PUNCAK ALAM: Tuition and pushing students to score straight As does not make a super genius out of your child.
Deputy Education Minister II Senator Datuk Chong Sin Woon said parents must learn to change the perception they have about the need to send their children for tuition classes.
"Before, parents used to send their children for tuition because the child might be weak in certain subjects. Today, that is not the case because parents seem to think without tuition a child won’t do well in their exams.
“They are often under the impression that the more classes of tuition you attend, the higher chances of scoring As. But they do not realise the stress they put on these students, and that is also one of the reasons why the Education Ministry chose to come up with a new system,” he said.
He said the ministry is headed towards creating high level thinking, well balanced and quality students by adopting the new system.
"We no longer want classes to be all about mugging, writing examinations, grades-based and stressful in terms of competition among students and schools.
"Now, the ministry's focus is going to be on creating smarter, higher- level thinking and more marketable students for their future," he said after presenting 153 primary and secondary less fortunate students RM1,200 worth of aid at the Eco World Gallery @ Eco Grandeur, here today.
The aid is part of the Eco World Foundation's Students Aid Programme (SAP) which was first launched in 2014. So far, over 3,000 students up to university level, have benefited from it.
Chong said the old school thinking which believed that the number of A's determined the level of the student’s intelligence, has to be replaced with a system that suits the demands of the future.
He said the old mugging method had caused parents to make comparisons, fuelling negative competition among their children, especially when a student does do well.
On a separate issue on workbook usage in schools, where teachers use more than one workbook for a subject, Chong said the ministry does not take lightly schools or teachers who try to 'overload' students at primary level with more than one revision book or workbook for each subject.
"Beginning 2018, we will be going all out to enforce this. Any schools or teachers found to have flouted the warning, will face stern action," he said.
Last month the ministry issued a circular to all schools warning of stern action on the schools and teachers who made students buy more than one book for each subject in Years Four to Six.