KUALA LUMPUR: Parents of high school students have expressed displeasure over the Education Ministry’s announcement that science and maths textbooks for Dual Language Programme would only be available in March.
Those interviewed said delay in the distribution of the books would cause unnecessary distress to students.
Bank officer Tunku Hazlin Tunku Hanizar said students nationwide would be sitting for the PT3 exam this year.
“This delay comes at a bad time as the exams will be held this year.
“The ministry should have been better prepared...it is a real inconvenience,” the 44-year old whose eldest daughter is sitting for PT3 this year.
A housewife who declined to be named decried the move by the Ministry as students are the ones that suffer every time there is a policy change in education.
“Without physical textbooks, teachers would need to scramble to come up with different ways to teach (science and mathematics) students,” said the 46-year old mother of two daughters aged 16 and 17.
A supplier of educational mathematics teaching materials however said the recent development would see a push towards the digitization of education.
Wishing to remain anonymous, the 56-year old said the trend is now wireless internet and use of media like DVDs to teach students in a more dynamic and engaging manner.
“There was a time when the Education Ministry’s idea of digital learning was merely making a PDF copy of a textbook. This is disappointing,” he said.
Tuition teacher Andrew Choo, 52, said tuition centres already received the syllabus for 2019 in October last year, which allowed them to prepare the teaching materials accordingly.
“Everything (chapters of science and mathematics) is already in the computer system. On receiving the syllabus, we need only rearrange the chapters in our teaching materials for students.
“Students who are enrolled in tuition centres would still be able to learn the subjects in accordance to the Education Ministry’s syllabus.
“The only problem that may arise is if teachers in schools are completely reliant on these physical textbooks to prepare classes for students,” he said.
It was reported that dual language Mathematics and Science textbooks for Form 3 will be distributed to schools offering DLP for the subjects beginning March.
In a statement, the Education Ministry said that it was in the process of publishing books for the DLP programme.
“The ministry was not able to supply textbooks for the two subjects when the school session started on Jan 2 because of the changes made to improve the procurement system and to prevent the direct dealing system in supplying textbooks to schools which had been practiced since mid-2018,” it said.