Amend Education Development Blueprint to become maths/science power-house

(Petaling Jaya, Saturday): Parliament next month should amend the 10-year Education Development Blueprint 2001-2010 to adopt as a national objective the goal to position Malaysia as one of the world’s top nations in mathematics and science to demonstrate the seriousness of the ambition to transform Malaysia into an international centre of academic excellence and an IT power.

Yesterday, I had called on the Education Minister, Tan Sri Musa Mohamad to learn from the lessons of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study - Repeat (TIMMS-R) 1999 in which Malaysian students participated for the first time and was placed 16th in mathematics and 22nd place in science among 38 countries in a survey which involved 180,000 Grade 8 students and to formulate a strategy for Malaysian students to rank among the world's top five nations in mathematics and science.

Following the media statement, my attention was drawn through email to Malaysia’s generally low performance in international mathematics and science competitions.

In the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), an annual World Championship Mathematics Competition for High School students participated by over 80 countries since it was first held in 1959 in a different country, Malaysia had never distinguished itself as a power-house in mathematics, as seen from Malaysia’s rankings in the past seven years, together with

	Malaysia	Spore	China	Russia	S.Korea	Taiwan	India	Japan	HK	USA	Vietnam
1995	72	26	1	3	7	12	14	9	20	11	4
1996	72	25	6	4	8	20	14	11	27	2	7
1997	69	41	1	4	11	14	15	12	30	4	10
1998	62	22	-	6	12	5	7	14	25	3	9
1999	63	36	1	1	7	9	18	13	33	10	3
2000	64	37	1	2	4	8	14	15	28	3	5
2001	59	29	1	2	4	9	7	13	19	2	10

The difference between TIMMS and the IMO is that while the former tests the academic attainments of 180,000 students from 38 countries, IMO is a competition for the best six students from each of the over 80 competing nations.

The power-houses in the annual IMO Olympiads have consistently been China, Russia, USA, Vietnam, South Korea and Taiwan which had always been in the top ten countries in the last three mathematics Olympiads.

In Asia, it is not just Singapore and Hong Kong faring better than Malaysia, Thailand has consistently beaten Malaysia in the International Mathematical Olympiad.

Malaysia also rank poorly in the 33^rd International Physics Olympiad, held in Bali in July this year, where several contestants each from Vietnam, China, Indonesia, South Korea, India , Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand were among the recipients for each category of gold medalists (42), silver medalists (37) and bronze medaists (58) except for Malaysia. Malaysia was not completely excluded as three participants were among the 68 given “honourable mentions”.

Parliament should set up a Standing Committee to monitor Malaysia’s performance in the international mathematics and science surveys and competitions to ensure that the country joins the ranks of nations which are internationally recognized as powerhouses in these two subjects – and the amendment of the Education Development Blueprint 2001-2010 when MPs meet next month to adopt the national objective to become one of the world’s top nations in mathematics and science should be the crucial first step in this direction.