NEWS: Grants and training for private pre-schools

ALOR SETAR: The Government will provide start-up grants for private pre-school operators and even train their teachers in its efforts to make pre-school education a must among the young.

Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said only 60% of children in the country were attending pre-school at the moment and Government’s target was to increase it to 87% in the next three years.

“The ministry is also identifying longhouses in Sarawak where we can set up pre-schools and this should be done in the next two or three months,” said Muhyiddin, who is also the Education Minister.
Nice meeting you: Muhyiddin greeting a Siamese elderly, Kam Keau Din Jok, 64, at the meeting with Chinese and Siamese community at the SRJK (C) Choong Hwa, Kodiang in Kedah Saturday. — Bernama

“I will announce details about the grants and training for teachers later. We want to encourage the setting up of more private pre-schools that follow our curriculum,” he said.

“We know that some parents cannot afford to send their kids to private pre-schools, so the Government is looking at increasing the number of government-run pre-schools in the country,” he said after meeting school heads and teachers from Kubang Pasu.

There are an estimated 5,100 private pre-schools in the country. Another 1,600 pre-schools are run by the National Unity and Integration Department and an additional 8,300 by Kemas, the Community Development Department.

Muhyiddin said pre-schools were important because the right educational foundation would enable pupils to cope better when they started Year One.

On the 27 poorly-performing schools identified by the ministry, he said the schools had the potential to improve.

“We may announce the names of these schools sometime this month but I am still debating whether to make it public or not, because we don’t want people to feel bad.

“The reason we have identified these schools out of 10,000 schools nationwide is because they are at the bottom of the list – it is not that they do not have the potential to perform but they need our attention,” he said.

He noted that principles, headmasters and teachers would be rewarded if they could improve their schools’ performance.

“You don’t necessarily have to be in the 20 High Performance Schools to be rewarded, so long as we see obvious improvements in the students’ performance.

“I don’t deny that infrastructure is important but what is even more crucial in ensuring high performance are the teachers.

“Even if you have to teach in a wooden and attap hut, the pupils can do well if their teachers are creative and innovative,” he said, adding that the ministry was studying how it could improve the welfare of teachers.

He noted that the ministry was targeting to have 30 High Performance Schools next year