PUTRAJAYA – A transition programme will be implemented this year to gauge students’ readiness and prepare them for entry into the following year, said Education director-general Datuk Dr Habibah Abdul Rahim.
She said the programme was formulated to address the fact that school students have not been able to undergo proper learning sessions in schools due to the movement control order (MCO).
The 43-day transition programme involves all students in primary and secondary schools and will be carried out by the teachers involved, she said in a virtual press conference on the 2021 school operations today.
“Last year, they were in school for several days only. As the ministry is concerned over the differences in terms of communication and how the learning took place at home, taking into account the differences in access to learning, we have proposed this transition programme.
“If there is a learning gap among pre-school children entering Year One this year, how do we prepare them in terms of readiness for Year One,” she added.
On the implementation of home-based teaching and learning (PdPR) this year, Habibah said it would be thoroughly monitored to help teachers and schools improve their methods from time to time.
“Previously, we only monitored how many teachers and student were involved in PdPR, but now we want to see in terms of the subjects taught and if teachers conduct PdPR online, how much time was taken for the sessions and the percentage of students’ attendance for each session,” she said.
Meanwhile, Habibah said on the first day of school on Jan 20, attendance stood at an encouraging 95%, involving candidates who will be sitting for the 2020 major examinations.
The percentage was much higher compared to the reopening of schools in July last year during the recovery MCO period, which stood at about 91-92%, she said.
On the educational television programme, TV Pendidikan, Habibah said it would run for nine hours daily, from Monday to Friday and would be broadcast on Okey TV, Astro, and NTV7.
“We are also planning to increase the TV Pendidikan airtime to reach out to more students because more than 90% of households in Malaysia have television so the access is definitely wider,” she said. – Bernama, January 22, 2021
