Malaysia

Education for All 2015 National Review

This report was prepared by the relevant national authorities in view of the World Education Forum (Incheon, Republic of Korea,
19‐22 May 2015). It was submitted in response to UNESCO’s invitation to its Member States to assess progress made since 2000
towards achieving Education for All (EFA).
The views and opinions expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not commit UNESCO. The designations
employed and the presentation of material do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of UNESCO
concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its
frontiers or boundaries.

The paper can be cited with the following reference: “Education for All 2015 National Review Report: Malaysia”. For further
information, please contact: [email protected]
MALAYSIA NATIONAL EDUCATION FOR
ALL REVIEW REPORT
End of Decade Review
Table of Contents
LIST OF FIGURES........................................................................................................... iv
LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................. v
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ................................................................................................. vi
ACRONYMS .................................................................................................................. ix
1 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1
1.1 Development Context ................................................................................................. 1
1.2 The National Education System ................................................................................... 6
1.3 The Context of Education Development and Education Sector Challenges................... 9
1.4 Major Policies, Strategies and Interventions for Education and Learning (current ones
employed to address education sector challenges) ............................................................ 12
1.5 The Relevance of EFA in the Context of Malaysia ...................................................... 14

2 Tracking Progress .................................................................................................. 16

2.1 GOAL 1: Early Childhood Care and Education ............................................................ 16
2.1.1 Analysis of the Goal .................................................................................................. 25
2.1.2 Remaining Gaps, Issues and Challenges ................................................................... 35
2.1.3 Conclusions and Way Forward ................................................................................. 37
2.2 GOAL 2: Universalization of Primary Education ......................................................... 38
2.2.1 Analysis of the Goal .................................................................................................. 44
2.2.2 Remaining Gaps, Issues and Challenges ................................................................... 52
2.2.3 Conclusions and Way Forward ................................................................................. 53
2.3 GOAL 3: Learning and Life Skills for Young People and Adults ................................... 54
2.3.1 Analysis of the Goal .................................................................................................. 62
2.3.2 Remaining Gaps, Issues and Challenges ................................................................... 67
2.4 GOAL 4: Adult Literacy .............................................................................................. 69
2.4.1 Analysis of the Goal .................................................................................................. 75
2.4.2 Remaining Gaps, Issues and Challenges ................................................................... 78
2.4.3 Conclusions and Way Forward ................................................................................. 79
2.5 GOAL 5: Gender Equality ........................................................................................... 80
2.5.1 Analysis of the Goal .................................................................................................. 83
2.5.2 Remaining Gaps, Issues and Challenges ................................................................... 89
2.5.3 Conclusions and Way Forward ................................................................................. 90
2.6 GOAL 6: Quality of Education .................................................................................... 92
2.6.1 Analysis of the Goal .................................................................................................. 98
2.6.2 Remaining Gaps, Issues and Challenges ................................................................. 106
2.6.3 Conclusions and way forward ................................................................................ 107

ii
3 Review of EFA Strategies and Sector Management ............................................. 108
3.1 Assessment of EFA Strategies.................................................................................. 108
3.2. Enabling/Constraining Factors for the EFA progress and overall educational
development ................................................................................................................... 111
3.3 Lessons Learned and Best Practices ............................................................................ 112

4 Emerging challenges and government priorities .................................................. 114

4.1 Major Emerging Development Challenges ............................................................... 114
4.2 New National Policy Directions in Socio‐economic Developments in ....................... 115
Light of Recent Developments, with Implications for Future Education Development Taking
into Consideration National Priorities and Emerging Challenges Error! Bookmark not defined.
4.3 A New Vision of Education Towards and Beyond 2015 ............................................ 116

5 Conclusions and recommendations ..................................................................... 123

5.1 Recapitulation of Major Findings and Conclusions .................................................. 123
5.2 Key Directions/Recommendations for the Government for Future Education
Development ................................................................................................................... 124

References ................................................................................................................ 126

iii
LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1.1 Education System and Assessment Programmes 8

Figure 2.1 Number of Children in Registered Childcare by Type of Care: 2010‐2013 26
Figure 2.2 Total Number and Percent of Trained Child Minders by Type of Childcare: 2010‐2013 27
Figure 2.3 Number and Percentage of Children (GER) Enrolled in Preschool Education by Type of
(Provider, Public Private) for Selected Years: 2001, 2005, 2010‐2013 29
Figure 2.4 Percentage of Children (GER) Enrolled in Preschool Education by State for Selected Years:
2001, 2005, and 2013 30
Figure 2.5 Number of Children with Special Needs by Type of Disability Enrolled in Preschool Education,
for Selected Years: 2005, 2010‐2013 31
Figure 2.6 Number of Indigenous Children Enrolled in Preschool Education in Peninsula Malaysia, for
Selected Years: 2010‐2013 32
Figure 2.7 Number and Percentage of New Entrants to Primary Grade 1 with ECCE Experience, for
Selected Years: 2000, 2005, 2010‐2013 33
Figure 2.8 Number of ECCE Teachers Trained, and Percentage Trained, for Selected Years: 2000, 2005,
2010‐2012 34
Figure 2.9 Number of Children in Preschool Education and PTR for Selected Years: 2000, 2005, 2010‐2013
35
Figure 2.10 Gross Intake Rate (GIR) in Primary Education for Selected Years: 2000, 2005 and 2010‐2013
45
Figure 2.11 Percentage of Children Enrolled in Primary Education and Secondary Education (GER), and
Number of Out of School Children for Selected Years: 2000, 2005 and 2010‐2013 46
Figure 2.12 Number of Out of Primary School Age Children by State for Selected Years: 2001, 2007, and
2012 47
Figure 2.13 Percentage of Students Surviving to Grade 6, and School Dropouts for Selected Cohorts:
1995‐2000, 2000‐2005, 2005–2010, 2006‐2011, 2007‐2012 and 2008‐2013 Cohorts 49
Figure 2.14 Transition Rate to Lower Secondary Education for Selected Years: 2000, 2005 and 2010‐2013
49
Figure 2.15 Number of Children Who Enter School and Abandon before Year 6 by State: 2000‐2006 and
2008‐2013 Cohorts 50
Figure 2.16 Number of Students in Education Support Programmes, Targeting Poor Students for Selected
Years: 2006, and 2010‐2013 51
Figure 2.17 Distribution of Annual Spending on Education Support Programmes Targeting Poor
Students, Special Needs Students, and other Support Programmes as Percentage of Total Education Aid:
2005, 2010‐2013 52
Figure 2.18 Percentage Distribution in the Labour Force by Educational Attainment for Selected Years:
2000, 2005, and 2010‐2012 63
Figure 2.19 Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in TVET (Upper Secondary Education) for Selected Years: 2000,
2005, and 2010‐2013 64
Figure 2.20 Enrolment Distribution of Post‐Secondary TVET by Programme Year: 2000, 2005, and 2010‐
2013 65

