Segregation In Class: Does More Harm Than Good.

It is a typical custom in Malaysian school to have levels of classes for the super smart, smart, average and below average students. These students are basically classified according to their :

a) Intelligence

b) Behaviour

c) Financial status


The smart ones are in the better classes and the not so smart ones are all just sardined in the lower classes. Teachers absolutely love the students in first classes because they are quick to grasp knowlegde and motivated to learn. More often that not the teachers themselves would take pride in teaching the 'good' classes because they assume it proves that they are good teachers. The students oftentimes comes from well-to-do families.

The average ones are in the average classes with average teachers who scores average scores that have a healthy amount of motivation to learn. Basically they are also one of the easiest classes to teach because they are a very compliant lot. They also come from a mixture of wealthy and average families.

Well now the ones in the last classes are an interesting lot. They are the hellions of the lot, the ones who never does their homeworks, the delinquents that everybody hates and look down upon and oftentimes they come from low-income families. Any teacher would dread teaching this class because they have hell to dealt with. Rude students and what-have-you.

So here we more or less can predict the future of these students. The smart ones from the ace and average classes further their studies and become 'harapan negara'.

The ones from lower classes becomes 'sampah masyarakat' as these lot becomes involved in social problems.

It has always been that way how can we change this? Easy! Stop segregating students according to their intelligence, behaviour and financial status.

The ones from 'lower' classes suffer from social stigma of being considered stupid, useless and good-for-nothing. They are taken for granted that they will never come up in life and be a useful member of society. Every reckons they become drug-dealers or criminals of some sort sooner or later.

But dont we realize instead of letting their fate to be like that we could help them? I have always wondered why schools doesnt  distribute their students equally in a class. A typical Malaysian school have five classes for each form/standard. Why not we evenly distirbute the smart, average and weak ones in one class? This way we wont have hierarchy of social statuses and the weak ones would have the same opportunity to learn the same set of education delivered in the 'smart' and 'average' classes.

What really is focused here is MOTIVATION.
If you just chuck all the 'weak' ones all in one class, from would they get the motivation to compete with their peers since they all of the same group anyway? The teachers dont count because if they dont implement healthy competition among their peers than thats it, they go wherever the wind takes them.

People who are weak academically need to be with those who good in it so that they can realize that they need to keep up with these 'better students'.  They need a push to pursue education. They need to mingle with 'smart' people so they can know what they were missing out. What better method than to chuck them in a sea of 'smart' people. First hand exposure at how things really work-is it not?

The wanderer have not tasted life if he hasn't seen the greener side of the grass.

So, what I am really trying to say here is - if Malaysian education needs improvement, start with the classroom arrangement. Changes in small things result in big rewards.