Kuala lumpur: The Ministry of Education (MOE) is formulating a targeted approach through the Mathematics Misconceptions Module and the coordination of teachers' expertise to address weaknesses in students' mastery of the subject.

According to BERNAMA News Agency, Deputy Director-General of Education (Policy and Curriculum Sector) Dr. Rusmini Ku Ahmad stated that the findings of the 2025 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) identified students' main weakness in Mathematics as not their ability to answer questions directly, but their understanding of basic concepts and reasoning skills. She noted that despite Malaysian students performing well in the new computational problem-solving domain, they continue to struggle with explaining the logical reasoning behind their Mathematics answers.

Dr. Rusmini explained that although students are proficient in carrying out coding and modeling tasks online, there is a gap in their Mathematics proficiency, particularly concerning reasoning questions. To address these misconceptions from the early stages through to secondary school, the MOE has developed a specific module and incorporated the Mathematics Education Transformation Plan into the Malaysia Education Blueprint (RPM) 2026-2035.

She further elaborated that the plan includes teacher retraining, strengthening school leadership, and providing advisory services by a group of experts to improve the teaching of Mathematics concepts. Regarding teaching expertise, the ministry is examining school-level data to address option mismatches, including cases where Mathematics teachers are assigned to teach other subjects.

Furthermore, Dr. Rusmini mentioned that PISA findings involving 157 schools revealed that the variation in academic performance between schools in Malaysia was only 17 percent, which is lower than the average for Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member countries. This finding indicates that schools located near students' homes have the potential to become high-performing schools if they receive strong support from school management, teachers, and parents.

The 2025 PISA results released by the OECD on Tuesday also highlighted that Malaysian students have a positive attitude towards learning, although their Mathematics performance declined compared with 2022, while performance in reading and Science remained stable.