iv
Figure 2.21 Number and Distribution of Post‐Secondary TVET Centres by Programme year: 2000, 2005,
2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013 66
Figure 2.22 National Literacy Rate 76
Figure 2.23 Annual and Cumulative Enrolments in Literacy Classes, 2001‐2013 78
Figure 2.24 Gender Parity Index for: Youth Literacy (15‐24) and Adult Literacy (15+) for Selected Years:
2000, 2005, and 2010‐2012 84
Figure 2.25 Gender Parity Index for GER in ECCE, Primary and Secondary: 2000, 2005, 2010‐2013 85
Figure 2.26 Gender Parity Index for Survival Rate to Grade 6 and Transition Rate from Primary to
Secondary Education for Selected Years: 2000, 2005, 2010 ‐ 2013 86
Figure 2.27 Gender Parity Index: Percentage of Students with Competency Level in Lower Secondary
Assessment (PMR) and Malaysian Certificate Assessment (SPM) 2013 87
Figure 2.28 Percentage of Female Students in Secondary Education TVET: 2000, 2005, 2010 – 2013 88
Figure 2.29 Percentage of Female Teachers, Principals and School Heads, in Primary, Secondary and
TVET: 2000, 2005, 2010‐2013 89
Figure 2.30 Primary School Achievement Test (UPSR) for Selected Years: 2000, 2005, and 2010‐2013 99
Figure 2.31 Lower Secondary Assessment Test for Selected Years: 2000, 2005, and 2010‐2013 100
Figure 2.32 PTR in Public Primary and Secondary Schools for Selected Years: 2000, 2005, and 2013 101
Figure 2.33 PCR in Public Primary Schools by State for Selected Years: 2000, 2005, and 2013 101
Figure 2.34 Number and Percentage of Certified Teachers in Public Primary Schools for Selected Years:
2000, 2005, and 2010‐2013 102
Figure 2.35 Federal Spending on Education as Proportion of Total Federal Spending and as Percentage
to GDP 105

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1.1 The National Development Plans and Programmes __________________________________ 4

Table 2.1 Evolution of Teacher Salaries for Primary and Secondary School Teachers 2005 and 2013__ 104
Table 4.1 Summary of the Education Transformation Programme with Selected Initiatives_________120

v
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Malaysia has made great progress in education on many fronts including

increased access to pre-school education and secondary education, as well as
expanded opportunities to pursue post-secondary and tertiary education.
Measures taken to address inequities in the system, including special
programmes for the indigenous population, support programmes for poor
students, and the focus on narrowing the gap between rural and urban
populations by upgrading and expanding educational facilities and
deployment of more qualified teachers, have produced tangible results.
However, the performance on national exams with significant variations
across states as well as within states suggests that there are still some issues
related to equal access to quality education. Other education sector
challenges that Malaysia has been facing and still has to tackle include:

First, is the difficult task of reaching the remaining few percentages of

children who, for different reasons, never enrol or drop out before completing
basic education. Further analysis will be needed to identify who these
children are, whether they are poor, immigrants, or belonging to the
indigenous population.

Second, is the establishment of procedures for early detection of children

with special educational needs and the provision of early intervention to
ensure that these children will have the same opportunity to succeed as other
children.

Third, and perhaps the most difficult task is to address emerging challenges
to improve the quality of education beyond 2015. Although the complexity of
the concept of quality education cannot by any means be captured by a single

vi
measure, based on the unfavourable outcomes on international achievement
tests such as TIMSS and PISA, there is a need for the Malaysian education
system to realign its curriculum with its assessment system in order to
ensure effective implementation and assessment of Higher Order Thinking
Skills (HOTS).

Fourth, the centralised education system in Malaysia and the high

administrative cost takes up a large part of the operational budget. The
higher expenditure has expanded access to education in the country resulting
in a marked increase in student enrolment in primary education. However,
the quality of education, as reflected in the PISA scores does not compare
well with other countries in the ASEAN region. Since the government of
Malaysia’s (GoM) spending on education is already large with a significant 22
percent of the total federal budget and 4 percent of GDP, indicating a strong
commitment to education, it does not leave much leeway to further increase
in the education budget.

Fifth, the provision of equitable access to quality education is still a concern

since the achievement gaps between rural and urban areas, and socio
economic backgrounds have not been eliminated. The same applies to
gender, where equity in terms of parity in primary education has been
reached, but girls are now performing better than boys when it comes to
performance on test scores, and transition to secondary, post-secondary and
tertiary education. In addition, the tendency for boys to drop out is higher
than girls.

In response to these challenges the GoM has initiated a number of new and
innovative initiatives operationalised in the 10th Malaysia Plan (MP), and in
the Government Transformation Programme (GTP) and Economic
Transformation Programme (ETP). Quality and outcome-based initiatives
have become more prominent, in line with the objectives of the GTP and the

vii
NKRA for education. Increased importance has been given to investments in
pre-school, bilingualism and English literacy screening, along with efforts in
making teaching a career of choice. School-based management has been
strengthened including recruitment and training of principals, and head
teachers. Continuous effort in supporting top performing schools and
assisting under-achieving schools to improve has also been part of the quality
improvement package during the last few years.

The Education Blueprint (2013-2025), which is mainly forward looking

beyond the 2015 EFA, outlines the changes and activities to be implemented
in three waves; while the initiatives under the first wave are on-going, the
second and third waves are forward looking, but build on the implementation
of current activities. Focus will be on improving access to education, raising
standards with more emphasis on Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS),
closing achievement gaps, promoting unity among students, and maximising
system efficiency. Raising teacher quality, improved infrastructure for
schools in rural areas and improved access to quality education for children
will be further enhanced.

viii
ACRONYMS

AEP Alternative Education Programme

ASD Autism Spectrum Disorder
ASEAN Association of South East Asian Nations
BKT Skills and Technical Division
CCC Community Childcare Centre
CRC Convention of the Rights of Child
DoS Department of Statistics
DVM Vocational Diploma of Malaysia
ECCE Early Childhood Care and Education
EPU Economic Planning Unit
FPK National Philosophy of Education
GER Gross Enrolment Rate
GIR Gross Intake Rate
GNP Gross National Product
GPI Gender Parity Index
GoM Government of Malaysia
HKL Kuala Lumpur Hospital
HOTS Higher Order Thinking Skills
HPS High Performing Schools
I-KEUNITA Women Entrepreneur Incubator Programme
IKM MARA Skills Institute
ILKA Public Skills Training Institute
ILKAS Private Skills Training Institute
INFRA Malaysia Institute for Rural Advancement
IPG Teacher Training Institute
JAKOA Orang Asli Development Department
JKMM Department of Social Welfare Malaysia
JNJK Schools Inspectorate and Quality Insurance
JPNIN Department of National Unity and Integration
JTM Manpower Department

ix
JVEP Junior Vocational Education Programme
KAP Orang Asli and Penan Curriculum (Kurikulum untuk
Orang Asli dan Penan)
KBSR Primary School Integrated Curriculum
KEDAP Adult class for the Orang Asli and Peribumi
KEDAP-JAKOA KEDAP by JAKOA
KEDAP-KPM KEDAP by Ministry of Education
KEMAS Community Development Department
KKTM MARA Higher Skills College
KSSR Primary School Standard Curriculum
KTW1M 1 Malaysia Wireless Village
KWAPM Poor Students Trust Fund
KV Vocational College
LCE Lower Certificate of Education
LEADS Literacy Education for Adult Skills
LFS Labour Force Survey
LINUS Literacy and Numeracy Screening
MARA Council of Trust for the People
MID Village Information Centre
MoD Ministry of Defence
MoE Ministry of Education
MoH Ministry of Health
MoHE Ministry Of Higher Education
MoHR Ministry of Human Resources
MoRRD Ministry of Rural and Regional Development
MoW Ministry of Works
MoWFCD Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development
MoYS Ministry of Youth and Sports
MP Malaysia Plan
MPPVK National Vocational Education Advisory Council
NEM New Economic Model
NGO Non-Government Organisation
NKEA National Key Economic Areas

