Gaining admission to an SBP should not be the reason to get straight As. It really can’t be helped if some wide-eyed child develops such a motivation on her own. However, any parent or teacher who tells a child to study hard to get straight As so she can go to a boarding school should be smacked, real hard, for feeding false promises.
The issue is not be about saving school children from frustration at an early age (which is not necessarily a bad thing, c’est la vie!) but about equipping them with the right values. Education should be valued for its own sake. SBPs are expensive to build and run. Instead of building more fully residential schools, we need the government to improve the quality of all schools for all school children.
Wednesday March 11, 2009Besides, if fully residential schools are to remain the object of aspiration as they are now, they need to be scarce. It’s basic demand and supply: too much supply of a good decreases its value.
‘A’ squeeze for boarding school places
A TOTAL of 46,600 students scored straight As last year but only 12% will be given places to continue their secondary education in residential schools, said Deputy Education Minister Datuk Dr Wee Ka Siong.
He told Datuk Juslie Ajirol (BN -Libaran) that although all the students are eligible for a place in boarding schools, only 6,000 places are available.
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2009/3/11/parliament/3447556&sec=parliament
Honestly I think the SBP system should be scrapped by now. It was introduce under the NEP so that the students from rural areas that do not have running electricity or conducive environment for learning can get equally chance to study by leveling the playing field with the urban students.
ReplyDeleteBut you look at most SBP these days, its overrun with middle class school children that I think will do just fine in Sekolah Kebangsaan. If SBP system were to maintain, it should cater the school children from rural areas and they should be equipped with the best teaching stuff.
SBP also impends any effort to integrate the society as only a few take students from different races.
But I am not a SBP product, what do I know.
You are referring to the science schools established after 1970. There are seven “original” fully residential schools established pre-NEP.
ReplyDeleteAs an SBP alum I do want to see them stay at least for sentimental reasons.
If SBPs are now “overrun” with middle class students I suppose in part it is because our society today is not as rural as it used to. Perhaps also this perception comes from the fact that more students, from both rural and urban background, get to go to a boarding school now because there simply are more of them (>50!). Still, a straight-A student from a rural school stands a better chance to be offered a place at a boarding school than one from an urban school.
I have to disagree that boarding schools contribute to racial segregation. With few exceptions, SBPs do admit non-bumiputra students, though in small numbers.