schools to fork out money for the workbooks?

Or is there a strong and genuine demand for workbooks because both parents and teachers believe that the students will benefit? If so, why the faith in workbooks over textbooks, and will that do more harm than good?

There have been enough warnings on the overreliance on workbooks. The Government must now work on understanding the issues better so that it can finally turn the page on this long-time problem.