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DPM: Education plan working

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PUTRAJAYA: IN fewer than two years, the Malaysia Education Blueprint has shown promising results and progress, with six initiatives having met Key Performance Indicators (KPI).

Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said out of the 25 initiatives implemented last year, several showed encouraging achievements.

The six initiatives, he said, were higher order thinking skills, literacy and numeracy screening (Linus), professional up-skilling of English Language Teachers (ProELT), Teacher Training Institute Transformation, School Principle Charter and parents toolkit (Sarana Ibubapa).

“Some initiatives achieved part of their KPI. More focus must be given to them.

“Regardless of the achievement, it must be used as a guide for the ministry to draft better strategies and approaches,” he said at the announcement of the blueprint’s 2013 report card yesterday.

Muhyiddin, who is also education minister, said other encouraging results include the pre-school enrolment and vocational education transformation, inclusive education programme, district transformation programme as well as the ministry’s transformation and improvement of basic infrastructure.

He highlighted the implementation of the Students’ Integration Plan for Unity (Rimup) last year, which aimed to foster solidarity through culture and arts as well as sports and games.

“Last year, 20 per cent of primary schools were involved in Rimup. We aim to get 60 per cent of schools as part of the programme this year.”

Muhyiddin said the district transformation programme had closed the gap between rural and urban schools in Sabah and Kedah in terms of school achievements.

For access to preschool enrolment initiative, he said the government had given incentives, including establishing 8,883 new classes last year to accommodate 192,173 preschoolers.

On vocational education transformation, he said the ministry had expanded student enrolment in vocational training by up to 20 per cent via collaborations with the private sector.

He said last year also saw stricter requirements on intakes for teachers’ training institutes by accepting applicants with only strong academic achievements.

“About 42 per cent of last year’s intake comprised those with 7As and 70 per cent with 5As.

“This is a good sign for the shift towards adopting a high-performance system, such as in Finland, Singapore and South Korea, which allow only excellent students to join the teaching profession.”

He said another achievement last year was elevating teachers’ proficiency in the English language.

The ministry, he said, had set a proficiency standard for primary and secondary school teachers based on the Common European Framework of Reference.

“For the first time, the ministry conducted a large-scale English proficiency test involving 61,000 teachers, trainees and lecturers.

“The result enabled 14,000 teachers to be identified and selected to undergo the ProELT and the English language Proficiency Assessment tool.”

On students’ English proficiency, he said more needed to be done to achieve the 100 per cent target for English language literacy in
Year 3 pupils, who took the literacy programme last year.

“To achieve the target, it needs to see a yearly increase of more than 18 per cent in the next two years.”

Muhyiddin said there had also been a steady increase in Orang Asli students, from 38,871 in 2012 to 39,149 last year.

The blueprint was officially launched on Sept 6 last year, but several main initiatives were introduced at the beginning of the year.

The ministry also repaired 1,693 schools last year.

More schools, especially in Sabah and Sarawak, would have their infrastructure upgraded.

Muhyiddin said the involvement of stakeholders, especially parents, was crucial to ensuring the blueprint’s success.

-NST

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