Eight areas of focus in improving education in Sabah

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KOTA KINABALU: The State Education Department has set eight strategic focuses as its Key Performance Indicator (KPI) in improving the education level in Sabah.

Among these include the improvement of management leadership at school level, said its director, Datuk Dr Muhiddin Yusin.

“Close cooperation between various parties, such as parents, the community, private sector and local leaders is essential in ensuring excellent education services.

“This is in line with the ‘education for all’ and ‘all for education’ concepts towards producing a quality human capital, and of course this requires an effective mechanism to be set in place,” he said at the department’s Excellent Service Award (APC) 2010 ceremony held at Dewan MAKSAK, Likas.

Also present was deputy director general (Operation Sector) of Education Malaysia, Dr Zahri Aziz.

For this purpose, he said the department was committed to implement quality management system based on MS ISO 9001:2008 while at the same time adopting the 5S concept, besides Star Rating system as required by MAMPU.

Other focuses include improving the overall performance of public examinations, namely UPSR, PMR, SPM and STPM.

Also to be given emphasis are the development and upgrading of school infrastructures and facilities, compliance of the financial procedures at all levels and implementation of the Standard Primary School Curriculum (KSSR).

The department, he added, would also give attention to reducing the backlog of disciplinary cases, reducing absenteeism among students and achieving the sub-NKRA (National Key Results Area) that had been adopted by the Ministry of Education.

As of July 18, there were 499,684 students with 40,276 teachers and 6,654 supporting staff at 1,070 primary and 213 secondary schools in Sabah.

Meanwhile, Dr Zahri who presented the APC awards to 204 recipients at the ceremony, said the element of recognition at workplace was becoming more important nowadays as shown by studies on the contributing factors to individual motivation and work performance.

He said besides salary and incentives, workers also desire respect, to be entrusted to have autonomy in carrying out their duties as well as social and moral support.

“In this respect, recognition such as the APC could help in bringing out the best in the individual worker,” he said.

He added that the ministry had high hopes on education practitioners in Sabah to play their part as a medium for generating development in the country through education in the various fields.

In today’s globalised world, the task of an educator in guiding the younger generation into a competitive, innovative and creative human capital that has high integrity values and patriotism has become more challenging and complicated.

Teachers, therefore must possess not only sound knowledge in education but also charismatic and able to be a role model that help mould the next generation.

“The ministry would like to express its greatest appreciation to teachers who have sacrificed to teach not only in the urban but also in the rural areas, including remote islands in Sabah,” he said.