Friday January 14, 2011

SIP to challenge, motivate and support all schools

THE School Improvement Programme (SIP) initiative aims to challenge, motivate and support all schools in Malaysia to improve student outcomes and make every school an excellent one.

The programme, introduced in 2010, follows a comprehensive mechanism designed by the ministry with the cooperation of the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu) to enable schools to help students achieve consistent results.

The schools will be given partners, comprising lecturers of Institut Aminuddin Baki who are experienced in educational management as well as specialist coaches and excellent teachers managed by the Teachers Development Division.

After identifying the problems, key performance indicators (KPIs) are customised for the school and the partners brief the head teachers on the right approach.

Low performing schools in Band 6 and 7 are given special assistance with partners assigned to all 209 primary schools under the catergory.

Meanwhile, 88 secondary schools are also receiving assistance through the SIP and a second rollout, which targets a further 340, will be done soon.

“We discovered that there were many low performing schools in Band 6 and 7 when we went about ranking schools and the SIP will help them improve their performance,” said Education Ministry deputy director-general (Education Operations) Datuk Noor Rezan Bapoo Hashim.

“Many of these schools have different problems - attendance, discipline, academic performance or teacher motivation amongst others - and a one-size-fits-all would not work,” she added.

Following this initiative, Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said in a recent announcement that hundreds of schools categorised as lowest performing has shown improvement under the School Improvement Programme (SIP) last year.

He said a comparison between UPSR 2010 and UPSR 2009 school average grade (GPS) showed a very encouraging trend for schools in bands 6 and 7.

Out of 209 schools, at least 140 schools have registered improvement in their GPS score with some reaching as high as 40% improvement.

“These are some of the achievements in our four sub-NKRA which we can be proud about,” he said.

Muhyiddin, who is also the Education Minister, said their combined experience and expertise had ensured the smooth running of the ministry.

He added that the approach used in improving students’ academic performance through the coaching programme and other initiatives, as well as monitoring schools in band 6 and 7 have shown encouraging results.

“I have issued a directive that if we need to spend a little bit more to help improve the performance of hundreds or even thousands of schools to get out of the lower and middle categories, we will do it,” he said.

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