Posts Tagged ‘Survey’

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Malaysian students ranking in PISA survey for reading, mathematics and scientific literacy

January 16th, 2012
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The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) arose from OECD policy initiatives in the latter half of the 1980s aimed at improving the quality of education throughout OECD countries.

PISA  is an international study which began in the year 2000. It aims to evaluate education systems worldwide by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students in participating countries/economies. Since the year 2000 over 70 countries and economies have participated in PISA.

PISA is an international comparative survey of 15-year-olds’ knowledge and skills in reading, mathematical and scientific literacy.

PISA seeks to measure how well young adults have acquired the knowledge and skills that are required to function as successful members of society.

Sixty-four countries or economies originally participated in PISA 2009: all 34 OECD countries plus 31 partner countries and economies. These 65 participants administered the PISA 2009 tests in 2009.

An additional 10 economies were added in 2010, under PISA2009+. Malaysia is one of the 10, along with Costa Rica, Georgia, Himanchal Pradesh (India), Malta, Mauritius, Miranda (Venezuela), Moldova, Tamil Nadu (India), and UAE.

PISA 2009+ involved testing just over 46 000 students across these ten participants, representing a total of about 1 377 000 15-year-olds.

The PISA sample is drawn from the population of students aged between 15 years and three months (completed) and 16 years and two months (completed) who attend educational institutions and are in the equivalent to Grade 7 or above.

PISA assesses outcomes primarily in the areas of reading literacy, mathematical literacy and scientific literacy.

Reading literacy: An individual’s capacity to understand, use, reflect on and engage with written texts, in order to achieve one’s goals, to develop one’s knowledge and potential, and to participate in society. Mathematical literacy: An individual’s capacity to identify and understand the role that mathematics plays in the world, to make well-founded judgements and to use and engage with mathematics in ways that meet the needs of that individual’s life as a constructive, concerned and reflective citizen. Scientific literacy: An individual’s scientific knowledge and use of that knowledge to identify questions, to acquire new knowledge, to explain scientific phenomena, and to draw evidence-based conclusions about science related issues, understanding of the characteristic features of science as a form of human knowledge and enquiry, awareness of how science and technology shape our material, intellectual, and cultural environments, and willingness to engage in science-related issues, and with the ideas of science, as a reflective citizen.

So, let’s see how our 15-year olds performed among the 75 economies which includes OECD countries:

Students in Malaysia attained a mean score of 414 on the PISA reading literacy scale. This mean score is below the means attained in all OECD countries and equivalent to the mean scores estimated for Brazil, Colombia, Miranda-Venezuela, Montenegro, Thailand and Trinidad and Tobago. In Malaysia, 56% of students are estimated to have a proficiency in reading literacy that is at or above the baseline level needed to participate effectively and productively in life. Students in Malaysia attained a mean score of 404 on the mathematical literacy scale. This mean score is below the means attained in all OECD countries. In Malaysia, 41% of students are proficient in mathematics at least to the baseline level at which they begin to demonstrate the kind of skills that enable them to use mathematics in ways considered fundamental for their future development. In Malaysia, there was no statistically significant difference in the performance of boys and girls in mathematical literacy.

Malaysian students were estimated to have a mean score of 422 on the scientific literacy scale. Malaysia’s mean score was significantly higher than that estimated for the lowest scoring OECD country, Mexico. In Malaysia, 57% of students are proficient in science at least to the baseline level at which they begin to demonstrate the science competencies that will enable them to participate actively in life situations related to science and technology. In Malaysia, there was a statistically significant gender difference of 10 score points in scientific literacy, favouring girls.

FYI, The top economy in the survey, across all 3 areas was Shanghai (China). Singapore was consistently among the top 5, while India’s two states were quite bad, occupying the lower 3 rungs. Other countries which were consistent in top 10 places were Hong Kong, Japan, Finland, Canada and Korea.

Below are some snapshots of the comparison tables.

Reading:

Math: Science:     The full report (PDF) is found here. (caution: its a 13.5MB size file). sources: http://www.acer.edu.au/media/acer-releases-results-of-pisa-2009-participant-economies/ http://www.pisa.oecd.org/pages/0,3417,en_32252351_32235731_1_1_1_1_1,00.html

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The Star says its poll on Bersih rally was manipulated

June 21st, 2011
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After removing the poll noon today, The Star says:

On Monday evening, The Star Online put up a poll on the proposed Bersih 2.0 rally on July 9.

