More PMR Screw Ups...

Sigh... even examinations now cannot go by without the annual cock ups. The latest published by the Star today is that there is a question in the PMR English paper which has been replicated word for word from a workbook. The irony is, this workbook is published by the Ministry of Education's very own Malaysian Examinations Syndicate (MES). The incompetence of some of these officials is just absolutely astounding - do they expect nobody to pick up the similarities at all?

Accordingly to the Star, the workbook was specially published in April after the Education Ministry revised the PMR English exam format. This was to prepare teachers and students for the new format and additional components like summary writing.

Teachers and parents are clearly unhappy with the entire episode.

“How can we have identical questions in Paper Two and the Lembaga Peperiksaan’s (MES) workbook? Is this not unethical for the body that sets public exam questions to lift from its own publication?” asked an English teacher from a Kuala Lumpur school who has been teaching for more than 25 years.

Apparently, that wasn't the only issue with the PMR English paper. The same teacher complained that "some of the questions and objective answers provided were lacking in quality and should have been prepared with greater care."

Who know what other questions have been lifted from which other workbooks now that the integrity of the examination paper is in question.

What's the saddest thing about situations like this? The incompetent officials are likely to escape, with the "severest punishment" of being transferred to another department. Sigh, isn't that just a case of transfering incompetence from one department to another?