x
NKRA National Key Result Areas
NPCS National Preschool Curriculum Standard
NPW National Policy for Women
NVP National Vision Policy
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development
PADU Performance and Delivery Unit
PCR Pupil Class Ratio
PDK Community Rehabilitation Centre
PEMANDU Performance and Delivery Unit
PERMATA Early Childhood Education Programme
PGDE Post Graduate Diploma in Education
PI1M 1 Malaysia Internet Centre
PLF Functional Literacy Education
PISA Programme For International Students Assessment
PMR Lower Secondary Assessment
PPD District Education Office
PPP Public Private Partnership
PTR Pupil Teacher Ratio
PTV Technical and Vocational Education
QIS Quality Improvement System
SBJK School for Street Children
SBT Tuition Voucher Scheme
SDH School in Hospital
SEIP Special Education Integrated Programme
SEN Special Educational Needs
SES Social Economic Status
SIP School Improvement Programme
SISC School Improvement Specialist Coaches
SKPM Standard for Quality Education in Malaysia
SME Small to Medium Enterprises
SPM Malaysian Certificate of Education
TIMSS Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study

xi
UPSI Sultan Idris Education University
UPSR Primary Schools Achievement Test

xii
1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Development Context

Malaysia is an upper middle-income economy averaging an annual real GDP

growth rate between 5 percent and 7 percent during the period 2000-2013. It
is a country that has emerged from mainly an exporter of raw materials in
the 1970s to a country with a large manufacturing sector, which now
accounts for 25 percent of GDP and more than 60 percent of total exports1,
(World Bank Development Indicators).

Malaysia has also managed to reduce poverty: the share of households living
under the national poverty line (USD 8.50 per day 2012) has decreased from
more than 50 percent in the 1960s to under 2 percent today (World Bank
Country Facts).
Malaysia is separated by the South China Sea into two regions, the
Peninsular Malaysia and East Malaysia (Sabah and Sarawak) and consists of
a total of thirteen states and three federal territories (Kuala Lumpur,
Putrajaya and Labuan).

The population of Malaysia currently stands at close to 30 million based on

estimates by DoS, and is unevenly distributed across and within the thirteen
states. In 2011, about 73 percent of the total population resided in urban
areas,2 concentrated in 6 major metropolises of Kuala Lumpur, Georgetown,
Johor Bahru, Kuantan, Kota Kinabalu and Kuching.3

The demographic composition of Malaysia is characterised by its multi-ethnic

communities, which is a key feature of the Malaysian society. The

1 Source: World Bank Country Facts.

2 http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS
3 http://www.epu.gov.my/documents/10124/7db3619b-380c-4e59-b4c0-3eebd2bab752

1
Bumiputeras (the Malays and the indigenous), make up about 68 percent of
the total population, while the Chinese 24 percent, the Indians 7 percent,
other races 0.9 percent, and non-citizens estimated at 2.6 million or 8.6
percent. Besides that, Malaysia is also accommodating a number of migrant
workers and refugees.

In terms of age structure, a vast majority (70.5%) of Malaysians are between

15-64 years old, around 26 percent are under 14 and only 5.5 percent above
65, which puts Malaysia at a very favourable dependency ratio. Due to
changing fertility patterns, the annual growth rate, based on projections by
DoS, will continue to decrease from 1.8 (in 2010) to 0.6 in 2040, while the
total population is expected to increase. The school age population, which has
decreased from 3,066,182 in 2000 to an estimated 2,906,781 in 2013,4 will
also continue decreasing as a result of declining fertility rates.

The National Policy Framework and Planning Process

Malaysia’s economic transformation can, to a large extent, be explained by

the systematic planning process with a comprehensive policy framework in
place since 1957 when Malaysia gained independence from Great Britain.
The planning framework is built on long term (10-year) national development
plans referred to as the Outline Perspective Plans (OPPs), which outline the
national development agenda. The OPPs are operationalized in the five-year
national development plans known as the Malaysia Plans (MPs).

The five-year national development plans are further fine-tuned and modified
to address the evolving situation through midterm reviews of the plans.
Short-term plans with annual budgets are also part of the planning
framework. Since the early 1990s the national development plans have also
been informed by the Malaysian ideal “Wawasan 2020” or Vision 2020
introduced by the former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tun Mahathir bin
Mohamad, during the development of the Sixth Malaysia Plan in 1991.
Vision 2020 calls for Malaysia to modernise and develop into an economically
robust, resilient, competitive, and scientifically innovating and progressive
nation by 2020. Adapted to its own social, cultural, spiritual and political

4 Source: Ministry of Education, EMIS.

2
fabric, the vision stresses national unity with a sense of shared destiny along
with moral and spiritual maturity based on democratic principles entailing
tolerance and respect for diversity in the practice of cultures, customs and
religious beliefs.

Succeeding the New Economic Policy (NEP), the National Development

Policy (NDP), and the National Vision Policy (NVP), the current OPP titled
the New Economic Model (NEM) runs from 2011 to 2020 and is
operationalized under the 10th and the upcoming 11th Malaysia Plans. The
Government of Malaysia (GoM) has further taken steps towards
strengthening the prospects of realizing Vision 2020 and the New Economic
Policy by setting up the Government Transformation Program (GTP)
Catalysing Transformation For a Brighter Future, implemented in 2008, (1st
phase 2010-2012, 2nd 2012-2015, 3rd 2015-2020), and the Economic
Transformation Program (ETP), established in 2010, which is targeting the
private sector with a focus on income generating activities and job creation
through competitiveness and attracting foreign investment.

Both the ETP and the GTP are to be implemented through targeted strategic
initiatives in sectors deemed important for attainment of national
development goals; while the objectives of the ETP are to be implemented in
12 National Key Economic areas (NKEA), the objectives of the GTP are
contained within six National Key Result Areas (NKRA) with associated Key
Performance Indicators (KPI) that measure the outcomes of the NKRA.
Education constitutes one of the 12 NKEA and one of the seven NKRA. The
Performance Management Delivery Unit in the Prime Minister’s Office
(PEMANDU) manages both transformation programmes.

The national development plans including OPPs, the MPs, and the two
transformation programmes, ETP and GTP are displayed in Table 1.1 below.

3
Table 1.1 The National Development Plans and Programmes
1960-70 1971-1990 1991-2000 2001-2010 2011-2020
Pre-NEP New Economic National National New Economic Model
Policy Development Vision Policy (NEM) OPP4
(NEP)OPP1 Policy (NDP) (NVP) OPP3
OPP2
First Malaysia Second Sixth Malaysia Eighth Tenth Malaysia Plan
Plan Malaysia Plan Plan (6MP) Malaysia (10MP) (2011-2015)
(1MP)(1966-70) (2MP) (1971- (1991-95) Plan (8MP) Eleventh Malaysia
75) Seventh (2001-2005) Plan (11MP) (2016-
Third Malaysia Malaysia Plan Ninth 2020)
Plan (3MP) (7MP) (1996- Malaysia
(1976-80) 2000) Plan (9MP)
Fourth (2006-2010)
Malaysia Plan
(4MP) (1981-
85)
Fifth Malaysia
Plan (5MP)
(1986-90)
Economic
Transformation
Programme (ETP)
2010-2020
Government
Transformation
Programme (GTP)
(1st phase 2010-2012,
2nd phase 2012-2015,
3rd phase 2015-2020)

Source: Millennium Development Goals (MDG) 2006, GoM

The Education Sector Policy and Legal Framework

The national development framework with associated plans referred to above

recognises the centrality of strengthening its human capital base as a
prerequisite for Malaysia’s transformation to a value-added economy driven
by productivity growth and innovation. In fact, for planning purposes, the
five-year Malaysia Plan has become the main instrument for the
operationalisation of education policies and securing of sufficient funding to
the education sector. In addition, the newly established transformation
programmes (GTP and ETP) include, as mentioned above, objectives and
result indicators for the education sector. Thus, the educational sector plans
are progressively aligned with the National Development Framework, while
the strategies and interventions employed to address education sector

