Parliament: School Improvement Programme to start by end-March

KUALA LUMPUR: The Education Ministry will introduce the School Improvement Programme (SIP) by end-March to help raise performance of schools to achieve High Performance Schools (SBT) status.

Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said the programme was necessary to give schools a chance, immaterial of whether they were from towns or rural areas, to gain SBT recognition.

“Through the new system, every school will be gauged and the ministry’s officers will work with the schools to take the necessary steps to rectify specific weaknesses found in their schools,” he told the Dewan Rakyat Tuesday when answering a question by Datuk Noraini Ahmad (BN-Parit Sulong).

Muhyiddin who is also the Education Minister said the SIP includes a School Improvement Toolkit (SIT) to analyse the strength and weakness of a school based on administration, teachers, students, parents and infrastructure.

“From the analysis, each school will draft its SIP and submit it to the ministry so that a best-suited plan can be devised to help that school,” he said.

Meanwhile, Muhyiddin said the selection for the SIP would be done in stages since the schools involved would have to go through a specific process to ensure whether they qualify or not.

“We are not going to simply offer assistance because for a school to be listed as an SBT, it must meet certain criteria. Right now the focus will be on the 20 SBTs identified.

“Furthermore, the issue of finance is also an area to be considered because these schools will need financial assistance to maintain their status,” he said.

Noraini had wanted to know why the ministry was carrying out the SBT exercise in stages rather than selecting 100 schools at one go.

To an additional question by Lim Kit Siang (DAP-Ipoh Timur), Muhyiddin said the Government would also focus on technical and vocational education to cater for such demand.

He added that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak would soon announce the names of recipients for the National Scholarship, who were selected based on merit without any racial bias. -- Bernama