School Examinations In Malaysia Should Not Be Abolished

School examinations play an important role in a students life in Malaysia. In

eleven years of schooling, a student has to sit for three major public examinations,
the UPSR, PT3 and SPM. These examinations are taken seriously by all parties
involved, especially students because the results in the examination are very useful
for further study. When asked if examinations are good or bad, some people have the
opinion that examinations are good while the others disagree. From my point of view,
I absolutely agree that examinations are good because they can identify students
strengths and weaknesses in studying, help students manage their time, be a driving
forced to the students, identify the students problems and used as the yardstick for
measuring the capability of students.

The first reason is that examinations help students to identify their strengths
and weaknesses in studying. After an examination, students will have an overview
that which subjects they are weak at. When they know about where are the
problems, they can receive tuition or put in more efforts to improve their performance
in the weaker subjects. Students will also make wise to spend their money on
reference books so that they can increase their knowledge. Apart from that, students
can also buy past year examination paper workbooks or model examination paper
workbooks for practice purposes, because practice makes perfect. This can help
them to get confidence when sitting examinations. Besides that, parents can see the
performance of their children. Through examinations, the parents will get to know
how their children are studying. Parents can changes to their childrens way of
studying and learning, if necessary. Without this, parents will not know how their
children will fare in schools.

The second reason is examinations help students to manage their time

properly because the time is gold. It may also build their self-discipline and
encourages moral through examinations. A student can build his or her self-
disciplines when he or she knows the important of the examinations. Most students
will study hard in order to pass their examinations with flying colours. Since
examinations motivate students, they will spend more time on their study and plan a
timetable. Some may even put aside their social life for a certain period. This shows
that the students are well disciplined because they can control themselves. Instead of
this, they are able to getting new knowledge when studying more. When students
spend more time on their studies, they can avoid involving themselves in unhealthy
activities such as smoking, spending too much time in computer games, vandalism
and involve in gangsters. This will help them to save their time to improve their
knowledge and avoid from not beneficial activities, so it can be like kills two birds with
one stone.

Moreover, examinations are good because they are the driving force for
students to study hard. For every examination, students should set their own targets
so that they can achieve higher grades. Besides that, in this way examinations will
also motivate students to study harder. Without examinations, most students will not
really make an effort to study hard as there is no motivation for them to achieve
success. Students will be too free and they might not study at all. Students will
always play around in the schools and will not focus on their studies. This is because
they thought that studies are useless as there are no longer examinations to grade
their academic performances in schools. If they are not exposed to this kind of
examinations, they will have difficulties in future while studying. In return, they will
require knowledge which comes in handy when they grow up and start working in the
society.

In addition, teachers are able to identify the weaker students and assist them
to do better form theirs examination results. It just like a doctor may conduct a
medical examination to gauge whether a patient is healthy and to suit the medicine to
the illness. The only way for the teachers to get feedback from the students is going
through examinations. To ensure that the students understand what the teacher had
taught, the examinations are held. So through the examinations the teacher can
categorize their student. At the same time the teachers can find a solution to help the
weaker students to improve themselves by giving more attention towards them. So
without the examinations there is no way for the teachers to help the weaker students
to improve their knowledge. Teachers may also change their teaching skills which is
suitable to students to improve the performance of students. This can helps students
easily to absorb the knowledge from their teachers and get a good result in
examinations.

Furthermore, examinations are also used as a yardstick for measuring the

capability of the students, for further education or employment. For example,
examination results are the main criteria when selecting students for entrance into
universities. The PT3 results also help the school to decide which stream students
should be in for their upper secondary school. Without PT3, the streaming of
students would be much more difficult. It is assumed that the examination results
would indicate whether or not the student will be able to handle the course. In the
case of employment, it is felt that the examination results will indicate whether or not
the job seeker has the skills to handle the job. Besides that, children good
performance in examinations will allow them to get a scholarship. This is because
nowadays college, university or other independent departments focus on the result of
public examination. If students get a good result in examinations, they may get many
opportunities or chooses to further their study with scholarship.

In conclusion, one cannot deny that examinations bring a lot of advantages to

us. I realise that examinations are very necessary for students because Malaysia so
far has focused on public examination results as important determinants of students
progression to higher levels of education or occupational opportunities (Chiam 1984.)
Clearly, it makes a good step to our country education. Therefore, I strongly believe
that examinations are good for students and not be abolished.