Ｎａｆｉｓａ Ｎａｚｒｉｎ＇ｓ

Unequal achievement at school among students is mostly caused by 'social class' factor. It means that students from upper class often receives privileges in education and career opportunities rather than students from lower class. Hence, the social class issue has hampered students' ability to achieve academically. According to Bernstein, children from the upper and middle classes have an easier time adjusting to the school system. This might happened because they were exposed to early education at home which is similar to school's academic subjects. Unlike students from lower class, their first education is primary school. Only some of them have great parents that prioritize early education at home.

In addition, students from lower class are more likely to drop out of school earlier and disinterest in pursuing their studies in tertiary education because it requires large sum of money to spend on a child's education. The parents will not take the risk for that. Thus, the lower class students did not get the opportunity to change their family socioeconomic status by getting better and secure job. 

In my opinion, it is understandable for the parents for not supporting their children in education because of their financial instability. However, the bigger risk we are willing to face, the better result we might get. Plus, government has provided some incentives and supports for B40 family in many areas. For example, PTPTN and various scholarships to assist the students from lower class. Therefore, we can conclude that unequal achievement among students causes by social class are no longer valid since the era has changes. Parents has no reason to obstruct their talented and genius children from education just because of financial problem since there many ways to overcome that one problem.

Malaysia is a country with a multicultural society. Thus, we need to have an education system that equally meets all races' needs. However, before the Independence Day of Malaysia, the system was biased as the British Colonization implemented the Divide and Rule Policy. As a result, several education systems were used during that time, such as Chinese and Indian vernacular schools, madrasah and tahfiz, and English schools. The opportunity for some races to pursue studies in education is plenty since some of them comes from unfortunate family. 

Nonetheless, the Malaysian government keeps upgrading the education system following the current changes starting with a few reports; Barnes Report 1950, Fenn-Wu Report 1951, Education Ordinance 1952, Razak Report 1956, and Rahman Talib Report 1960 draws an outline, objectives, and policies of education. Malaysia's education policies always highlighted the importance of societal peace, harmony, respect, and togetherness between its people. 

Hence, the national education system holds an essential role in achieving the main objectives of our country, which is to promote unity between races. The education reform as proposed in the current system, KSSR and KSSM (upgraded version of KBSR and KBSM), to some extent helps unify the education system as it opens wider opportunities for students regardless of races to various elective subjects and become familiar with the university system (e.g., collaboration programs between High School and local universities). Through these opportunities, the students could explore their passion in many fields as well as mingle with various types of people at school. 

In this topic, I have learned about Malaysia's political background, Politics and Educational Politics, National Economic Policy, and Dualism in Education. I believe integrating knowledge between Islamic education and modern education can form an excellent education system for the country. 

However, in Malaysia, we have four different schools that separate the races; National School, Chinese Vernacular School, Indian Vernacular School, and International Private School. Each school has a different education system. For example, the National School implements the public examination, SPM, as a ticket to further studies in higher education. Meanwhile, the International and Chinese schools got additional tests such as IGCSE (The International General Certificate of Secondary Education) and UEC (The Unified Examination Certificate). Even though they have their own examinations, they must take SPM to pursue their studies in local universities. 

In my opinion, if the government aims to produce a patriotic and harmonious generation, they must invest more in national schools. For instance, upgrading the school facilities, providing more educational resources and necessities. In this case, we must look up to the management of a Chinese school, in which the Parents and Teachers Organisation (similar to PIBG) are active in providing funds for the comfort of their children's learning atmosphere at school. 

It's been years that the school has received fewer funds from the government to upgrade the school facilities. How about we start from these small acts in order to gain trust from other races to register their children in national schools. 

Aside from that, instead of learning subjects such as 'Sivik dan Kewarganeraan' and 'Pengajian Am' theoretically, it is better for the school to encourage their students to involve in community services, co-curriculum activities which involves other races. That is when they can learn about other cultures & differences and learn to respect them. 

To sum up, it took a few changes in the education system to create a better society. Hence, school plays an important role as social agent for the harmonious environment in a society. 

The privatization of higher education institutions is not merely a bad decision but also has a good impacts on the country's economy and education. For instance, the positive effects of privatization of education are the demand is accommodated, the students receive necessary trainings for their profession, better facilities, and conducive learning. All of these can bring a positive environment for students and also affect their academic achievement. 

However, the privatization of education also has negative effects. For example, the increasing gap between rich and poor students, imbalance students enrolment, lack of patriotism, having a dual-system in education, weakening the quality of curriculum and decrease the quality of graduates. Thus, the government has sets number of acts regarding the privatization of education to avoid excess number of private institutions. As revealed by today's presenters, Education Act 1996, Private Higher Education Institutions Act 1990, and Lembaga Akredetasi National Act (LAN).

In order to upgrade the education system in accordance with the modernisation, Malaysia must also upgrades their Knowledge-Based economy to produce a cosmoplitan society with a global talent. With a stable system, we could produce a highly educated labour force and abundant resources of the country which make our country in line with advanced and developed country such as Finland and German.

Understanding educational sociology helps educators to design strategic educational activities and build effective teaching and learning methods. 

Throughout the session, Dr. Majid explained how, social forces, economic forces, political forces, and technological development affect the students in their education journey. 

On social forces, the study has found that family income, family type, family size, and parents' education play important roles in determining the quality of education received by the children. Based on the research made, most children from the working class (the poor and minority ethnic family) have a less satisfactory level of academic performance, while the children from the rich and middle class have excellent school performance.

Next, on the economic forces, it can be seen that developed and newly industrialized countries could provide a better education for free. On the contrary, the countries with low income and rely on agriculture have fewer opportunities in pursuing education.

Besides, in the political forces, education has been regarded as the main agent for the political socialization of the young into the national political culture. Education has also been a major factor in the selection and training of political leaders. This is not something new, as the interference of politics has occurred since the period of colonial administration.

Last but not least, we also discussed technological development and its effect on education. We cannot deny that technology helps in improving education. For example, better access for the source and self-paced study. However, it also has disadvantages as students can be distracted by other applications or websites on the internet which interfere with their academic performance.