PUTRAJAYA, March 2 (Bernama) -- The Education Ministry will introduce the School Improvement Programme to help raise the performance of schools nationwide.
Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said on Tuesday the programme would focus on schools with not so inspiring performance, especially those in the rural and interior areas.
"We will introduce this programme so that no one makes the assumption that the high performance schools (HPS) are elite schools and the Education Ministry only focuses on helping the 20 such schools.
"We have 10,000 schools nationwide. We want to take care of all of them. It's important to raise the performance of schools whose achievement is less than 40 per cent," he said at the ministry's month assembly here.
Present were the two deputy education minsiters, Datuk Dr Wee Ka Siong and Dr Mohd Puad Zakarshi.
Muhyiddin said the ministry also proposed to reward school principals, head teachers and teachers who succeeded in raising the performance of their schools through this programme, just like what was given to administrators of the HPS.
"The most important component to raise the performance of a school is the school leadership, including the principal, head teacher and teachers.
"It may take a long time for a school to achieve the HPS status but if it can raise its performance by 10, 20 or 30 per cent, it is regarded a success.
"Such principals, head teachers and teachers will be given rewards and incentives because they have proven to be successful in raising the performance of their respective schools and deserve to be rewarded," he said.
Muhyiddin dismissed the assumption that the selection of the 20 HPS was orchestrated, saying that the aim of the HPS was to set a benchmark for other schools in the country to achieve the highest standard.
On another matter, Muhyiddin said the ministry's Arts, Sports and Co-curriculum division would be revamped with sports being placed separately in efforts to strengthen sports in schools.
Muhyiddin, who is also chairman of the Cabinet Committee on Sports, said the committee planned to make sports a currucilar or compulsory activity in schools instead of co-curricular as was the practice now.
To achieve this, the number of teachers trained in sports would be increased and the development of sports infrastructure would be given attention.
"There are not enough trained sports teachers now. So, in the interim, we will form strategic ties with the Olympic Council Malaysia, National Sports Council and sports associations (to train the students) and we will pay them an allowance," he said.
He said he was focusing on sports because it could not only build the character of students but also had huge prospects.
He urged the ministry staff to set up a stronger communication system with the people, parents and organisations with a stake in the nation's education system to further strengthen sports.
No comments:
Post a Comment