Our students skills

2009/11/20

PUTRAJAYA: While the overall UPSR results may be satisfactory, the same cannot be said of the thinking and problem solving skills of the pupils. The Education Ministry's first Aptitude Test for Year Six pupils during the UPSR exam shows that only 5.7 per cent (29,084 students) of 509,885 are skilled at problem solving and decision making.

It also shows that only 34.34 per cent (175,101) are skilled in thinking. The candidates sat for the test on the last day of the UPSR examination.

Director-general of Education Tan Sri Alimuddin Mohd Dom said yesterday that 29,084 pupils scored the highest (Band 4) for problem solving and decision making skills while the majority (243,258 pupils) only managed to score Band 2 for the test.

"A total of 175,101 pupils scored Band 4 for the thinking skills section, which indicates a need to train our children to not only think but make concrete decisions and learn how to solve problems."

The aptitude test, he said, had 60 multiple-choice (objective) questions in three areas -- thinking skills, problem-solving and decision-making.

Speaking at a press conference, Alimuddin said a pupil's aptitude level was categoris-ed from Band One (lowest skilled) to Band Four (highest skilled).

The test results for Problem Solving and Decision Making show that the majority of Year Six pupils, 47.71 per cent (243,258 pupils), remained in Band Two, followed by 28.24 per cent (143,971 pupils) in Band Three and 18.35 per cent (93,572 pupils) in Band One.

In the Skilled Thinking section, 41.04 per cent (209,244) of the pupils were in Band Three, 20.71 per cent (105,580 pupils) in Band Two and 3.91 per cent (19,960 pupils) in Band One.

He hoped schools would adopt more activities that focused on culture and art so that pupils would not only have an academic experience but also a wholesome experience

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Fikrah:-

1) Well, maybe overall achievement in UPSR is increasing year by year, it is still academic oriented; compared to Thinking, problem solving and Decision making Skills which are nowhere near excellent! Thus, it confirmed that we need to transform our teaching method in the classroom as a whole!

5.7% ??? you gotta be kidding???? This is very serious!!!!

don't you think?