Malaysia Likes To Emulate Shanghai's Success Formulae In PISA - DPM

From Jamaluddin Muhammad SHANGHAI, Dec 3 (Bernama) -– Malaysia likes to emulate elements practised in the Shanghai education system to churn out high-performing students, including for the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa), says Muhyiddin Yassin (fourth, left). The deputy prime minister, who is also education minister, said Malaysia was keen to adopt some of the success formulae from Shanghai which gained the top spot in Pisa for its student high performances in Mathematics, Science and Reading. “We want to learn how they succeed. We will look into (their) entire learning and teaching system,” he told reporters after attending a briefing by Pisa Chinese team director Zhang Minxuan (third, left) at the Shanghai Normal University here Wednesday. Towards this end, he said the ministry would send its expert team to the university to study the matter. Their success formulae such as single session schooling, less homework and less tution should be given due consideration, he added. While Shanghai is placed in the top spot, Malaysia is positioned among the lowest in the ranking which involves 65 participating countries (although Shanghai participated as a province) The province has 28 million population with 2,000 schools in rural and urban areas. Pisa examines the performance of 15-year-old pupils in Mathematics, Science, Reading and problem solving. Malaysian students scored below average for all the four subjects in the assessment conducted in 2012. Muhyiddin said Malaysia would continue participating in the Pisa, adding that the country’s education plan would continue with some improvement. However, he cautioned that Malaysia was not merely paying attention in the four subjects only as its holistic approach covered promoting national unity, all-round performance students in its education policies. The Malaysian leader said some of Shanghai’s success formulae known as 'Shanghai Secrets', including attracting the best brains in education, providing education infrastructure, assisting poor students and low performance student, as well as teachers’ professionalism development had been practised by Malaysia. He hoped Malaysia could be in the top one-third of the Pisa ranking in the next two to four years. “Malaysians like overnight results but we are working very hard to achieve our target,” he said. Muhyiddin is on his fourth day of the six-day official visit to China, covering Beijing, Shanghai and Chongqing since Sunday. He arrived here late Tuesday night and will be in Chongqing Thursday. (photoBernama) -- BERNAMA