4 INITIATIVES FOR THE FIRST QUARTER

EDUCATION...Students from SJK (C) Chung Hwa Kota Kinabalu.

ACCORDING to media reports, in the first 100 days of this year, the Education Ministry will focus on four initiatives under the National Education Blueprint 2013 - 2025, according to its minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

Muhyiddin announced this in his New Year message at Putrajaya on Thursday.

The first initiative involves introducing the School Improvement Partners (SI Partners) Plus and the School Improvement Specialist Coaches (SISC) Plus in Kedah and Sabah in an effort to guide teachers in Bahasa Malaysia, English and Mathematics subjects. Special focus will be placed on Band five, six and seven schools.

Muhyiddin, who is also Deputy Prime Minister, said that the two programmes will benefit school principals and teachers. He explained that the SISC Plus programme will allow teachers the opportunity for in situ training.

The second initiative aims to evaluate the 70,000 English languge option teachers through the Cambridge Placement Test (CPT), after which the teachers would be divided into three categories based on their test results.

"Part-time training will be given to teachers who do not meet the proficiency level set. Within these first 100 days, the ministry is ready to train 5,000 English language teachers," Muhyiddin said.

The third initiative - the Parents Engagement initiative - will be launched in 10,000 schools, and is aimed at building awareness, support and cooperation among parents.

According to Muhyiddin, the fourth initiative is the launching of the e-Guru video in schools nationwide. Through the programme, teachers in all schools will have access to an e-Guru video library which provides a wide collection of effective teaching examples.

Muhyiddin stressed that although the ministry's primary focus will be on the four initiatives, other initiatives under the education blueprint would not be neglected. This includes efforts in building high order thinking skills (HOTS) among students.

The ministry will carry out HOTS training for 31,000 teachers of Forms One, Two and Three science and mathematics subjects. Through this training, the ministry hopes that at least 20 percent of questions set for the Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) and Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR) examinations are high-level thinking in nature.

Another of the ministry's initiatives, the i-Think programme will focus more on learning, mastering skills and raising capacity to answer high-level questions. The programme aims to train 2,500 teachers and students from 500 schools. (Insight Sabah)