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Sun, Oct 19, 2008
New Straits Times
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Is moral education a waste of time?
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>MALAYSIA - IS moral education a waste of time? "Definitely not," says Universiti Kebangaan Malaysia's Puan Sri Prof Dr Rohaty Mohd Majzub. "There are all types of children in the system, from single parent families, squatter homes, broken families, etc," said the lecturer who specialises in early childhood education.
"When a child comes from a home atmosphere that is unfavourable, moral education acts as a sort of check and balance."
Rohaty was commenting on complaints from parents on students having to memorise 36 nilai murni (moral values) for this subject, none of which could be substituted by a synonym.
When asked whether there was any point in memorising all 36 values, she said: "Memorisation is an age-old technique. You memorise 2x2 > 4, chemistry tables, piano notes, etc.
"But you have to understand what you are memorising. It should be memorising, not 'parroting'. Do you know why people don't remember things like road names? It's because they don't digest what they are supposed to remember. They can't explain what it means."
She gave an example of how a student who writes "cinta akan negara" (love thy country) instead of "cinta kepada negara" would end up with no marks although both terms mean the same thing.
Rohaty places the blame on the assessment system.
"This is because it's an exam-oriented marking scheme. The exact key-words have to be used. 'Kepada' cannot be replaced by 'akan' and vice-versa. For the examiners, this is good as it's objective system with no favouritism. It's quite restrictive and punishes the student to a certain degree."
The current system, said Rohaty, put the student in a dilemma: whether to be honest, which is a moral value to begin with.
"For example, a question asks you what you would do if you are driving fast and hit some cattle which had strayed onto the road. One student would answer correctly, saying she would find the farmer and ask him why he did not prevent his cattle from straying.
"Another would answer honestly and say she would leave the scene immediately to avoid being hit by the farmer. This student would lose marks for being honest."
Education Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein had said that the Moral Education subject was part of the curricula up for review by the Education Ministry.
Rohaty said any review of the subject should involve students, parents and teachers.
"The most important thing to be reviewed should be the marking scheme. It should be a holistic scheme which must not be fully exam-oriented."
"The student spends hours and much effort in preparing portfolios but is not given any marks for this, whereas marks are given for projects done under the kemahiran hidup (living skills) subject for lower secondary students. How can you ask a student to do something with no reward?"
Rohaty said emerging problems, current issues involving adolescents and social ills should be made the foundation of the course.
"A good way to do this is to bring newspapers into the classroom and getting the students involved in discourses. This is important because moral values might mean different things to different people.
"It should also involve an understanding of globalisation in light of the Internet and blogs. You can't just shut this out, so students must be taught to rationalise what is good and bad. There is no use in just memorising values in isolation."
Asked if Moral Education should be made a non-examinable subject, Rohaty said: "No. If it is not examinable, people will not take it seriously as our system is exam-oriented. But it must not be strictly academic."
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