The poll asked respondents for their opinion: should it be cancelled, or should it be allowed to go on.

In less than a day, it drew more than a million responses which caused the team to suspect that the results were being manipulated. The Star Online polls attract an average of not more than 30,000 responses over several days.

Furthermore, the total number of unique visitors to The Star Online is about 400,000 per day, lending further credence to our suspicion that there was manipulation afoot.

This could be done in several ways, for example through scripted routines or “bots” that come in to a site to perform the same task over multiple repetitions. Indeed, an initial examination of our site logs showed about one million submissions to the poll page from just one IP address.

Therefore, acting upon the belief that the poll results were tainted, we made the decision to take it offline just before noon Tuesday.

We regret that our effort to give the public a voice has been tainted by this act.

source: http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/6/21/nation/20110621194755&sec=nation

That begets the question, why not safeguards for their polling mechanism? At the very least, they should have been alerted when the voting numbers crosses certain threshold so that the administrator can check the logs.

 

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The Star Poll on Bersih goes missing

June 21st, 2011
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Interesting indeed.  After I posted about the 1 million over votes in support of Bersih poll held by Star online, it seems the poll disappeared around noon, as per Malaysiakini report which also said that the votes in support reached 1.3 million. Readers can check the polls section  at http://polls.thestar.com.my/ and notice that the current poll is about RON95 ban for foreign registered cars.

[click to enlarge]

 

Does this mean:

a) The poll was tampered/manipulated and The Star closed it down?

b) The poll result is accurate but its not something that the newspaper wants to show?

c) The newspaper was “advised” to remove the poll due to national security or other reasons?

The ball is on The Star’s court.

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1 million votes in support of Bersih rally

June 21st, 2011
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This is by far, the most number of respondents I’ve ever seen in a local poll. Granted The Star has wide readership, but still, 1 MILLION votes? Wow!!!! Even The Star previous polls recorded only 4  or 5 figure responses at times.

And if its true, definitely a very stinging tight slap on PERKOSA’s ugly face.

 

source: http://polls.thestar.com.my/polls/result.asp?id=396&cid=2&cdesc=News

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Malaysia ranks high in peacefulness and safety

June 20th, 2011
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Two, yes TWO, good news recently that puts us high on the positive side.

First, we are among the top countries in the Global Peace Index, number 19th to be exact. Let’s see what our DG of National Unity and Integration Department says:

Malaysia leads Asean countries and ranks second in Asia, after Japan, in the list of countries which succeed in maintaining unity among their people.

National Unity and Integration Department director-general Azman Azmin Hassan said that based on the list issued by the Global Peace Index, Malaysia was at 19th position among the countries in the world.

“The country’s success in fostering unity has attracted the world to learn how Malaysia does it.

“This is due to the capability of the country’s leaders in maintaining unity among the people of various races, resulting in Malaysia being invited by the United Nations to table a working paper on unity in New York next month.”

He told this to reporters after the opening of the state-level Unity Week 2011 celebration at the Air Tawar Beach Resort in Besut today by State Health, Unity and Consumer Affairs Committee chairman Dr A Rahman Mokhtar.

Azman said that with such a recognition given to Malaysia, there was no doubt about the peaceful situation in the country.

Hence, he advised the people to maintain racial harmony in the country and to cooperate with the government to avoid any incident that could jeopardise the harmonious situation.

source: http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/167333

Readers should then head to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Peace_Index to read about this index.

