Friday 29 Mar 2024
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The election manifesto for Pakatan Harapan promised inclusiveness in its education policies, including provisions for learning loss from Covid-19 with a focus on children from B40 and other underserved communities. 

Such an approach also resonates with United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4 to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all. The Anwar administration has an opportunity to reimagine education and fulfill its election promise by channeling necessary resources to ensure that every child achieves full literacy and numeracy from an early age.

In the last two and a half years, the pandemic has caused a global learning crisis and brought a huge toll on student academic progress. A 2021 report from Asian Development Bank shows Malaysia experiencing one of the highest learning losses among Asian nations, exceeding all Asean members, except for Myanmar. Many existing education challenges and learning inequities in the system are also exacerbated post-pandemic, particularly among children living in poverty, with disabilities, from Sabah and Sarawak, from indigenous communities, stateless, refugees and those in detention centers.

We should not underestimate such long-term learning losses from a prolonged period of school closures. Younger children are particularly at risk because studies have shown that once children fall behind in their early years it is very difficult for them to catch up. Children of B40 communities and remote areas are the hardest hit as many of their homes lack devices and internet access for digital or on-line learning. 

Education affects not just an individual’s future earnings and well-being but also a country’s economic growth and vitality, which is why the long-term impact of poor literacy skills must be addressed from young. Poor literacy leads to feelings of inferiority, low self-esteem and eventually loss of confidence. A study conducted by Annie E. Casey Foundation shows that 9-year-olds without basic proficiency in reading are four times more likely to drop out of school and individuals not equipped with foundational literacy skills struggle to achieve decent livelihoods later in life.

The Ministry of Education should be applauded for taking steps, such as introducing flexible teaching and learning from home including online, offline, and offsite, flexible class schedules, launching DELIMA [Digital Educational Learning Initiative Malaysia], reintroducing educational TV, digital learning communities and teacher training, to ensure that all students can continue learning during the pandemic. 

Access to quality remote and hybrid learning, however, remains a challenge. A 2020 MOE survey shows that device shortages, for example, have limited participation to about 40% on average and worse in rural areas and states like Sabah and Sarawak. The Ministry of Finance-led CERDIK initiative, launched last year, has partially mitigated this device shortage, but we lack information on the actual usage and learning gains from this one-off initiative. Besides hardware, further investments in quality independent learning software are also required for remedial learning, especially for our youngest learners. 

Before Covid-19, Malaysia’s education system was already undergoing a digital transformation based on targets outlined in the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025. As we enter the next normal, this transformation must take on greater urgency because any further learning loss could potentially lead to a loss generation of students, which will severely affect Malaysia’s future and talent development.

We propose taking concrete steps to achieve the following priorities for our school system. First, support students to catch up on missed learning. Next, narrow achievement gaps for underserved groups. Finally, leverage digital learning that was facilitated during the pandemic by emphasising more flexible, personalised learning with digital technology.

Younger students, including those in kindergarten to Year Two, are still learning to read whereas older students are reading to learn. As such, any e-learning solution for early childhood education must be specifically designed for the young learner. Instead of attempting to recreate a classroom environment where all students learn at basically the same speed and same content level under the guidance of a teacher, well designed software for e-learning can now adapt itself to the learning pace and progress of the user.

Such an approach to learning may sound like science fiction, except it is not. Mobile and online game designers have long approached their jobs from the perspective of engaging their users and allowing them to enjoy playing at their own pace, whether at the beginner, intermediate or advanced levels.  Such user-centric design techniques are now being applied to create learning applications for early childhood education and they are particularly relevant given the learning loss that has happened both within grades and across grades during the pandemic. 

In a Year Two class, for example, a teacher may have to deal with the challenges of some students that have missed both kindergarten and Year One schooling on the one hand, and on the other, those who are far more advanced because they benefitted from individualised private tutoring, as well as greater home resources and support, during school closures.

Enuma, a leading US education technology company and co-winner of the Global Learning XPRIZE and Teach for Malaysia recently completed a six-month pilot involving 643 young students, aged 6-8, in eight schools in Kuala Lumpur, Sarawak and Sabah with Sekolah Enuma, an application that allows them to learn independently. At the end of the programme, assessment results were encouraging with a 10-12% increase in the number of students who scored above 80% in key skills areas in all three subjects: Bahasa Melayu, Mathematics, and English. Teachers were effusive in their comments on how the application has improved the enthusiasm and motivation to learn among their students.

Going forward, these e-learning solutions can be adapted for different communities, including remote ones that have difficulty recruiting good teachers. Internet access, while desirable, is not a requirement because the applications can run on smartphones and tablets with no additional data usage once they are installed. More importantly, these cost-effective and scalable solutions work will free up teaching resources and allow the Ministry of Education to fulfill its goal of closing the equity gap in learning across all segments of society, increase children’s learning outcomes to meet its goal for full basic literacy and numeracy by Year Three, and support the development of digital literacy and other 21st century skills.

Introducing e-learning at the early childhood level generates the highest investment returns because children are at their most curious and adaptive stage. At this age, children are learning basic literacy and numeracy skills unlike later years when they must learn other subjects like science and history where higher learning and analytical skills are required. Well-designed self-learning applications will allow for more resources to be provided to weaker students who require remedial help, while also allowing teachers more time to teach important life skills such as using information to solve problems, following rules, and finding one’s place in society.

We sincerely hope that the Anwar administration will prioritize the use of digital applications to help our youngest and neediest students to achieve basic literacy and numeracy skills. Given the rapid changes in digital technology and the arrival of a Fourth Industrial Revolution, we can kill two birds with one stone: equip our children with the tools to mitigate learning loss while providing them a head start to gain the digital competencies they need at an early age.

By making some bold choices now, Malaysia can emerge stronger and better from the pandemic. Let us not waste a perfectly good crisis to do what is right for the future of our children.

Datuk Dr Habibah is the former director-general of the Ministry of Education, Malaysia and currently serves as a senior advisor to Enuma Inc and trustee for Teach for Malaysia Foundation.

Ming Wong is vice president, government relations and strategic partnerships at Enuma.

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