27/04/2026

MONDAY | APR 27, 2026

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Exam policy needs testing, not guesswork

Control crowds at Komuter stations THE Kuala Lumpur–Seremban Komuter line is one of the busiest rail routes in the country, operating about 18 services daily from 6am to midnight. Trains run hourly during off-peak periods while peak-hour services arrive every 20 to 30 minutes. The line is especially crowded on weekdays. Even before 5pm, platforms at Kuala Lumpur Sentral are packed with commuters waiting for the Seremban-bound train. Long queues form at the designated boarding spots but when the train arrives, passengers rush in to secure seats. Last Tuesday evening, I experienced the chaos firsthand. I was swept into the coach by the overwhelming crowd on the platform. Within moments, passengers were packed like sardines. At Mid Valley, even more passengers forced their way into the already crowded coach. There was hardly any space left. At later stops such as Serdang, Kajang and Bandar Tasik Selatan, more passengers were still waiting to board. There appeared to be little crowd control on the platforms. Many passengers also stood near the doorways, worsening congestion and delaying boarding. To address this daily ordeal, KTMB should introduce stricter crowd management and an orderly queuing system. Officials should be stationed at key stops during peak hours while the number of passengers boarding each coach should also be controlled. For many working Malaysians, commuting home on this line has become a stressful and exhausting experience. Samuel Yesuiah Seremban First, it would empower evidence-based iteration. Policymakers could detect gaps and make mid-course corrections based on data, not dogma. If exams are restored, within two years we should know their effect on dropout rates, student well-being and equity – and be prepared to adjust. Second, it would rebuild public trust through transparency. When findings – both positive and negative – are communicated plainly to all stakeholders (parents, teachers, industry and voters), policy becomes a shared national project, not a top down decree. It transforms citizens from passive recipients into informed participants. This is a more scientific way of assessing policies. The restoration of exams may yet prove to be the right decision. But without a system to prove it – or disprove it – we are condemned to repeat the same debates every few years. Malaysia’s current stability and economic momentum provide the perfect platform to institutionalise smarter governance. We must move beyond the cycle of “announce and abandon”. Let the education blueprint be the first policy whose journey is meticulously tracked, audited and publicly debated. Our goal should not be merely to be right about exams but also to build a system that relentlessly pursues what works best for Malaysia’s future. The true test is not the one we give our students but the one we now face in strengthening the foundations of our own governance. This way, there will be more continuity in the country’s many plans and blueprints. Prof Datuk Dr Ahmad Ibrahim is affiliated with the Tan Sri Omar Centre for STI Policy Studies at UCSI University and is an adjunct professor at the Ungku Aziz Centre for Development Studies, Universiti Malaya. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com LETTERS letters@thesundaily.com

THE government’s plan to restrict children under 16 from accessing social media by June, using the framework of the Online Safety Act (Onsa), signals a strong commitment to youth protection. However, a “total lockout” approach and the proposed MyKad-based age verification raise critical practical and cybersecurity concerns. A sweeping ban is a blunt regulatory tool that is notoriously difficult to enforce. Banning youths will inevitably drive them to use Virtual Private Networks or migrate to encrypted messaging apps like Telegram, rendering them entirely invisible to parents and regulators. What we need is to foster digital literacy alongside these restrictions. In this context, Meta’s recent rollout of revamped “teen accounts” offers a highly instructive case study. By placing younger users under strict default settings for privacy, disabling recommendations for sensitive content and embedding mandatory parental controls, Meta has provided a tangible blueprint for what “safety by design” looks like in practice, rather than relying on reactive moderation after the fact. From a regulatory standpoint, this is a significant and welcome shift. By mandating safe, highly restricted environments, we give youths a secure “training ground” to develop digital resilience. Rather than pursuing an unenforceable blanket ban, policymakers should use this model to establish an industry-wide baseline. M ALAYSIA’S recent strides are undeniable: economic indicators are promising, political calm offers a welcome respite and education has rightly been placed at the forefront of the national agenda. Kudos to the Madani unity government. The launch of a new, comprehensive education blueprint signals ambition. Yet, a single decision – restoration of high-stakes examinations for Primary Six and Form Three – has ignited a firestorm of debate. This controversy is not merely about examinations; it is a symptom of a deeper, systemic ailment plaguing Malaysian governance: the chronic weakness in policy monitoring, evaluation and transparent communication. The government’s move to reinstate these exams is presented as a corrective, a return to rigour after years of a more holistic, assessment-heavy approach. However, the profound flaw lies in the admission, as noted by observers, that this pivot appears to be made “with no real data and evidence to suggest the no-exam system is not good”. This is governance by anecdote, not evidence. It risks replacing one system, whose full effects may not have been rigorously measured, with another based on perception or nostalgia. Did the previous policy fail to improve critical thinking? Did it worsen learning gaps? Was teacher training inadequate for its implementation? Without clear, publicly shared answers to these questions, the reversal seems arbitrary, undermining public trust and subjecting children to the whims of political cycles rather than pedagogical science. Many view this as unhealthy. This education debate is a microcosm of a larger national challenge. Malaysia often COMMENT by Prof Datuk Dr Ahmad Ibrahim COMMENT by Thulasy Suppiah

