Assessment should evaluate students holistically with the introduction of school based assessment and a lesser emphasis on central

assessment As we all know, an assessment is carried out for various purposes in order to fulfill the requirements of the ministry of education. More importantly, the assessment should evaluate the students holistically but most of the assessments seem to be ignoring the word holistic. They just give importance to the central assessment. If a holistic assessment is given a substance, every student would have the capabilities to contribute to the betterment of our country. These days, most of the teachers are merely focusing on the central assessment which means written tests, project work or oral tests (for languages) that assess subject learning. LP develops the test questions and marking schemes. The tests are, however, administered and marked by school teachers. Our country is marching towards vision 2020.The journey would surely demand a great paradigm shift in our education system. Therefore the teachers should integrate the holistic assessment as an important element in the process of testing the students based their understanding. I have browsed many books written for school students. Glancing through the questions structured for comprehension tests, I learned that they seldom infuse the higher order thinking questions which force the students to think out of the box. Most of the questions are easy and the answers can be found in the text effortlessly. Thus, our students are pampered and there is no path for them to think independently. Higher order thinking skills are essential for the students to create something which can mirror their creativity. An effective assessment does open the door for the students to stretch their potential in order to meet the necessary requirements of our education system. If we ponder about our education system, we would be surprised that some educated people who have completed their degree program are not pretty good in writing a letter or speaking a particular language without grammatical errors. Many graduates are unable get their aspired jobs because they havent achieved their communicative competence. A candidate who is unable to respond to questions presumably during an interview would fail to grab his job. He or she will suffer for their inability to function well in every aspect of the society.

Every year, our education minister prepares a new guideline to make the journey of education fun and meaningful. However, his efforts sometimes do not bear fruits because of the responsibilities that the teachers need to hold their respective options. One of the examples would be the emergence of KSSR in primary schools. The governments intention to introduce the KSSR program is to prepare our students for a real world which is full of competitions. On the contrary, the teachers feel difficult to cope with the increasing workload. As a result, they cant ensure that the assessments are conducted as they plan. According to an article from star paper dated 21March ,2006,Education Minister,Datuk Seri Hishamuddin Tun Hussein said that emphasis should be on individual accomplishments rather than the schools performance in public examinations and also highlighting the individuals co-curricular achievements. I agree with his statement because it is in line with the governments aim to reform the countrys education system. Enormous changes must take place in our education system in order to pursue our students to participate in the existing co-curricular activities. Co-curricular activities are bound to boost the energy of our students to perform successfully in all the activities devised in school enthusiastically. Nowadays, the numbers of students who are active in co-curricular activities are decreasing due to the pressures to perform well in their public examinations. Besides that, students are not interested to take part in the cocurricular activities because the activities are not engaging. On the other hand, one of the measures proposed by our education minister is suitable to make the delivery of the lessons more interesting and meaningful. It is evident that many school students are ignoring to attend some of the classes at schools due several reasons. Therefore the teaching methods should be improved. Movies and games can be infused into the teaching methods. Some of the schools are trying their best to teach the students using the different methods but sometimes their plans do not meet the success. Several schools are still lake of facilities to improve their teaching methods little by little. Improving the school facilities would be helpful to make the government plans a success. Apart from that, some educated people in our country are very rude and behave immorally in their daily life. It implies that our education system is needed to be overhauled in order to inculcate moral values during the lesson at school. A balanced person would be

