System needed to assess effectiveness of teachers

PUBLIC education is the single greatest instrument for equal opportunity in Malaysia. It is the promise of a good education for all that makes it possible for any child to transcend the barriers of race, class or background and achieve their God-given potential. In this country, it is education that allows our children to hope for something better.

But today, parents in Malaysia are seeing their children doing worse than they did in their time. They are losing hope that their children will be able to dream without limit, achieve without constraint and be free to seek their own happiness.

Effective teaching and empowerment play an important role in accelerating student achievement. Thus, it is essential for us to develop and share proven mechanisms to improve the effectiveness of teachers. We need to work on realigning policy and practices to better measure and increase the number of effective teachers. We must shift our focus from credentials to demonstrated effectiveness in the classroom, from teacher quality as measured on paper to teacher effectiveness as measured by student outcomes.

Having fewer but clearer, higher and more meaningful standards for assessing students is important. The evidence is clear in Maths and English Literature. Compared to high-performing countries, we do not focus as much on Maths, and in English Literature, our students are spoon-fed by simplistic presentations that don’t mirror the demands of college and good jobs.

We should define a core set of common standards that is truly based on what students need to be college- and work-ready. Everybody knows that standards alone are not enough. There is also a need for assessment in accountability, teaching and learning, which is what teachers need in the classroom but which have not had nearly the same level of investment.

We are going to need data systems that tell us which students in which classrooms are making progress. Today, despite hundreds of millions invested in data systems, we still do not have the crucial information we need, such as which teachers are already effective, who are not and who are becoming effective.

When Socrates taught through his famous conversations, he preferred to talk to young people, most of them adolescents who would have been in high school. He knew that if you created a spark in a young person’s mind during the critical period in which they are becoming an adult, you can change forever how they will develop as students and citizens.

We should prepare students for the demand of college, work and life.

KHOR KEAN TENG Taiping