MASwings to guide Pitas school
by Mariah Doksil. Posted on June 24, 2012, Sunday
PITAS: MASwings officially adopted SK Rosob as its ‘Sekolah Angkat’ yesterday, aiming to improve and increase the percentage of passes in the Primary School Evaluation Test, also known as Ujian Penilaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR), from 35 per cent in 2011 to 60 per cent this year.
MASwings chief executive officer Datuk Captain Nawawi Awang said MASwings, through its Wings of Love program are committed to its corporate responsibility objective towards education of the rural schools in Sabah.
“Under this programme, we are committed to generate encouraging results to increase the level of excellence, especially in the coming UPSR exam.
“Living in the village does not necessarily mean we are lagging behind in education. I myself was a student from a ‘kampung’, but today, I am proud I have been to all over the world. The key is education,” he said to 252 pupils of SK Rosob here at the adoption event yesterday.
Nawawi said through the programme, MASwings would facilitate several initiatives for the students over the next three years to increase their motivation to learn and also to ensure they have a conducive learning environment.
These initiatives, he said, would include motivational talks, leadership courses, tuition packages, learning and exam answering techniques among others.
In addition, MASwings staff will engage the students in other activities such as career and motivational talks, mentoring academically weak students and educational visits to the airline’s operations areas and prominent tourist spots during the school holidays, apart from the yearly study trip to Kota Kinabalu, Kuching and Kuala Lumpur.
These initiatives will be tailored to help the children in the school through teamwork and engagement between the teaching staff, parents, MASwings staff and the local community.
MASwings also focuses in helping schools improve students’ proficiency in the English language. The initiative is in line with the government’s aim to introduce language arts and phonics into school syllabus aimed at increasing the national standard of English.
“We shall continue to be firmly committed to meaningful initiatives such as today’s programme to help schools achieve academic excellence and hopefully, will become a high performance school and consequently help build model citizens in the country.
“We want the passes percentage to be increased and at least five students will obtain five As in this coming UPSR. We will help to achieve the target,” added Nawawi at the event which was launched by Deputy Transport Minister Datuk Abdul Rahim Bakri who was schooling at the school 30 years ago.
Meanwhile, SK Rosob headmistress Janet Jubaida Idang said the school was very lucky for being chosen as ‘Sekolah Angkat’ by MASwings, especially when the percentage of passes in the UPSR had decreased from 45 per cent in 2010 to 35 per cent in 2011.
Janet admitted that English and Mathematics were killer subjects among the students in the rural areas, especially in Pitas and other nearby districts.
“Not only at SK Rosob, but many other schools in Pitas are facing a shortage of qualified teachers. This is one of the reasons why English and Mathematics had been identified as killer subjects. This is very serious as our students will not be able to compete at the higher level.
“Most parents in the rural areas had no proper English education and they don’t make English conversation as a culture. Teachers are unable to solve this problem alone; that is why we feel very lucky to have MASwings help us to find solutions for this problem,” she said.
According to Janet, the school had requested at lease two English teachers and one Mathematics teacher from the education department, but unfortunately the state is also facing a shortage of teachers in these particular subjects.
She hoped MASwings would be the saviour of the school, and said all 23 teachers are committed to work together with MASwings to ensure the target of increasing the UPSR passing percentage would be successful.
During her welcoming speech, Janet said she appreciated the commitment by MASwings for bringing their staff, such as pilot and stewardess, to give inspirational talks to students about the careers which are very challenging and exciting.
She said the presence of MASwings individuals could motivate the students to study harder in order to change their hard life.
Also present at the event yesterday were education deputy director Maimunah Suhaibul, Pitas education officer Awang Jaya Awang Damit and chairman of SK Rosob Parent-Teacher Association Abdul Kahar Abu Bakar.
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