Students, teachers, fellows supported with opportunities to access quality education and training across all impact areas
Schools reached across various programmes to provide a better and holistic learning experience
Vulnerable youth and adults supported in gaining jobs and gain certification, enabling them to secure sustainable livelihood opportunities across all impact areas
Scholarships awarded to students with outstanding academic achievement
B40 secondary school students were provided a study grant to assist with living expenses
Scholarships awarded to students from middle to lower income background
RIDING WAVES OF CHANGES
In this rapidly evolving world, organisations championing education-related matters are kept on their toes by demanding times. In fact, they may even need to be a step ahead. But how does one keep up in an era where each new industrial revolution arrives in half the time its predecessors took? Even today, as people around the globe manoeuvre the complexities of Industry 4.0, the next one may already be dawning upon us.
For a group of 54 secondary school teachers in Perlis, the need to equip their students with skills of the future is glaringly apparent, yet a lack of knowledge and resources poses a hindrance. But make no mistake, this group of educators are on the ball and — as they have recently proven — with proper opportunities can be catalysts for change.
Here’s where the public-private-partnership between Yayasan Hasanah and Chumbaka — a social enterprise disrupting the landscape of formal education by building life skills through technology — comes into play. In tandem with the foundation’s emphasis on sustainable solutions through scalable education models, a two-year programme was carefully curated for the secondary school teachers of Perlis. Its objective: capacity building towards 21st century digital skills.
While automation may be the main talking point for Industry 4.0, one aspect that computers may not soon be able to imitate is that unmistakable human touch. It is that inherent characteristic that allows us to decipher situations in ways that AI may take a long while to pick up on. Hence, the programme focuses also on soft skills as seen in its Leadernomics leadership camp.
Cikgu Saimma Ahmad of SMK Syed Ahmad, a teacher from one of the 27 participating schools — 22 of which Yayasan Hasanah sponsored — was overcome with emotion when sharing her experience.
“There may be no high achievers in our school but I’ve learned from this programme that every student has unexpected talents,”
she says, grateful for the opportunity — one which has been fully utilised through active participation in innovation-related competitions. Advocating a no-child-left-behind approach, she touches on the importance of a fair chance for all students and not only the top scorers. It is a principle that the foundation too propounds, via its efforts in tackling equity issues such as socioeconomic, gender and geographical gaps as well as special education needs.
When it came to imparting the knowledge acquired at this capacity building programme, opportunities were not offered to science stream students only. Ku Nur Iffah Ku Hashim, a member of the Gold Award winning team from SMK Sanglang, is one example of an arts stream student who has excelled in applying the digital skills for innovation. The teachers add that although overwhelming interest was displayed, limited teaching resources meant the number of students had to be kept manageable.
For Cikgu Farozy Nadiah Fazil, the module was extremely helpful in coming up with SMK Sanglang’s fishing boat innovation that was awarded gold at the state level Young Inventors Challenge (YIC) 2019. Despite the long hours of training it entailed, she and her four students cherish the memories of working on their project, including the experience of filming a video on the fishing boat belonging to the father of one of the team members, Nur Yunahani Nazri, who is a fisherman. Their invention enables catch to be lifted onto the boat with the push of a button.
Cikgu Hamidah Abdul Rahman of SMK Agama Arau, who led the team which progressed to the national level, also alludes to the benefits of the programme.
“Arduino is a very new thing to me but I didn’t get excited about learning it; I got excited because this is another tool to improve products… I spoke to programmers in the industry and they tell me that Arduino is at a very low level compared to other tools but this is a starting point for them (students). We have to introduce them to this first before exposing them other tools. Arduino is good as a starter kit but I want my students to learn more than just this. I am now looking for new programmes [to teach] such as Raspberry Pi,”
The school’s team had invented a respiratory rate counter to replace the manual method of calculating the rate especially in infant patients.
As far as takeaways go, Cikgu Wan Mohd. Shakir Wan Nordin of SMK Syed Ahmad is most proud of his students who hail from a school which he says is oft-referred to as a “sekolah kampung” and have neither won awards nor driven innovation prior to this programme.
