When there is excessive competition among schools.

When it comes to education, politicians have often put in their hands to create results among school-children, sometimes with undesirable results.

In Malaysia, for instance, the demand for even better grades in examinations have caused much unnecessary worry among school authorities, parents and school-children.

At one time, there was a kind of grading of schools to indicate the type of results schools can achieve.
So schools coud be considered exemplary, promising and, should we say 'need further improvement'. Of course, no school would want to carry the stigma of being considered to be in a state of 'requiring more effort to raise the standard of the school. So, there was much competition among the headmasters/headmistress or principals of the schools. I know it for a fact that such competition did lead to immoral acts and behaviour of some school authorities.

During my schooldays and during the first fifteen years of life as a teacher, there was no such unhealthy competition among schools although the heads od schools did their level best to motivate the students to give of their best.

I remember that, as a student, I had to strive to perform well to be eligible for a school which is known to be the best. Very few students had to go for tuition and life in school could be said to be happy and what we looked forward to. Life in Hutchings School, Penang, was a joy I looked forward to each day. It was a primary school where I turned up each morning; or afternoon, if that particular year required me to attend afternoon classes; eager fr a day with my friends, games and learning. Certainly, there were days when school was not a rose garden. On such days, learning can be more difficult, understanding not as simple and mistakes happen too frequent to be allowed to go not reprimanded by a teacher. However, most of us accept evening fairly severe punishments without complaint as if we tried hard enough, we were often rewarded with encouraging words and approval.

Though it could not be claimed to be blood and sweat most of the time, I managed to be chosen to enter the then prestigious Penang Free School after my standard six examination.

So, any present day student reading this would certainly envy my school life. There was no need for any rush after or before school for one subject tuition or another. No burning the midnight oil. There was sufficient time for fun in the sun and a laze on the beach or grass. There was lots of physical joy and fun.

And once a school has been considered the best, somehow the teachers and the students managed to keep the standard high while less favoured schools remained so with not much pressure for the already mostly hard-working teachers and students. (Of course, at any time in history, there will always be the good, the bad and the ugly, be they teachers or students.) This is not to say that there were no better individual performances or results than those of prestigious schools but they were usually less than the number of outstanding achievers in the prestigious school where the pressure to uphold the name of the school was ever present.

When schools were graded according to the the yearly performance of the schools and there was a demand for better examination grades by the ministry of education, school authorities and the parents; students, academically capable or not, had to depend upon tuition to assist in obtaining those grades. In such a situation, the students are always the victims, at the mercy of their parents, the school and the system.. They are expected to perform. They had to produce excellent grades.

And the expectations are some parents are really ridiculous. I one was talking to a music teacher at a music center when a little nine-year old girl hurried towards the door. Upon seeing the girl, the music teacher reminded her to practice more at home. When received the advice to work on her piano, she sobbingly told the teacher, "My mother says I have to study more to improve my English as ninety-five marks out of a hundred was not good enough and I was given a stroke of the cane on my palm."
When I heard that I could not help but ask to see her mother. I very much would like to ask her mother whether she ever got ninety-five percent of her work in school right. And even if she did, how often was that possible. Imagine that! No approval for such good marks. So, to please their parents, some children may have to forgo the joy of childhood.

Then, the school authorities and the teachers play a part to create a grade A school. And i hear of a headmistress who would hunt for excellent students from other schools so that she could get them to attend her school. Of course, that was difficult but she did try and that was how other teachers got to know about it.

Another way to achieve exemplary schools is to weed out weaker students and discourage them from taking examinations. I heard that this did happen. Knowledge of this came about when one such exemplary school's action to prevent a few students from sitting for the examination  was revealed though complaints. In fact, other schools in the area were encouraged to go to the exemplary school to learn how the school achieve results. I went together with my wife whose school decided to visit such a school. We were taken round to the library and the toilet as well as some classes. When it comes to classes, it is quite normal to have lots of cards with knowledge and information displayed. What struck me  was the library and the toilet.

In the library, the books were stacked very neatly in their shelves with many displayed on the tables. I saw not a library but a book exhibition. It gives an unwritten  'Do not touch!' warning to anyone seeing the arrangement.

And the toilet was spotlessly clean. Along the walls were strings stretched from one corner to the next and attached were cards with multiple tables and other information. The aim must be to have the children learn even as they pee.

Fortunately for our students, the authorities have done away with such competition among schools and turn to other methods to improve the education of the children although the stress in still on scoring more and more As.

However, among the teachers I talked to, we believe that it may be possible that marks have been lowered to enable more students to get an A. For example, it is noted that B students in the 1960s can write and speak English better than today's A students.