Achieving better Maths and Science results
of “forging relations with all friendly nations of the world”, whether they were big or small, far or near.
The ministry has held true to this guiding principle.
Today, Malaysia is represented by 112 embassies and missions in 87 countries.
We have diplomatic relations with all countries of the world, except one.
Even though there is always a demand for the ministry to open up more missions in more countries, it is a request that the ministry mulls over very carefully because of the significance, costs and manpower involved in opening up a representative office.
Our furthest office, measured in terms of time difference, is Santiago, Chile, while our nearest is Singapore.
The locations of our offices and the work that they produce require the ministry to be on duty 24/7, something that only other ministries of foreign affairs can empathise with.
With only 742 officers and 449 staffers in the whole ministry, including at our missions abroad, this is no small feat.
This year also saw its fair share of international summits, meetings and conferences.
Only three weeks ago, the foreign minister was in Saudi Arabia for an emergency session of the OIC ministers, right after accompanying the prime minister for his visit to China.
The many organisations of which Malaysia is a member take up the other quarter of the ministry’s focus. It includes dealing with the wide range of issues under the aegis of the UN, the Non-Aligned Movement, the OIC and Asean.
Asean, perhaps, more than most of the other organisations, takes up a fair share of our energy and focus.
After successfully hosting the Asean Summit in Kuala Lumpur last year, the ministry continued its momentum as Asean focused on expanding relations with its dialogue partners.
Even before this year’s summit in Laos, there were many other preparatory meetings and issuesbased meetings organised by Asean in which the ministry was involved.
The UN General Assembly in September, always the highlight of the multilateral calendar, was an extremely busy time for the ministry.
This year, we had the added responsibility of chairing the Security Council in August, only to find ourselves already at the start of the General Assembly session.
Malaysia leaves the Security Council at the end of this year, justifiably proud of our accomplishments and contributions to the world body.
This year, we presided over two rounds of straw polls for the election of the UN secretary-general, and we carried out our responsibilities as the chair of the Council’s Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict and the Sanctions Committee for Libya, to completion.
We also co-chaired two Arria Formula meetings of the Security Council on the protection of Palestinians and illegal Israel settlements in May and October this year.
For each and every visit, meeting, discussion and event, Wisma Putra officials have provided their all.
They know that even though foreign policy is conducted behind closed doors, its impact reverberates upon the wellbeing and standing of the country as a whole.
What they do matters, even if it cannot be measured in dollars and cents.
I have had the privilege of leading these past three years, and of being part of the Malaysian Foreign Service, or popularly known as Wisma Putra, for the past 37 years. It has been a joy to be able to serve the country in various capacities, and humbling to know that the Foreign Ministry has been able to deliver as the custodian of Malaysia’s foreign policy.
Mine was a task that was made possible due to the leadership, guidance and trust of Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Anifah Aman, and of the cooperation, commitment and dedication of every single person at the ministry. It was this teamwork that allowed us to keep Malaysia’s flag flying high.
BACK TO MALAY MEDIUM: Improvement in tests shows the way
MALAYSIAN students recorded better results in the 2015 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) released last week, achieving the highest increase of 45 points among 16 nations that have shown improvements for Science.
Our 14-year-olds — a total of 9,726 students who were chosen to sit the tests — also produced their best effort in Mathematics with a substantial rise of 25 points, putting the country among 18 other nations that showed improvement in the subject.
TIMSS also looked into the performance of students by socio-economic background based on the availability of learning materials at home, confirming its importance for students in these two subjects.
Those with little of such resources had only managed to score an average of 431 points for Mathematics and 432 for Science. In comparison, the four per cent who had abundant resources did well, scoring 535 for Mathematics and 544 for Science.
Education director-general Tan Sri Dr Khair Mohamad Yusof attributed the increase in scores for both subjects to improvements made to the curriculum, assessment and teacher training that has also shaped not only the level of preparation by teachers and principals but also the school environment.
After a downward trend since 2003, this quadrennial international assessment showed how well students performed in these two subjects with a score of 471 for Science and 465 for Mathematics. An indicator to the progress would be comparing TIMSS’ scores in previous years for Malaysia.
The test, which consists of multiple choice and structured subjective questions, were conducted in the main language of instruction in teaching both subjects in the country.
The improvement for TIMSS 2015 may indicate that switching Maths and Science in English back to Malay in 2012 is making a difference to students’ performance in the benchmark tests of both subjects taken last year.
The teaching of Mathematics and Science in English (PPSMI) was introduced during the 2003 school session to all students of Year One in primary schools and Form One of the secondary level. PPSMI was fully implemented to all secondary school students in 2007 and primary school students in 2008. However, in 2011 Malaysia achieved its lowest scores for both subjects with the score of 440 for maths and 426 for science.
When the new policy was introduced in 2003, Malaysia was at its best score of 510 for Science, surpassing TIMSS’ centre-point scale of 500 points. In 2007, TIMSS’ score for Science declined to 471 and continued to drop to 426 in 2011.
Similarly, Mathematics did well in 1999 with 519 points, only going downwards with 508 points in 2003, 474 in 2007 and the lowest at 440 in the year 2011.
The objective of PPSMI to increase the English proficiency among students through these two subjects showed that perhaps with “too many irons in the fire”, we would end up “chasing two rabbits and catching none”.
With the exception of Singapore, countries like Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan that rank high in maths and science tests in TIMSS all have basic instruction in their national language.
Despite the claim on the prominence of English as the language of instruction for these two subjects, it is not a requisite for achieving excellence in Mathematics and Science. Many argued that the problem arises with terminologies which convey not only concepts but also interconnections through words that are derived from the same root. If a language does not have that capacity, it has no recourse but to borrow words from other languages.
Teaching science and mathematics in English to students who are not proficient in the language is tantamount to denying them the means to understand and hence, enjoy learning these subjects.
If we want to transform the subjects into real economic benefits, we must first strengthen these two subjects among students. Concepts and explanations must first be conveyed and received in easily understood language for students to build interest and learn better.
At the same time, we must not treat reading and writing — especially in English which is the global language — as inscrutable fields of study that are inessential to becoming educated in the same way that science and maths are.
Although the trajectory is positive, we certainly have much more work to do. Teaching of English in schools remains a major unresolved problem of our educational system.
The solution eventually lies in increasing the English language skills of students — without sacrificing Mathematics and Science in the process.