4
policies and plans are further articulated in the education sector policy
documents. The key sector policies and legal framework referred to in the
EFA review are the following:

i. Education Policies

a. The Education Development Master Plan 2001-2010

b. The Education Blueprint 2006-2010

c. The Education Blueprint 2013-2025

ii. The legal framework to support the realisation of education sector

goals, in particular for the purpose of EFA, consists of several acts that
regulate the quality and provision of educational services, affirm the
obligations of the Government, and for all citizens to claim their rights
to education. The most important and overarching acts, which apply to
several goals include the following:

a. The Education Act of 1996, (Act 550);

b. The Special Education Act of 1997;

c. Child Act of 2001 (Act 611);

d. The National Policy on Disabled Child (Article 23 of CRC)

recognises that a disabled child has the right to special care,
education and training to help him or her enjoy a full and decent
life;

e. The National Policy on Indigenous Child (Article 30 of CRC)

stipulates that children belonging to the minority group or the
indigenous children have the right to enjoy his or her own
culture, to profess and practise his or her own religion and
language;

f. Persons with Disabilities Act 2008 (Act 685);

g. The Aboriginal Peoples Act of 1954

iii. Other important policies include:

a. The National Policy for Women, 1985 and 2009

b. Blueprint on Lifelong Learning for Malaysia, 2011-2020

5
 c. The National Higher Education Strategic Plan: Beyond 2020

d. Eradicating Illiteracy 1961

e. The National Protection Policy for Children 2009

f. The National Policy for Senior Citizens 2011

g. The National Policy for Persons With Disabilities 2007

1.2 The National Education System

The education sector in Malaysia provides support for lifelong learning

stretching from early childhood care and education to tertiary and post-
graduate education. Formal education starts with early childhood education
catering for children from the ages of 4+ to 5+ , followed by 6 years of primary
education, which is compulsory. The official entry age to primary education is
6+. As automatic promotion is applied in primary education, there are
virtually no repeaters and, thus, few over-aged children in primary education
as a result.

After completing primary education, students move on to lower secondary

education (Forms 1-3), and then complete 2 years of upper secondary
education before finishing eleven years of school. Post-secondary education
may be pursued through a two-year Form 6 programme leading to a
certificate or through a one or two-year matriculation programme, which is
considered a preparatory year for entrance to university. In total, the 12-13
years of schooling serves as the basic entry requirement into the first year of
a bachelor’s degree programme in higher educational institutions.
Universities, as well as colleges and polytechnics, offer diploma level
programmes. Diploma level graduates can either enter the labour market or
proceed to degree programmes at universities.

The students are assessed through public examinations offered at the end of
each level of education:

 The Primary School Assessment Test (UPSR) at the end of year 6;

6
  Lower Secondary Assessment (PMR), the Malaysia Certificate of
Examination (SPM), equivalent to General Certificate of Education
(GCE O-level) at the end of Form 5;
 The Malaysia Higher School Certificate Examination (STPM),
equivalent to GCE A-level, or the Malaysia Higher Certificate for
Religious Education (STAM) at the end of Form 6.

The education system is displayed in Figure 1.2.

Until recently, preschool to secondary as well as post secondary education

(matriculation and form 6) was under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of
Education (MoE) while tertiary or higher education was the responsibility of
the Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE). The two ministries merged in
2013 and is now known as Ministry of Education with two sectors handling
the different levels of education; Education and Higher Education Sectors.
The administration of the entire education system under one ministry
enables the application of sector wide planning using a single budget
framework, which will lead to more rational decision-making and increased
harmonisation across different levels of education.

7
 Figure 1.1 Education System and Assessment Programmes

WORLD OF WORK

GRADUATE PROGRAMME

WORLD
WORLDOFOF
WORK
WORK

VOCATIONAL COLLEGE

DIPLOMA DIPLOMA DIPLOMA

Bridging
POLYTECHNIC, COMMUNITY COLLEGE
STPM/STAM/SM & TECHNICAL INSTITUTE

19 POST SECONADARY
(FORM 6 , MATRICULATION) CERTIFICATES CERTIFICATES CERTIFICATES
18 OTHER AGENCIES PRIVATE
MoE FOR EXAMPLE VOCATIONAL ILKA
VOCATIONAL MIN. OF HUMAN COLLEGE ILKAS
COLLEGE RESOURCE
SPM UPPER SECONDARY (2 YEARS)

15 PT3
14 LOWER SECONDARY (3 YEARS) BASIC VOCATIONAL EDUCATION
13

12 UPSR
11
10
9 PRIMARY ( 6 YEARS)
8
7

6 PRESCHOOL (1 YEAR)
5
AGE

Source: MoE

8
1.3 The Context of Education Development and Education Sector
Challenges

Due to the GoM’s commitment to education, the education sector in Malaysia

has evolved significantly since the early years of independence. Therefore,
Malaysia has for some time been on track to achieve several of the EFA goals,
and even beyond those contained within the EFA framework. This is
particularly pertinent when it comes to providing equal access to basic
education including close to Universal Primary Education (UPE), with gender
parity already achieved in the early 2000s. Likewise, Malaysia continues to
expand access to other levels of education where a great majority of students
now move on to secondary education with near universal lower secondary
education. The enrolment rate in upper secondary education (excluding upper
and lower form 6) has increased from 45 percent in the 1980s to close to 82
percent today and an increasing number of students are now pursuing post-
secondary and tertiary education. Yet another achievement is the coverage of
pre-school education where over 80 percent of the cohort attends pre-school
education.5

As a consequence of the high educational attainment, youth literacy has risen

from 88 percent in 1980 to near universal literacy of 99 percent today, while
adult literacy has increased even more dramatically, from less than 70
percent to over 92 percent in the same time frame. Further, the proportion of
the adult population (aged 15+) with no schooling has declined, from 60
percent in 1950 to less than 10 percent in 2010, while the proportion (aged
15+) that has completed secondary education has risen from around 7 percent
in 1950 to just about 75 percent over the same time period. In 2010, 15

5Note that the population estimates are based on live birth, which makes the enrolment rate
different from those published in the Global Monitoring Report, which are based on the
projections made by the UNITED NATION Population Division (UNPD).

9
percent of the population had also completed tertiary education as compared
to only a few percent in 1950.6

Despite the gains mentioned above there are still remaining challenges that
need to be confronted in order to attain all the EFA goals by 2015 and
national development goals by 2020. These are articulated in the next
section.

Education Sector Challenges

The challenges that Malaysia has been facing and still has to tackle include:

First, is the difficult task of reaching the remaining few percentages of

children who, for different reasons, never enrol or drop out before completing
basic education. Further analysis will be needed to identify who these
children are, whether they are poor, immigrants, or belonging to the
indigenous population.

Second, is the establishment of procedures for early detection of children

with special educational needs and the provision of early intervention to
ensure that these children will have the same opportunity to succeed as other
children.

Third, and perhaps the most difficult task to address those concerns
belonging to the second generation of challenges to improve the quality of
education. Although the complexity of the concept of quality education cannot
by any means be captured by a single measure, based on the unfavourable
outcomes on international achievement tests such as TIMSS and PISA, there
is a concern that the teaching and learning in schools have not in the past
paid enough attention to the development of Higher Order Thinking Skills
(HOTS). As a result, the MoE is now focusing on how to increase HOTS into
the primary and secondary education curriculum and assessment.

6 Source: Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025.

10
Fourth, the centralised education system in Malaysia and the high
administrative cost takes up a large part of the operational budget. The
higher expenditure has expanded access to education in the country resulting
in a marked increase in student enrolment in primary education. However,
the quality of education, as reflected in the PISA scores does not compare
well with other countries in the ASEAN region. Since the GoM’s spending on
education is already large with a significant 22 percent of the total federal
budget and 4 percent of GDP, indicating a strong commitment to education,
it does not leave much leeway to further increase in the education budget.