He says this candidly but in no way condescending, and his eyes light up when speaking of the changes he sees in his students.
Since the programme kicked off, SMK Syed Ahmad has sent five teams to various innovation competitions — the highest number among all schools under the programme — and was awarded Bronze in the national level of YIC 2019.
In 2020, Cikgu Julie Mozianda Ahamat of SMK Kuala Perlis, which also boasts a Digital Maker Hub, will attend an education exchange programme organised by Microsoft in Sydney. Her school is also one of the 90 Trust Schools — a five-year, national-level holistic transformation initiative carried out with the blessings of the Ministry of Education. She is happy to reveal that the lesson plan that earned her a spot at the tech event in Sydney encompassed her learnings from this programme.
In many ways, it has created a ripple effect — impacting first teachers and subsequently students who then go on to inspire one another. Many students who presented at the closing cited encouragement from friends as the motivation behind them mastering a new skill.
The programme has built a solid stepping stone into the plethora of new-age skills that will continue to allow both students and teachers to ride the waves of change into the future. But the learning does not stop here as one may discover that these words of Albert Einstein ring true: “the more I learn, the more I realise how much I don’t know.” Indeed, what a time to be alive.
It is time we begin treating computer code the way we treat the alphabet and mathematics, not with the aim of making our students computer programmers but for them to have the computation and design thinking skills to solve problems.
We also work with other partners in Education. Click on them to see what they have been up to.
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Founded upon the philosophy that the ages of five to 15 are critical nurturing periods, CHILD focuses on children born into an underprivileged life. Its Comprehensive Integrated School (CITS) programme involves teachers and parents in efforts to improve students’ academic performance while an after school tuition programme prepare Tamil School students from B40 families for Ujian Penilaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR).
Selected schools in Perlis were first introduced to embedded systems, coding, electronics, mobile apps, AI and various soft skills, after which students showcased their newly gained knowledge in innovation competitions with the ultimate goal of applying technology platforms to identify and solve real life problems in their community.
Completed field testing of indicators
Developed communications plan
With the pilot rollout of the Alternate Assessment for Children with Learning Difficulties, (PASM – Pentaksiran Alternat Sekolah Menengah) expected in a dozen secondary schools nationwide in 2021, this year has been all about conceptualisation, design and realisation of instruments for that purpose. The partner is creating a tool to measure students’ abilities within their disabilities, an objective that traditional pen and paper examinations cannot satisfy.
The partner’s transformational programmes include a customised SKM (Malaysian Vocational Certificate) whilst equipping ‘at-risk’ youth and those who have had to drop out of school with skills that promote employability. Their work supports Hasanah’s education equity agenda that address school drop-outs, and supporting children from marginalised / underprivileged communities.
Delivered capacity building sessions
Developed strategic plans
Through the Yayasan AMIR Trust School programme, public schools are entrusted to the foundation for five years to be jointly managed with the schools’ principals under the auspices of the Ministry of Education. This non-profit organisation’s missions include creating a more student-centric learning experience and empowering decision making on budget and syllabus.
Counsellors from schools within a five to 10km radius of various Projek Perumahan Rakyat and low cost housing in Selangor, KL, Penang and Johor partook in a mental health Continuous Professional Development programme held by this partner in collaboration with the Mental Health unit at the Ministry of Education.
In addition to recruiting, training and supporting young educators in high-need schools for a two-year period, this partner’s annual leadership development platform — the TFM Fellowship programme — supports alumni pursuing much-needed systemic and structural change in the field of education.
The university’s online tutoring and assessment programme targets a number of rural schools in Pulau Langkawi, Pendang and Baling that are performing poorly in Mathematics. Its innovative, user-friendly learning experience equips students with basic to advanced math skills by identifying their weaknesses and finding a way for them to better understand the subject.
In addition to offering scholarships to exceptional students, Yayasan Khazanah also provides leadership and character development programmes to groom a future generation of leaders with the aspiration that its scholars will, one day, take on high-level positions in the best organisations in Malaysia.
The Hasanah Report 2019
