KUALA LUMPUR: Efforts to improve literacy and numeracy under the Linus programme for Year 1 and Year 2 pupils have met their targets earlier than expected for this year, said Education National Key Result Area (NKRA) director Tengku Azian Tengku Shahriman.
Noting that the target for literacy was 95 per cent by the year-end, she said the figure had already reached 90 per cent during January-June 2011, while the numeracy target of 95 per cent had been met as of June.
“This gives space for a larger growth percentage compared to the year’s targets,” she said during a media briefing by the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu) on improvements chalked up by the NKRA in the first half of 2011, here, yesterday.
Tengku Azian explained that for 2010, the Linus numeracy rate reached 91 per cent, exceeding the intended target of 90 per cent, while at 85 per cent, the literacy rate was short five per cent of the 90 per cent target.
She said the literacy target could not be reached due to various reasons, such as the sizeable number of disabled students and slow learners who had trouble understanding their teachers.
“We’re working with the Health Ministry to assess such students with a view to putting them in special classes,” she said, adding that the performance of some Orang Asli students in remote areas was also poor.
She said additional support was also being provided for schools to improve their performance to achieve targets under the School Improvement Programme, a new performance indicator of Education NKRA.
The Education NKRA also targets to increase the enrolment of age 4+ and 5+ children in pre-schools across the country to 80 per cent this year from 72 per cent in 2010.
“Using the national pre-school information system and based on the data keyed in to date, we have 58.3 per cent enrolment rate. We’re also collecting manual data to ensure that the rate is accurately measured,” said Tengku Azian.
She also said that 52 schools had been awarded the High Performing School status as of June 2011, surpassing the target of 50 schools for the whole year. — Bernama