Fifth, the provision of equitable access to quality education is still a concern

since the achievement gaps between rural and urban areas, and socio
economic backgrounds have not been eliminated. The same applies to
gender, where equity in terms of parity in primary education has been
reached; girls are now performing better than boys when it comes to
performance on test scores, and transition to secondary, post-secondary and
tertiary of education. In addition, the tendency for boys to drop out is much
higher compared to girls.

11
1.4 Major Policies, Strategies and Interventions for Education
and Learning

The strategies employed to address the The Eleven Transformation Shifts:

challenges highlighted above and other 1. Provide equal access to quality
education sector priorities include education of an international
standard;
means of increasing accessibility,
strengthening service delivery and 2. Ensure every child is proficient
in Bahasa Malaysia and
improving the quality of education. English language and is
encouraged to learn an
Under the Eighth and Ninth Malaysia additional language;
Plans, also overlapping with the Third
3. Develop values-driven
Outline Perspective Plan and the Malaysians;

Education Development Master Plan 4. Transform teaching into the

(2001-2010), existing facilities were profession of choice;

upgraded and additional facilities 5. Ensure high-performing school

leaders in every school;
were provided to increase intake
capacity and to enhance the learning 6. Empower JPNs, PPDs, and
schools to customise solutions
environment. During the same period,
based on need;
a new and modernised school
7. Leverage ICT to scale up
curriculum and co-curriculum were quality learning across
put in place together with efforts in Malaysia;

bringing schools up to speed with 8. Transform Ministry delivery

capabilities and capacity;
information and communications
technology (ICT) programmes. The 9. Partner with parents,
community and private sector
skills of the teaching force were
at scale;
upgraded, and programmes were
10. Maximise student outcomes for
initiated to reduce the gap between every ringgit;
rural and urban schools, and to reach
11. Increase transparency for
the marginalised population. direct public accountability.

Source: Blueprint 2013-2025

12
As for the later period, under the Tenth Malaysia Plan the focus on
quality and outcome-based initiatives have become more prominent in line
with the objectives of the GTP and the NKRA for education. Increased
importance has been given to investments in pre-school, bilingualism and
English literacy screening, along with efforts of making teaching a career of
choice. School-based management has been strengthened, including
recruitment and training of principals and head teachers. Continuous efforts
in supporting top performing schools and assisting under achieving schools to
improve have also been part of the quality improvement package during the
last few years.

The strategies under ETP have concentrated on means of increasing public-

private partnership and bringing in more private funding as well as
expanding the market for private providers primarily in ECCE and tertiary
education.

The Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025 (hereafter called the Education

Blueprint), the master plan for education sector development in Malaysia,
came about as a result of a comprehensive review of the education system in
2011. The Blueprint affirms the critical role of education in turning Malaysia
into a knowledge-based economy, able to compete in the increasingly
globalised economy. The focus is on improving access to education, raising
standards, closing achievement gaps, promoting unity among the students,
and maximising system efficiency. Raising teacher quality, improved
infrastructure for schools in rural areas and improved access to structured
education for children will be further enhanced. The Blueprint puts at the
forefront five system aspirations, namely Access, Quality, Equity, Unity and
Efficiency, while the student aspirations should be based on Knowledge,
Thinking Skills, Leadership Skills, Bilingual Proficiency, Ethics and
Spirituality, and National Identity. The ambitions contained in the
Blueprint are to be accomplished through eleven Shifts (changes) and in

13
three Waves (time periods). In Wave 1 (2013 to 2015) the focus is on
strengthening the vocational education and creating alternative pathways
and ways of improving opportunities for special needs students. In Wave 2
(2016-2020) the MoE will focus on scaling up programmes piloted under the
first Wave; and in the final Wave (2021-2025) refining of individual pathways
and greater involvement of the private sector are envisioned.

1.5 The Relevance of EFA in the Context of Malaysia

The EFA framework was developed mainly in response to the problems and
challenges facing the least developed nations, mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Malaysia is an upper middle-income country with progressive education and
development policies, and, as such, had almost achieved many of the EFA
goals at the start of the review period. The challenges for Malaysia have been
how to tackle the very difficult task of reaching and providing access to the
few, but still a significant number of out of school children, and adults with
low educational attainment. Merely looking at the percentage of children
enrolled, which appears very high in the Malaysian context (close to 100
percent for the whole period), does not portray these challenges. The
institutionalisation of a framework for bottleneck analysis with indicators to
measure disparities in access to education might be a good way forward to
assist a country such as Malaysia in identifying the children left behind and
those at risk of dropping out prematurely.

In terms of gender equality it would appear more neutral to make reference

to gender instead of promoting girls, since in Malaysia, as in many emerging
economies, there is a tendency for girls to outperform boys on many of the
achievement indicators. Moreover, conventional measures of gender parity do
not take into account gender stereotypes portrayed in schools, nor do they
capture how broader societal gender attitudes, and differential opportunities

14
are reflected in gender-specific career choices made while still in school.
Within the EFA framework, strategies for promoting gender neutral
classroom teaching could be made more explicit, as well as encouraging the
implementation of gender mainstreaming across the education sector.

Finally, the issue of external efficiency, including the relevance of education

to the needs of the labour market and the economic, political and social
development, should also be addressed in the post 2015 agenda.

15
2 TRACKING PROGRESS

2.1 GOAL 1: Early Childhood Care and Education

Goal 1: Expanding and improving comprehensive early

childhood care and education, especially for the most
vulnerable and disadvantaged children

Definition of ECCE in Malaysia

Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) in Malaysia is based on the

notion of every child’s right to quality care and a holistic development taking
into consideration all aspects of development during the early years of life –
physical, emotional, social, intellectual, and health. ECCE comprises
preschools for children aged 4-6 years, and childcare centres for younger
children aged 0-4 years.

National Policies and Legislation Regarding Provision of ECCE

The GoM attaches great importance to ECCE; statements such as “every

child is precious” and that “children are the most valuable resource of the
nation and should be given the best of opportunities to develop to their fullest
potential” are articulated in various national policy documents. As a
signatory of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the GoM has
set up special policies and enacted several laws governing the provision of
holistic quality ECCE for all children. To a large extent, the policy and legal
framework for ECCE was already in place before 2000, but has later been

16
amended to fit the changing environment. In addition to national protection
policies, which are relevant to several EFA goals, the main policies and
legislations for ECCE pertain to the well-being of children and to the
provision of quality ECCE. Some of the more important ones include the
following:

- The Child Care Centre Act of 1984, amendment 2007 (Act 308 &
Act A1285), which established a set of minimum quality standards –
referring to cognitive development, nutrition, safe and healthy
environment as well as regulations about obtaining proper staff – for
the operation of childcare centres catering for children below the age of
four years;

- The National Education Act of 1996 (Act 550) (replaced the

Education Act of 1961) formally recognised preschool education as
part of the school system. The National Preschool Curriculum was put
in place, and quality standards were formulated;

- The National Nutrition Policy (2003) was developed to ensure the

availability of safe and nutritious food for optimal growth and
development;

- The Early Childhood Care and Development Policy (2008)

concretises and consolidates existing national policies on early
childhood with the aim of providing holistic development of children
from birth to four years of age.

The GoM’s commitment to the four core principles of the CRC, namely non-
discrimination, best interest of the child, the right to life, survival and
development and respect for the views of the child, are articulated in the
National Child Protection Policies, ‘covering inclusive education and special

17
needs education’, such as the Special Education Act of 1997, the Child
Act 2001 (Act 611), and the National Protection Policy for Children 2009.

