My eldest daughter is taking her PMR this year.

And she is all stressed up. So is her mom.

The good thing: this is only a once in 3 year stress. Or is it?

The Malaysian education system is an exam-oriented one. This means that stress comes towards the examination time. In between exams, the kids have a bit of a break. For those parents worried about exam results - they send their kids to tuition after school. And tuition centres teach the kids how to answer exam questions effectively.

At work, we encounter problems that needs addressing on a regular basis. Some are big problems, most are small ones. Yet, many of these problems do not get solved quickly enough. Many of us tend to seek answers (from the senior management or consultants) to such problems... but very rarely do we find the answers ourselves.

I blame it on our education system: there's always a prescribed answer to every question... and a prescribed way of answering.

But there is nothing certain about life's problems. And there are no one answer prescription to solve similar problems.

So exams are not all there is to learning. Shouldn't we should encourage our children to think and learn? Failing is part of the process... it is ok, but we need to learn from that experience.