The restoration of exams may yet prove to be the right decision. But without a system to prove it - or disprove it - we are condemned to repeat the same debates every few years. – AMIRUL SYAFIQ/THE SUN

strengthened role for existing institutions like the Auditor-General’s Office or a parliamentary select committee – mandated to conduct and publish periodic, publicly accessible impact assessments of major national policies. This body would not merely track budget spending but also evaluate outcomes: Did the STEM promotion drive increase qualified graduates? Did the affordable housing scheme create sustainable communities? Did the no-exam policy reduce student anxiety without compromising foundational skills? Is the NIMP (New Industrial Master Plan 2030) or NETR (Malaysia’s National Energy Transition Roadmap) delivering on the promises of the blueprints? Such a system would serve a dual purpose.

The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission regulatory sandbox should pivot from testing how to block youths entirely, to testing how to protect them. The upcoming Onsa subsidiary instruments should make these strict default privacy settings and restricted algorithmic feeds a mandatory licensing condition for all platforms operating in Malaysia. This brings us to a major cybersecurity concern. The Communications minister recently suggested standardising “age suffer massive data breaches. The 2021 Facebook data leak exposed details of 533 million users and in 2023, hackers posted email addresses linked to 200 million Twitter accounts. If social media giants cannot guarantee the absolute security of user data based on these past incidents, trusting them to directly verify and store our MyKad could expose millions to severe identity theft. Trading one potential harm for another, more severe one is a deeply flawed policy. Furthermore, if age verification requires platforms to collect and store MyKad, it does not meet the spirit of data minimisation under Section 6 of Malaysia’s Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA). excels at crafting sophisticated blueprints and launching well-intentioned policies. Where it repeatedly stumbles is in building a robust, independent and transparent mechanism to ask the simple, vital questions: Is this working? For whom? At what cost? What needs to change? The absence of such a culture of continuous evaluation creates a policy vacuum. Success is claimed rhetorically, failures are buried and the public is left in the dark. This leads to a disjointed cycle of launch, forget and reactive U-turn, rather than one of launch, learn and refine. What is urgently required is a fundamental institutional shift. We need to normalise independent policy auditing. Imagine a respected, non-partisan body – or a verification” using official government documents like the MyKad. If this verification requires platforms to directly collect and store MyKad, we are facing a massive risk. Social media platforms

Balanced youth online safety beats blanket bans

The General Principle of the PDPA dictates that personal data processed must be “adequate but not excessive” in relation to its purpose. We cannot create a system where Onsa requirements actively conflict with the spirit of the PDPA. If age verification is deemed absolutely necessary, we must look to privacy preserving global best practices. Rather than submitting MyKad to tech companies, Malaysia should adopt the “double-blind tokenised approach”

recommended by Australia’s eSafety commissioner. This approach involves an independent, regulated third party that verifies a user’s age. This verifier then provides a secure token to the social media platform, confirming only that the user meets the age requirement. Crucially, the platform never receives or handles the user’s personal identification documents, thereby

“A sweeping ban is a blunt regulatory tool that is notoriously difficult to enforce.

protecting their privacy. We must protect our youths but not at the expense of their digital literacy or national data security. By pivoting towards mandated “safety by design” and privacy-preserving tokenisation, Malaysia can create a gold-standard regulatory framework that avoids the dangerous pitfalls of blunt bans and mass data collection. Thulasy Suppiah is a managing partner at Suppiah and Partners. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com