Preliminary-Blueprint-Eng

3-11
▪ In Science, students are able to identify, explain and apply
scientific knowledge in a variety of complex life situations.
They consistently demonstrate advanced scientific thinking and
reasoning. Students are able to use scientific knowledge and develop
arguments in support of recommendations and decisions that centre
on personal, social, or global situations.
The contrast with other top-performing Asian countries is obvious:
the percentage of students in Singapore, South Korea, and Hong Kong
performing at the Advanced level in reading is 120-150 times that of
Malaysia (Exhibit 3-14).
EXHIBIT 3-14
Comparison of Malaysia’s PISA 2009+ performance in Reading by skill
level against other countries
Percentage of students at each performance levels 1 in PISA 2009+ Reading
Advanced
Intermediate
Below
minimum
12.9
13.4
81.3 79.3 71.8 73.0
5.8
Korea
12.4
8.3
Hong
Kong
15.7
12.5
Singapore
13.6
Japan
7.6
73.6
18.8
OECD
average
0.7
0.3
0.1
58.9 56.8 55.9
40.4
42.9
Romania Thailand
44.0
Malaysia
0
46.6
53.4
Indonesia
1 Advanced includes proficiency level 5 and level 6; Intermediate includes proficiency level 2, 3, and 4; and Below minimum
includes proficiency level 1 and below
SOURCE: PISA 2009+
Exhibit 3-15 compares all the countries taking part in international
assessments and how well their students performed. The vertical axis
shows their level of achievement on the universal scale. Countries are
classified based on the universal scale into broad performance bands
of Poor, Fair, Good, Great, and Excellent. The difference between
each performance band (approximately 40 universal scale points)
is equivalent to one year of schooling. Thus, 15-year-olds in a Good
system are performing as though they have had one extra year of
schooling compared to 15-year-olds in a Fair system.
The horizontal axis of the chart shows the public expenditure on
education per student in US dollars (PPP adjusted) as of 2008. All
the countries have been allocated to the bar that corresponds to their
expenditure band. The number at the top of this bar is the maximum
score achieved (by a particular country) for this level of expenditure,
and the number at the bottom represents the minimum score. The
chart highlights Malaysia’s public expenditure per student in 2008.
Combining the two axes highlights the variation in performance
between countries that have similar levels of expenditure in education.
TIMSS and PISA highlight that there are Good
and Great schools in Malaysia worthy of study
and replication
While Malaysia’s performance as a system on the international
assessments is not as strong as is desired, an analysis of the
distribution of scores by school shows that there are schools worthy
of study and replication (Exhibit 3-16). These are schools whose
performance falls in the Good or Great performance band by
international standards. In the TIMSS 2007 assessment, for example,
11% of schools performed in the Great band, while another 30% were
in Good. In the PISA 2009+ assessment, 7% of schools were in the
Good band.
EXHIBIT 3-16
Malaysian school performance by performance bracket for TIMSS 2007
and PISA 2009+
TIMSS 2007 Participating schools by
performance bracket
Performance
bracket
Number Percent
Excellent 0 0%
Great
Good
Fair
Poor
SOURCE: TIMSS 2007; PISA 2009+
17
45
64
24
11%
30%
43%
16%
150 100%
PISA 2009+ Participating schools by
performance bracket
Performance
bracket
Number Percent
Excellent 0 0%
Great
Good
Fair
Poor
0
11
20
121
0%
7%
13%
80%
152 100%
The Ministry also has two types of Special Awards to recognise schools
with outstanding performance: HPS and Cluster Schools (CS). There
are 66 HPS around the country, with enhanced decision-making rights
(and accountability) to sustain performance while enabling principals
and teachers to continue to raise the bar (Exhibit 3-17). There are also
170 CS nationwide.
National examinations and international
assessments suggest variance in standards
There is some evidence to suggest that there is a lack of alignment
between the national and international assessments in terms of how
standards are defined. These discrepancies go some way toward
explaining the mismatch between the trends seen in the national
examinations and those revealed in the international assessments.