Key Programmes and Initiatives to Achieve Goal 1

While several ministries and government agencies are involved in the

provision of ECCE, the main responsibility for implementing the
Government’s policies regarding the provision of ECCE falls on three
ministries and the Prime Minister’s Department.

- The Ministry of Health (MoH) oversees the healthy development of

all children including maternal health, with a focus on providing
accessible and affordable care through routine visits and examination
of children. The service provided also includes immunization, and the
monitoring of the growth and development of the child. Health
education for the parents is carried out during child health clinic
sessions as well. The system dates back to the 1950s, and, as a result,
Malaysia is now performing well on indicators of child and maternal
mortality rates including the Millennium Development Goals on child
mortality and maternal health.

- The Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development

(MoWFCD), through the Department of Social Welfare as the
caretaker of Childcare Centre Act and Child Act, is responsible for
monitoring, licensing as well as regulating the setting up,
administration and expansion of childcare centres. It coordinates
national programmes on the growth and development of children in
the 0-4 age-group, and keeps a database on all childcare centres in the
country. All fee-charging centres are required to register with the
Department of Social Welfare.

18
 - The Ministry of Education (MoE) is in charge of all preschool
education, and it exercises quality assurance through enforcing all
operators to use the National Preschool Curriculum for the age-group
4+ and 5+. It is also responsible for monitoring, licensing as well as
regulating the setting up, and administration of all registered
preschools and keeps a database on all preschools in the country.

- The PERMATA Implementation Council based in the Prime

Minister’s Department oversees the implementation and action
plans of PERMATA programmes including PERMATA Negara.

Programmes and Initiatives to Increase Access to Early Childhood Care of

Good Quality

The provision of early childhood care has traditionally been provided mainly
by the private sector. The Ministry of Rural and Regional Development
(MoRRD) through the Department of Community Development has been the
largest public provider of childcare centres called ‘Tadika KEMAS’ (tadika
means kindergarten). These centres have been catering for low-income
working families, mostly in sub-urban, rural, and remote areas to allow them
to continue working while contributing to the physical, emotional and social
development of the child.

Following the adoption of the Early Childhood Care and Development Policy
of 2008, acknowledging the importance of early interventions in child
development, the Government has scaled up its efforts in providing
affordable quality childcare. In addition to the adoption of the Quality
Improvement Standard (QIS) for the assessment of childcare centres, these
efforts include, most notably, the promotion and the establishment of
Community Childcare Centres, the subsidised Workplace Childcare Centres,
the Taska PERMATA Perpaduan centres, and the PERMATA Negara Early

19
Childhood Care and Education Programme. While community childcare and
workplace centres are managed by the Department of Social Welfare under
MoWFCD, the Taska PERMATA Perpaduan, and the PERMATA Negara
centres are under the Prime Minister’s Department.

The Community Childcare Centres are based on a multiple partnership

model that encourages active participation of the local community, parents,
children, governmental agencies as well as private organisations. A common
curriculum developed by MoWFCD is used in these centres. Through
outreach programmes and raising awareness of parents, community, family
members, childcare providers and operators and the society at large, the
MoWFCD seeks to promote the expansion of the Community Childcare
Centre (CCC) model. The plan is to establish 10 centres every year
throughout the country to eventually have one CCC in each
district/parliamentary area. A monthly subsidy of RM180 per child is
provided to low-income families who wish to send their children to a
community childcare centre. MoWFCD also offers a one-off RM119,000,
consisting of a start-up grant (RM55,000) and an operational grant
(RM64,000) for each new centre.

The Workplace Childcare Centres are sponsored by MoWFCD to encourage

women’s labour force participation. Grants are provided to both private and
state agencies for renovating and furnishing their childcare centres. Federal
and state agency employees with household income below RM5,000 per
month are offered an incentive of RM180 per month for children below 4
years old. In addition, the Government is also promoting the establishment
of workplace childcare centres in the private sector by offering start up grants
of RM200,000. The Government has granted income tax exemptions (Order
2013) and industrial building allowance (Rules 2013) for private workplace
childcare centres.

20
The Department of National Unity and Integration (JPNIN), under the
Prime Minister’s Department, established childcare centres in 2010. The
centres are called Taska PERMATA Perpaduan. Currently, there are 41
centres in operation with an enrolment of approximately 800 children. Every
child is allocated a meal grant of RM8 per day. All child minders in these
centres have diploma level qualifications.

The PERMATA Negara Early Childhood Care and Education Programme, a

model concept inspired by the UK model Sure Start, but firmly rooted in
Malaysian values, was launched in 2007 under the Prime Minister’s
Department after the Cabinet had approved it in 2006. Based on favourable
assessment of PERMATA Centres, the Government has approved an
additional RM150 million to scale up the operation and mainstreaming of the
concept in 457 childcare centres including those operated by KEMAS, the
Department of Social Welfare, and JPNIN, as well as by the Terengganu
Family Development Foundation, and the Sultan Idris Education University
(UPSI). PERMATA Negara is also in the midst of developing PERMATA-Q,
which will be an instrument to benchmark the quality of ECCE in Malaysia.
To date, access to quality childcare has been provided by PERMATA to
24,000 children.

Strategies to Increase Access to Preschool Education

Although preschool education has been included in the education sector since
1996, it has mainly been provided by the private sector. The role of the MoE
has, to a large extent, involved the exercising of quality control by means of
applying the national standard across all preschool programmes. Since 2003
the use of the National Preschool Curriculum has been compulsory for all
preschool programmes run by both public and private agencies. The MoE has
also developed quality standards for all preschools. The standards, which

21
include standards for teacher qualification, parent teacher interaction, health
and safety environment, are currently being further refined. In addition,
since 1996 all private providers of preschools are required to register with the
MoE.

With regards to the public provision of preschool education, the focus of the
Government has foremost been to extend access to the poor, and those
residing in remote and isolated areas. The reason has been to narrow the gap
in school-readiness for learning and performance between more privileged
children and those from economically or socially deprived backgrounds.
Starting out as a small pilot project in 1996 with preschool classrooms
annexed to existing primary schools, the MoE has gradually extended this
model throughout the country, while still relying on the private sector as an
alternative for parents that can afford to send their children to private pre-
schools. Besides MoE, other main public providers are KEMAS and JPNIN.
Both KEMAS and JPNIN preschools use the National Preschool Curriculum.
JPNIN Perpaduan preschools also include a special component to promote
harmony, neighbourliness, unity, and nationalism among the children from
the different ethnic communities.

Preschools operated by KEMAS, JPNIN, and MoE receive a daily meal grant
of RM2 per child per day in Peninsular Malaysia and RM2.25 in East
Malaysia, and an annual allocation of RM100 per child for learning
materials. As each preschool class can receive up to 25 children, it means
that the school can receive up to RM 2,500 per year for the purchase of
teaching and learning materials.

The MoE has also been providing training of preschool teachers: From 2010
to 2012, approximately 20,150 teachers from JPNIN, KEMAS and private
sectors attended a three-week course during the holidays, sponsored by the
Malaysian Government. Training was provided by the MoE, in cooperation

22
with other public or private accredited training institutions. In 2013, the
MoE introduced financial support for the in-service private preschool
teachers (RM1000 per year and a maximum of RM3000 per course).
Harmonising qualification requirements of preschool teachers across
different providers is still on-going. KEMAS and JPNIN encourage their
teachers to continue their study at diploma level by fully sponsoring their
fees while the course is provided by IPG and UPSI.

