Wednesday September 12, 2012

Principal: Giving schools more say a right move

PETALING JAYA: Former SMK (P) Methodist Ipoh principal Yin Kam Yoke gave the thumbs up to the autonomy that will be given to schools as well as state and district education offices in the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025.

“There are some things that schools need to be able to carry out on their own to meet the demands of the community it serves and the needs of its students,” she said.

A good example would be the power to establish vocational programmes to cater to students who wanted to learn other skills, she said.

“Not all students are academically inclined; some just can't study and want to learn a skill so they can work,” she pointed out. “Allowing schools to set up programmes like that would be a boon.”

Moving forward: Institut Pendidikan Guru Kampus Ilmu Khas students having their photo taken at the launch of the blueprint.

Concerned Parents Selangor (CPS) chairman Shamsudin Hamid said the Teaching and Learning of Science and Mathematics in English (PPSMI) was a fundamental issue and expressed disappointed that it was left out of the blueprint.

“This is not a language issue; it is a knowledge acquisition issue.”

SK Methodist Telok Datuk parent-teacher association member Jacob Matthews said recruiting teachers from the top 30% of graduates did not mean that students would get better teachers.

The Tokoh Guru Selangor 2004 recipient said “the real sense of achievement a teacher gets is not from renumeration, but from seeing their students and pupils succeed”.

Asli Centre for Public Policy Studies chairman Tan Sri Ramon V. Navaratnam said the blueprint did not touch on improving vernacular schools and the promotion of the English language.

It also did not address the multiracial composition of teaching staff, he added.

Yau Hui Min, 18, who is pursuing her A-levels at Taylor's College Sri Hartamas, suggested that school heads comprised young teachers.

“Younger teachers understand their students better,” she said.

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