The GPI’s website is at http://www.visionofhumanity.org/gpi-data/#/2011/conf/ and Malaysia’s details is at http://www.visionofhumanity.org/gpi-data/#/2011/scor/MY/detail as below:


PEACE INDICATORS SCORE
Number of external and internal conflicts fought 1
Estimated number of deaths from organised conflict (external) 1
Number of deaths from organised conflict (internal) 1
Level of organized conflict (internal) 1
Relations with neighbouring countries 1
Level of perceived criminality in society 2
Number of displaced people as a percentage of the population 1
Political instability 1.5
Level of disrespect for human rights 2
Potential for terriorist acts 2
Number of homicides per 100,000 people 2
Level of violent crime 2
Likelihood of violent demonstrations 3
Number of jailed population per 100,000 people 1.5
Number of internal security officers and police 100,000 people 2
Military expenditure as a percentage of GDP 1.5
Number of armed services personnel per 100,000 people 1
Exports of major conventional weapons per 100,000 people 1
Imports of major conventional weapons per 100,000 people 1.5
Funding for UN peacekeeping missions 1
Aggregate weighted number of heavy weapons per 100,000 people 1
Ease of access to small arms and light weapons 1
Military capability/sophistication 3

 

Malaysia has been improving steadily over the years. This due to mainly our non-involvement in wars (external or internal) for the citizens, lower values for defence/military related indicators (except military capability).

As mentioned in the article above, we are number 2 (just behind Japan) in Asia and 19th in the world.

Next good news, The World Justice Project’s Rule of Law index says :

The World Justice Project’s (WJP) Rule of Law Index 2011 report revealed that Malaysia was ranked first among 19 upper-middle income countries for safety, putting the country on par with other nations such as France and Belgium.

Malaysia attained 12th position, one position ahead of United States which ranked 13th and Britain ranked 14th in country’s safety.

WJP Rule of Law Index director Juan Botero said the index measures implementation and enforcement of laws in practice and their effects on people’s lives.

The report showed that Malaysia scored 1 for effectively limited civil conflicts and 0.5 for the absence of crime and people not resorting to violence.

The Index score range is between 0 being the lowest and 1 being the highest.

WJP executive director Hongxia Liu said that acquiring the rule of law was an ongoing challenge and a continuous work in progress in all countries.

Liu added the Index is not designed to shame or blame but to provide helpful benchmarks for other countries in the same regions that had similar legal cultures and income levels.

source: http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/6/20/nation/8925273&sec=nation

You can read the report of this index at http://worldjusticeproject.org/sites/default/files/wjproli2011_0.pdf (Malaysia’s statistics is on page 78).

 

Yes, we are 1st among the 19 countries with similar income, but overall we are somewhere in the middle.

??

Oh, you may want to read page 29 of the report as well:

As with many other countries in the region, Malaysia  presents a contrasting view. Compared with other upper-middle income countries, Malaysia’s government is relatively accountable, although corruption, political interference, and impunity still exist. The efficiency and transparency of government agencies can still improve, and efforts should also be made in the area of access to justice (ranking 44th globally, and 14th in the upper-middle income group). The country is safe, ranking 1stamong 19 income peers and on a par with countries such as France and Belgium. However, abuses by the police still occur. Of particular concern is the situation posed by violations of fundamental rights, where Malaysia ranks 59th out of 66 countries.

So we are doing not bad, but why Jobstreet survey says nearly 80% of the interviewees (700 of them) would work abroad if got the chance:

An online recruitment company said results from a survey on local jobseekers confirm that money, career growth and children’s education are the main factors behind the country’s brain drain.

JobStreet.com today released the results of their survey of 700 over respondents – over 80 percent of whom are in middle to senior positions – on their interests in working abroad, and the reasons behind it.

The survey revealed just under a third (33 percent) of the respondents are already actively seeking overseas employment while 30 percent are passively looking. Another 30 percent are still weighing the pros and cons of working abroad.

42 percent cited better income as the key reason for their choice, while 24 percent cited career advancement, and 13 percent were thinking of their children’s education. 

Unfortunately for the government and the Talent Corp, only 2.4 of the respondents said they were staying in the country to “contribute to national interest”.

Over half said they were not working abroad mainly because of their families.

Top in destinations for job seeking was Australia (24 percent) followed by Singapore (16 percent), followed by UK (15 percent), US (10 percent), Far East (8 percent) and New Zealand (7 percent).

The survey, conducted in May, comprised 40 percent senior executives, 29 percent managers and 16 percent senior managers, with junior executives making up the rest. 

Jobstreet said 60 percent were male and 40 percent female, while ethnic breakdown was not cited.

source: http://www.malaysiakini.com/news/167446

I guess the indices may not translate into a good environment in terms of wealth accumulation or career opportunities for those interviewed.

PS: I guess it will be similar next year.

 

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