KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 13 (Bernama) -- The Ministry of Education (MOE) will strengthen efforts to improve students’ proficiency in Mathematics through various intervention measures, including the implementation of the Mathematics Education Transformation Plan 2026, following findings from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2025.
Deputy Education Minister Wong Kah Woh said the measures include identifying learning gaps as early as Year One and improving the matching of teachers based on their subject specialisation to ensure students’ learning needs were addressed more effectively.
He said an analysis of PISA results showed that students’ main challenges in Mathematics were not limited to calculation skills of memorising formulae, but also involved their ability to understand concepts, reason and apply knowledge in new situations.
“We do not deny that there are still weaknesses that need to be addressed and we acknowledge that the aspiration to place Malaysia among the top third of countries in international assessments such as PISA, as targeted under PPPM (Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025), has yet to be achieved,” he said during a Special Chamber session in the Dewan Rakyat today.
Wong said this when replying to a motion submitted by Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong (BN-Ayer Hitam) regarding the failure to meet PISA targets under the PPPM 2013-2025 and the decline in Mathematics performance in PISA.
Wee expressed his concern over the decline in Mathematics achievement among Malaysian students, noting that only 0.6 per cent of students reached the excellent level, compared with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average of eight per cent.
He also compared the local examination grading method with international standards, such as the United Kingdom’s International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE), which uses fixed mark ranges to determine grades.
Wong said Malaysia recorded improvements in Science and reading scores in PISA compared with the 2022 assessment, reaching 419 points and 393 points respectively.
However, he said that the Mathematics score dropped to 397 points - down from 409 points in 2022 and 440 points in 2018 - marking the country’s lowest Mathematics performance since it began participating in PISA.
On claims that the grading system for the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) examination concealed the decline in students’ proficiency, Wong stressed that this was inaccurate, as SPM and PISA serve different purposes and use different assessment methods.
“I would like to emphasise that the claim that the SPM grading method conceals the decline in students’ proficiency is incorrect. Grade determination involves a standard-setting process to ensure that examination results are fair and comparable,” he added.
-- BERNAMA