KUALA LUMPUR, March 10 ― Schools have been asked to carry out assessment and observation on the students’ performance following physical school reopening involving almost five million students in 10,223 schools nationwide next month.

Education director-general Habibah Abdul Rahim said the move was necessary so that no one would drop out of learning process.

“If we know the performance of students, we can close the gap in the aspect of learning and MoE (Ministry of Education) has aligned the curriculum, in terms of content, pedagogy and assessment to facilitate the move.

“MoE also held a transition programme for year one students in 2021, an intervention programme for preschoolers who could not attend school (last year), and have now moved to year one,” she said in an interview of One-year of Achievement of the Ministry of Education’ on the ‘Selamat Pagi Malaysia’ programme produced by RTM TV1 today.

She said the transition programme for year one pupils was aimed at managing students in terms of socio-emotional, attitude, literacy and numeracy so that they would not be left behind.

She also said that it was conducted after seeing the development of the situation in January with those sitting for examinations for 2020 were allowed in schools.

It was then followed by pre-schoolers, Year One and Two of primary school pupils on March 1 with Year Three to Year Six students were allowed to attend school this week, she said.

The reopening of secondary schools on April 4 involves Group A, namely Johor, Kelantan and Terengganu, while other states in Group B will start school session on April 5.

She also said that at the primary school level, it involved almost three million students at 7,781 schools nationwide.

On issues raised by parents regarding the reopening of schools such as the aspect of school uniforms and the safety of school children were also given due attention by the MoE.

Habibah said the MoE had given flexibility to students who did not yet have school uniforms to wear appropriate and neat clothes to attend school from March 1 to March 26, which is the mid-term school holiday this year.

She also explained that the ministry had also allocated RM300 million for the provision of thermometers, hand sanitisers, soap and other necessities in schools to ensure the safety and health of students in curbing the spread of Covid-19 pandemic. ― Bernama