From the letter section of NST,

When A1s lack distinction UPON completion of my under-graduate and postgraduate studies abroad, I became a lecturer in a local university in Malaysia. After spending most of my young adulthood both working and studying overseas, I was a bit out of touch with the education system here. Because of this, I was initially both impressed and intimidated by my students' examination results. My Senior Cambridge Certificate (GCE-O level) shows only a C3 for English while many of my students had A1s and A2s for their English (at SPM level). Looking at the abundance of As in their certificates made me feel more than a little inferior. Obviously, the children today are a lot smarter than we (the baby boomers and the Woodstock alumni) could ever be. For those who are too young to know who Ricky Nelson is, baby boomers are those dinosaurs born in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Most of us were also part-time Elvis Presley impersonators in the privacy of our bathrooms. The Woodstock alumni are those fossils born in the mid to late 1950s. They don't know who Ricky Nelson is either but they know that John Travolta can dance. In our days we would look at anyone who had more than 3As in awe and wonder. Today, a child having 3As or less would probably have to run away from home or go and live in Inner Mongolia so as not to embarrass his parents (who incidentally probably did not get that many As in their day). However, my impression about my students' academic achievements took quite a tumble when I heard them speak in English. I could not believe my ears. How on earth could they have gotten those "A" grades? When I read their examination papers, I started to cry. There was a parent who wrote an indignant letter (NST, March 9) asking how it was possible that his son who scored A1 for the 1119 English paper in the 2003 SPM examination, could only manage a 5C for the GCE-O level for the same paper. It may not be much of a consolation but one of my students who had an A2 for his English in SPM, barely passed with a 7P at the GCE-O level. Boy, they sure don't make them like they used to. H.L. Ampang New Straits Times

I thought this letter sums up our current pathetic state of our education system. We have diluted our quality so much so that it has become a laughing stock for others. Scoring As no longer holds ground when pitched with the true standards of the outside world. We paint an illusion of excellence for our future generations.

What is the point of lowering standards? But mind you, teachers sometimes display a shameful standard of English themselves. I have several patients who are teachers that are suppose to educate our children in Maths and Science in English, and they cannot even hold a conversation in English. The Government hopes that technology will help them as pointed out by my previous post but this remains a wishful thinking. Even the standards for qualifying teachers have been lowered.

Even in Medicine, we are not spared. Doctors are mass produced and i have come across many who cannot even speak English well! Some do not even understand certain simple words in English. What went wrong? How can they read journals or even produce good research for international publications? Being fluent in Malay and English , and in our case, some Chinese dialects is important to survive in Medicine!

I have lamented on this before that unfair preference have sometimes been blatantly provided to certain individuals. This practice will destroy our nation. If Mahathir says "lets call a spade, a spade", then i say "let's call meritocracy, meritocracy". There is little point in proclaiming meritocracy when we are not practicing it.

This is why the Government is afraid of globalisation. Can we compete? Are we prepared to face the challenges? Are we groomed well enough? If a good comglomerate like Proton, cannot provide its customers with good cars, how are our universities to provide us with quality graduates? This similiarity in mindset is astonishingly true.

I can only pray that we can recognise this problem earlier. The failure to do so will only have detrimental consequences.