Provide data, devices to students for home-based learning - Education advocate

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 11-- With the education sector receiving the biggest allocation in Budget 2021, it is best if some of the funds are used to provide students with data and devices for virtual connectivity.

Pemimpin Global School Leadership Malaysia director Cheryl Ann Fernando said this would ensure the students can continue with home-based learning as suggested by the Ministry of Education (MOE).

“... because if not, I think this group of students are going to definitely miss out on a lot of learning and  post pandemic is going to be a struggle for them to catch up with what is going on,” she said on Bernama TV’s Mid-Day Update programme with the topic ‘Budget 2021: Education’, today.

While agreeing that RM725 million allocated to upgrade dilapidated schools nationwide was ‘more than enough’, Cheryl, however, said more allocation would be needed for connectivity, infrastructure, data and devices for students especially in Sabah and Sarawak.

Apart from that, she hoped the budget could look at a COVID-19 response budget by increasing funding for teacher capacity building as well as diversifying and innovating teacher training methods such as virtual training.

She said, customising training and teaching learning solutions would be the best way to move forward during the pandemic.

“What we can do is identify where our teachers are, what are some of the things they are struggling with and how the district and state offices could help them. 

“A one size-fits-all solution will be very difficult especially in training, but if we customise the types of training, immediate results can be seen,” she added.

Last Friday, Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz in tabling Budget 2021 said the MOE continued to receive the largest allocation of RM50.4 billion or 15.6 per cent of total government expenditure.

In previous years, the MOE was also the biggest recipient of Budget 2020 and Budget 2019, with an allocation of RM64.1 billion and RM60.2 billion respectively.

-- BERNAMA