structured through a well-planned curriculum which is like a route map to pave the way towards the proposed vision in order to become a developed country in future. As a concerned educator, I would say that education alone would not be enough to make a holistic person. Experience would teach a person to rely on his or her capabilities to invent a new thing or to do something which shows their development. In our country, we are spoonfeeding our students to do their given tasks. Thus we are spoiling the brighter future of our children. Many students in our country seem to be very keen to get an answer rather than finding their way to get the answer. I have heard that those who are doing their degree or master program in overseas discover their assigned tasks for each program really challenging and force them to think widely. When a student is exposed to such tasks, his or her thinking style would take a new route to reach their destination. The exam-oriented system in our country is being followed crazily without taking into account the result in future undertakings. I have taught at a secondary which is just few kilometers from my living place. It was a challenging experience that I havent had in my life before. Entering the classroom for the first time, I was taken a back realizing the level of the students in their subjects. Although they were advanced students, they had difficulties to respond to my questions when I made slight changes to certain comprehension questions. They were waiting for my answers without trying to find for the answers. They didnt want to think creatively. If a question challenges them they begin to skip such questions. It is proving that our students are pampered and we should do something to make their life meaningful. If we fail to do so, our children will become like a machine. A machine will never think for itself and people have to control them. Likewise our students wont think independently. Parents send their children to the tuition centres after coming back from school. In the tuition centers, they are applying the exam-oriented system. The students would get bored to learn the same subjects that they have learned at school. As our education minister had said before ,we can reduce the number of subjects in public examinations. By doing so, we can ensure their active participation in other activities at school. They would have the chance to realize that life is beautiful and they should live a life which is useful to others. The students should not revolve around the public examinations instead they can spend their precious time to learn some skills which can help them to lead their life as they wish.

Our governments intention to produce individuals, who are intellectually, spiritually, emotionally and physically balanced and harmonic, based on a firm belief in and devotion to God is indeed a wise one. Every school should put their full effort to give importance to assess their children holistically during each assessment in school. In order to make sure the assessments in each school take place appropriately, the government should aware of the workload of the teachers and reduce them to enable the teachers to evaluate their children easily. Thus the teachers would show keen interest to perform their duties correctly. Many teachers have no time to focus on skills and abilities of the students because they have to complete the syllabus within the given period of time. Therefore they need to focus on the content and achievement of the students. The introduction of the school based assessment has become a big problem for the school teachers. They are forced to complete the information about their students through online. The teachers experience difficulties to do so because of the problems caused by internet connection which is very slow and it makes them unable to complete their work at the right time. In this case, the government should take initiatives to make their work easy by introducing the off-line system for all the subjects. This will help the teacher to key-in the level of the students manually anytime and anywhere without depending on the internet. The introduction of other school based assessments should be made easy for the teachers to cope with it. Furthermore, teachers who are carrying out KSSR, LINUS, and VLE frog would surely hate their work life if the process of assessing the students challenges them each and every time. Although the suggestion to assess the students holistically is acknowledgeable, the drawbacks as a result of the introduction of new assessments should be taken into account. VLE frog is one of the programs introduced by the government to enable the students to use the internet for learning purpose. Some of the schools are not still equipped with the essential facilities. At the same time, the students also dont have internet at home. How could the children use internet if they dont have internet access at home? Besides that, they cant use VLE frog to respond to their teachers questions appropriately. Considering the technological glitches and other unpredictable problems, the government should take appropriate measures to make the programs a success.

Changing trends in educational assessment is definitely a superb idea for the future of our country but the steps being made to reach the estimated destination must consider other circumstances. The government should not urge the teacher to chase after the content at school. They must make compulsory that students are equipped with necessary skills and abilities for their competitive world. When a teacher focuses on the achievement of a student, the student might underestimate himself and will not have chances to realize his innate propensity. The particular student who is only able to produce a mediocre result will feel shy to expose himself to the challenging world. I have seen many people who are perfect in their studies but they could perform presumably in their work life. They dont have enough skills to challenge with the other candidates. In the process of carrying out the holistic evaluation discouraging the central assessments, group-work activities play an integral role in producing a holistic person. During the assessment the students would have chances to communicate their ideas independently. This type of activity will improve their communicative competence profusely. A teacher can assess their students indirectly instead of testing them directy. Students affective filter is high during the examination but they would be able to perform properly when their affective filter is very low. Therefore it is recommended that central assessment is not worth it.