The academic performance of Malaysian students has recently been in the spotlight
when it was revealed that our high schoolers had performed dismally in recent major
international benchmarking studies. Malaysian students were not only ranked below
the global average, but they also appear to be performing worse in Mathematics,
Science and Reading Literacy compared the previous assessments. This has raised
alarm among not only educational policy makers and academicians, but also other
stakeholders who are directly or indirectly affected by the success or failure of the
educational system. This study aims at empirically analysing the academic
performance of students enrolled in the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma
Program at Kolej MARA Banting (KMB) over a span of 23 years. It attempts to identify
whether there is a similar declining trend as reported by PISA and TIMSS, and identify
factors that accounted for the students’ performance. Students’ IB results from 1993
to 2016 sourced from KMB database were analysed for trend and the strength of the
relationship of subjects that contributed to the total points of the IB examination for
two main programs offered at the college. Finally, future performance for the next
three years was forecasted using time series analysis using ARIMA (1,0,0). The Mann
Kendall Test confirmed existence of a downward trend in the students’ results.
Correlational analyses found that high level subjects comprising of the High Level
Chemistry, High Level Physics, High Level Biology and High Level Mathematics are
highly correlated to IB examination results. This is accentuated further after a policy
change in 2009 when the program for pre-Medical students opted for Standard Level
Mathematics, instead of High Level Mathematics it used to offer. It is anticipated that
the findings of this study will provide the relevant authorities with invaluable
information with a view of instituting corrective measures.