In line with the National Key Result Areas (NKRA) and National Key
Economic Areas (NKEA), the Government has been trying to encourage the
private sector to set up preschools through public-private partnership and by
offering grants for the operation and fee subsidies for the children. From
2010 to 2012 a launching grant of RM10,000 and a grant of RM100 per child
per year were given to every new private preschool set up. The criteria for
receiving these grants require that the kindergarten must be registered with
the Government and the fee should be below RM150 with more than 10
children registered in each kindergarten. As of 2013, a new criterion was set
by the Government to further harness the public-private partnership;
Kindergartens with an enrolment of 10-19 children will receive a grant of
RM10,000 and kindergartens with more than 20 children will receive a grant
of RM20,000, granted that the fee is below RM200.

An important milestone is the establishment of the National ECCE Council

in November 2010, a non-profit professional body that has been entrusted to
be the driver of ECCE under the NKEA for education, and act as a link
between the Government and the private sector ECCE providers. The council
will play a key role in the professionalisation of private childcare providers
and preschool educators, and in quality assurance.

23
Initiatives to Increase Access to Children with Special Educational Needs
(SEN)

The education for children with severe disabilities is taken care of by the
MoWFCD, while the MoE provides preschool education for children with
special educational needs in Special Education Primary Schools and Special
Education Integrated Programme set up in regular primary schools. Special
intervention programmes for the 4 to 6 age group have been in operation
since the year 2000. These programmes were initially conducted without any
allocation or training for the preschool teachers. In 2004, the MoE approved
the conversion of these early intervention programmes in 28 schools for
children with special needs. These schools received allocations after the
conversion process in 2004. Among the 28 schools, 22 are for the hearing
impaired, 5 for visually impaired and 1 for children with learning disability.
After the conversion, teachers with special needs education background were
posted to these schools and other teachers without special needs education
background were trained. Grants were allocated to these schools similar to
other Government preschools.

There are also special grants given to NGOs and private centres to help run
special programmes for children. Since 2013, the MoE provides a one-off
grant of RM20,000.00 for the setting up of private preschool or child care
centres for children with special needs. For children from the low-income
group, MoE pays their monthly fee. The Special Education One Stop Centres
were launched in 2007 with the opening of eight such centres. The main
objective of these centres is to provide free services for children with special
needs and their parents, in terms of early intervention, rehabilitation and
other services. As of 2014, 26 centres are available throughout the country.

A National Board of Advisory and Legislation for People with Disabilities

(Majlis Penasihat dan Perundingan Kebangsaan bagi OKU) was set up in

24
July, 2008 and chaired by the MoFFCD. The committee consists of eight
permanent members from various ministries, NGOs and other related
agencies. It is a national coordinating body formed to study, develop and
coordinate various issues and actions related to people with disabilities.
Through this board Multi-Sectorial Collaborative Action Plans were
formulated.

PERMATA has plans to further extend its services in the near future by
introducing a special programme for children with autism called PERMATA
Kurnia. It is to enhance awareness on Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and
it will provide early intervention programmes to help children with ASD
develop to their full potential, and prepare them for mainstream primary
school education. This programme, when it embarks in 2015, will be able to
help children between the ages of 2 to 6.

2.1.1 Analysis of the Goal

Childcare (0 - 4 years old)

Figures 2.1 and 2.2 present the recent trends in the number of children who
are participating in some kind of formal early childhood care. These include
centres operated by KEMAS, PERMATA, JPNIN, and centres registered
under the Department of Social Welfare of MoWFCD such as community and
work place childcare centres as well as private institutions with 10 or more
children. Since the database kept by MoWFCD was not established until
recently, the graphs only include data from 2010-2013. The scaling up of
ECCE for the youngest age-group has also mainly taken place during the last
four years. Although providers of home-based childcare centres with less than
10 children do not need to register with the MoWFCD, but since 2012, efforts
have been made to collect information even on this type of more informal
arrangement. Thus, for the purpose of showing a more complete picture of the

25
scope of childcare, home-based childcare contained in the MoWFCD database
is also included in the graphs.

The participation in formal childcare seems to be on the rise, which indicates

an increasing capacity to accommodate more children, with the caveat that
this may also be due to improved reporting and registering of centres. The
proportion of young children attending formal childcare is still very low,
around 2 percent.

Moreover, the effect of the Government’s effort in providing stimulus

packages for setting up ECCE centres, have led to an increasing number of
private providers entering the ECCE market.

Figure 2.1 Number of Children in Registered Childcare by Type of

Care: 2010-2013

Figure 2.2 below presents the proportion of trained child minders by type of
programme for the most recent years for which data is available. The graph
also shows the total number of child minders along with the number of
trained staff.

26
 It can be noted that the vast majority of child minders in the government
community centres are trained using the modules provided by the
government, while only about half of the child minders in the other types of
centres have been trained. This is of concern as the institution-based centres
constitute the majority of ECCE service providers.

 As shown in the graph, it is obvious that the expansion of early childhood

care is leading to a greater demand for new childcare minders. This is
portrayed in the marked increased in childcare minders by approximately
10,000 between 2010 and 2013. As evident by the widening gap between total
number of childcare minders and those trained, the expansion has put a
strain on Malaysia’s capacity to keep up with the need to train more childcare
minders.
Figure 2.2 Total Number and Percent of Trained Child Minders by
Type of Childcare: 2010-2013

TOTAL CHILD MINDERS TOTAL TRAINED CHILD MINDERS

27
GoM is aware of this gap and part of the government’s quality package is to
offer training to both the owners of childcare centres and to the childcare
minders. Both owners of the centres and child minders are required to attend
29 days of basic childcare course (Kursus Asuhan Awal Kanak-Kanak dan
Didikan Awal Kanak-Kanak PERMATA) specified by the (MoWFCD). Child
minders at home are also required to obtain at least 7 days of training a year.
In order to become certified child minders, individuals are required to follow
courses that abide to the curriculum and training modules provided by
PERMATA and MoWFCD. Besides that, they will have to sit for written and
practical tests conducted by MoWFCD as well as go through on-site training
after they have attended the course. Should they fail the test, they will then
have to repeat the course and sit for the exams again within a year.
Currently, MoWFCD has approved 42 agencies to run these courses. All
trainers from each of these agencies must be trained by the MoWFCD.
MoWFCD has also set up an accreditation committee to assess and ensure
the quality of courses provided by these organisations. In the long run,
MoWFCD intends to create a hierarchical level of courses for different
categories of childcare employees.

Preschool (4+ to 5+ years old)

Figure 2.3 presents the number and percentage of children (GER) aged 5 to 6
enrolled in public and private preschool education. There has been a dramatic
increase in the Gross Enrolment Rate (GER) for preschool education in
Malaysia, the number which has nearly doubled from 46 percent in 2000 to
83 percent enrolled in 2013 in both public and private preschools. A major
rise in GER took place from 2000 to 2010, which coincided with MoE’s
initiative of setting up its preschools on a large scale and extending the fee-
free policy for MoE preschool education. The government’s efforts to promote
private providers to enter the market for preschool under the ETP/NKEA

28
may have also contributed to the growth of GER seen in the last couple of
years. The Education Blueprint has set the target of 90 percent by 2014, 92
percent by 2015 and 97 percent by 2020.

While GER uses the population aged 5 to 6 in the denominator, it does not
exclude children outside the official age group on the enrolment side, thus the
GER, as opposed to the Net Enrolment Ratio (NER), overestimates the
proportion of 5 to 6 year old children who attend preschool in a single year.

