From: SSR48327@VAX1.UTULSA.EDU (Syed Shibli)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asean
Subject: Re: Best School in Malaysia
Date: 24 Jul 92 06:32:05 GMT
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ooi@sol.acs.unt.edu (Reika Kii) writes:

>	Best schools in Malaysia?  I heard that a lot of leaked SPM
> questions were from the so-called best schools mentioned in previous
> posts.  Is that true?  I also heard that students in those top Malay
> boarding schools were given the questions in SPM (before they took
> SPM) for the current year so that they could do well in SPM.  Is that

  Not true. Not at the Malay College when I was there from 1981-1985.
  I used to hear students from other schools saying this to me all the
  time. It got so bad I gave one of them all my trial examination 
  papers just to prove that it wasn't true. The truth is, we work our 
  butts off harder than most folk to prepare for the O Levels. I have
  heard rumors about this going on at other schools (non-residential),
  and I recall that once the exam had to be administered twice because 
  everyone practically had knowledge of the questions beforehand 
  (I don't remember the details). 

> true also?  Are they really the "best schools"?  And, of course, I do

  There are a lot of "best" students in Malaysia. The Malay College 
  had but just a segment of these so-called "best." The student
  population was around 630 (about 116 in each incoming class).
  Not all the "best" enrolled at the Malay College. Some went fishing.
  Others attended non-residential schools. Still more others enrolled
  in pilot training courses and embroidery.

> believe there're top students in those "best schools".  I'm just 
> wondering if what I heard from others is true. 

  Speaking from my own limited experience (Malay College 81-85), these 
  rumors are certainly unfounded. The credibility of these tales are
  highly questionable when you take into account the through process of
  selecting questions to be asked in the next exam. The selection
  procedure involves hundred of participating teachers, each of whom
  submits a pool of about five to ten questions to a central authority
  at the Ministry of Education. These submissions are nothing more than
  suggestions made by the teachers; questions that they think would be
  appropriate for the next exam. I have no knowledge of the exact number 
  of people who actually choose the final pool of exam questions, but
  they are certainly a small group who rank high in the Ministry 
  (i.e. "credible" persons). Assume that for a subject such as Geography,
  a total of 5000 teachers submit 7 probable questions for consideration,
  and one of them happended to make public one of his submissions, then
  the probability that that question will be on the next exam is really
  very small (0.0029 percent or 1/35000). Much of the tight security
  surrounding these examinations depend, in large part, on the honesty 
  of the participating teachers, but that notwithstanding, the process still
  acknowledges the possibility that some of the submissions might be made
  known to the public. 

-- 
                                              --Syed Shibli
                                                ssr48327@vax1.utulsa.edu
                                                +1 918 631 3257
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asean