Is SPM valid?

DISCLAIMER: -I wrote this article purely based on my observation. -My grammar is terrible, read at your own risk. -This post may have mixed reviews, but there is a reason why no comment box exist in this blog.

SPM…. Well, it’s the beginning of a journey to an unlimited amount of possibilities. For those who doesn’t know, SPM is Malaysian’s higher education exams. It’s similar to the O levels I think. I don’t know about other school, but during my high school days, SPM is a big thing. I mean, really big. Maybe the fact that our school’s only major examination is SPM are one of the few reasons that the teacher and the student’s work their ass off to ensure that all the subject, topics, sub topic and important points are covered.

There are few debates on the validity of SPM. On one side, they say that SPM is an exam that doesn’t give any meaning because the nature of SPM is to grade all of your knowledge you obtain (or not) within the two years of your high school years with one or two exam paper per subject. On the other side, they say that SPM is everything because everything starts with SPM. You want to get a scholarship, you want to get into a good university, you want to do the program that promise the highest salary, the answer is SPM.

From my opinion, I agree with SPM, and I forbid the idea of eliminating SPM in our formal education system. Some might say, that you can’t decide a student’s destiny with one examination. I say, why not? What I am saying is, if SPM is that easy, why is not everyone excel in it? For me, to get good grades in SPM requires 3 keys of success which is discipline, commitment, and determination of crunching information inside your brain to ensure that you answer the question correctly. And you’ve got to admit, this 3 keys of success is crucial for your university life, your working life and your marriage life. Why people say that SPM is not important, because what they see is a bunch of students answering question paper, a bunch of teacher cramming student’s brain with facts and formulas, and a bunch of capitalist leveraging SPM as a means to get profit. Well, not everything looks as it seems.

I love the idea of a merit base education where the good grade student get the upper hand in the system. But our country is still far from achieving that status. The component of achieving a merit based system is there, but the structure is not yet to be build. I have a lot of good friends who have good marks in the major examination but doesn’t have the opportunity to enter public university (I will discuss on this topic later). I love the idea of SPM, the structure and the aim of it, but what’s the point of having a merit base KEY (it’s the exam) when in reality, the DOOR (universities, etc) is shut with a non-merit based LOCK. I hope you get what I mean.

Side note: Good luck to all SPM candidates, although you need more than luck to succeed.