Figure 2.3 Number and Percentage of Children (GER) Enrolled in

Preschool Education by Type of (Provider, Public Private) for
Selected Years: 2001, 2005, 2010-2013

While progress has been made to extend access to preschool education from a
national perspective (Figure 2.4), it can also be seen across the states, with
some notable surge in enrolment in states such as Labuan, Sarawak, Perlis
and Melaka. There are still a few states that are lagging behind including
Selangor and Kelantan, where more than 20 percent of the children still do

29
not attend preschools. However, some of these children may be attending
preschools that have not registered with MoE.

Figure 2.4 Percentage of Children (GER) Enrolled in Preschool

Education by State for Selected Years: 2001, 2005, and 2013

Figure 2.5 presents the number of children with special education needs who
are enrolled in preschool in Special Education Primary Schools and Special
Education Integrated Programme set up in regular schools. It shows the
government’s efforts to increase access to preschool children with various
disabilities, namely learning disabilities, visually impaired and hearing
impaired. Data provided are of recent years only, as these programmes have
been formalised only since 2004.

30
Figure 2.5 Number of Children with Special Needs by Type of
Disability Enrolled in Preschool Education, for Selected Years: 2005,
2010-2013

Figure 2.6 presents the number of indigenous children enrolled in preschool

education in Malaysia. Data was only available for recent years as there was
greater effort from the Government to register and formalise preschool
education. There has been a slight increase in enrolment amongst the
indigenous population in Malaysia.

31
Figure 2.6 Number of Indigenous Children Enrolled in Preschool
Education in Peninsula Malaysia, for Selected Years: 2010-2013

Figure 2.7 shows the percentage of new entrants to Grade 1 who have
attended some form of formal ECCE programme. In 2000, 47 percent of
Grade 1 students were reported to have ECCE experience as opposed to 2013
when 93 percent of new entrants had attended some form of preschool. These
gains offer a clear demonstration that significant and rapid results in
education are possible. The difference between GER and the percentage of
children with preschool experience most likely reflect enrolment in private
unregistered ECCE.

32
Figure 2.7 Number and Percentage of New Entrants to Grade 1 with
ECCE Experience, for Selected Years: 2000, 2005, 2010-2013

New Entrants to Grade 1

%New Entrants with ECCE Exp

Trained Preschool teachers

The 10th Malaysia Plan aims to change the status quo by encouraging ECCE
teachers to obtain a minimum diploma level qualification. Figure 2.8 shows
the government’s commitment to provide training for preschool teachers,
with close to 100 percent of preschool teachers in government schools with at
least a diploma level degree. The information depicted in the graph also
shows that the Government, since 2005, has made an effort to only recruit
preschool teachers who are qualified to teach, as the percentage of qualified
teachers has continued to increase with the rapid increase in the number of
teachers.

33
Figure 2.8 Number of ECCE Teachers Trained, and Percentage
Trained, for Selected Years: 2000, 2005, 2010-20127

Along with upgrading teachers’ qualifications to enhance the learning

environment, more teachers have been recruited. This has resulted in a sharp
decline and improvement in the pupil/teacher ratio from 2005, and onwards,
even to the extent that the ratio has fallen below the national standard set by
MoE, which is at 1:25 (Figure 2.9).

7 Note that the data for 2000 and 2005 do not include MoE teachers.

34
Figure 2.9 Number of Children in Preschool Education and PTR for
Selected Years: 2000, 2005, 2010-2013

PTR in ECCE

2.1.2 Remaining Gaps, Issues and Challenges

It is clear that the government’s efforts in enhancing ECCE have been an

uphill task to ensure that every child’s access to quality education is
ascertained. The government’s commitment is evident when it made ECCE
one of the NKEA under PEMANDU. With the same determination, Malaysia
will most likely continue making progress and address the remaining issues
and challenges, some of which include:

 The accessibility to quality childcare services, which is still limited

especially when it comes to workplace centres that can make it easier
for working parents to continue working. The same applies to the
working poor in rural areas.

 Achieving the 92 percent preschool enrolment will be a challenge since

the 2012 target of 87 percent has fallen short, coming in at 82 percent.

35
 Despite initiatives to reach the marginalised children, there are
insufficient data to capture the status of ECC facilities and
programmes for SEN children and for the disadvantaged children
including indigenous children living in remote areas and migrant
children without papers.

 Despite the setting-up of several coordinating bodies, such as the

National Preschool Progress Committee (Jawatankuasa Penyelarasan
Kemajuan Prasekolah Kebangsaan), the National ECCE Council and
the PERMATA Council, inter-agency coordination and integration with
different implementing agencies makes it difficult to plan.

 Although, MoE and MoWFCD have increasingly been successful in

registering private childcare centres and preschools, the task is to
ensure that all privately operated institutions are registered. Frequent
inspections have to be conducted to stop operations of childcare centres
and preschools, which do not meet MoE and MoWFCD guidelines.

 According to interviews with stakeholders, a major challenge is to

convince both childcare providers and parents about the benefits of
early childhood care. The mindset of providers and educators need to
change so that they will realise the importance of having the right
academic qualifications to fully cater to the needs of children, which is
not limited to physical care. Likewise, for parents, ECCE is mostly
seen as a playground, and as such parents fail to see investment in
early childhood care and education as a way of boosting their children’s
intellectual and emotional development.

36
2.1.3 Conclusions and Way Forward

Malaysia’s effort in addressing ECCE as part of the EFA framework and the
inclusion of preschool education in the education sector has definitely paid off
in several ways as reported above. To address some of the current challenges
highlighted above it will be crucial to:

1. Increase the coordination between ministries and government agencies

as well as the private sector in order to enhance mechanisms for
planning, monitoring and follow-up. This is to ensure that all children,
regardless of geographical area, socio-economic status and physical or
mental disability, will have equal access to quality ECCE according to
their needs. The ECCE Policy of 2007 and the establishment of the
National ECCE Council offer a good way forward to address both
issues of coordination and quality assurance.

2. In the light of limited growth for ECCE in the public sector, Malaysia
will most likely need to continue relying on its smart partnership as in
the established public-private partnerships. The strategies promoted
in the ETP and associated NKEA for education, to encourage more
private operators to come forward to provide ECCE, as well as to
increase funding through voucher schemes may bring about desired
changes and growth. The role of the Government is to regulate the
expansion of the public-private sector, and this demands that the
monitoring capacity will need to be further strengthened in order to
provide quality ECCE for all.

3. Needless to say, continued efforts to encourage parents to enrol their

children in registered preschools and childcare centres, and promoting
professionalisation of childcare providers and assistance workers will
be essential. As part of the professionalisation of ECCE, a common

37
 degree programme for all childcare providers and preschool educators
with a minimum qualification of a Diploma in Early Childhood
Education would be a worthwhile effort.

2.2 GOAL 2: Universalisation of Primary Education

Goal 2: Ensuring that by 2015 all children, particularly

girls, children in difficult circumstances, and those
belonging to ethnic minorities, have access to, and
complete, free and compulsory primary education of
good quality

Definition in the Malaysian Context

Primary education in Malaysia consists of six years and covers the age-group
6+ - 11+ years old. Secondary Education comprises lower secondary (3 years)
and upper secondary education (2 years).

There are two types of public primary schools in Malaysia catering for all
Malaysian children: the National Schools and the National-Type Schools. The
language of instruction in the National Schools is Bahasa Malaysia (Malay
language) and Chinese or Tamil languages are used in the National-Type
Schools. There are also government supported religious schools as well as
private schools. The Ministry of Education (MoE) oversees the provision of
primary and secondary education in public and government-aided schools.

The language of instruction in government secondary schools is Bahasa

Malaysia. A one year catch-up programme, called remove class, is offered to
students from the National-Type Schools who did not obtain the grade

38
required for Bahasa Malaysia in the UPSR. Roughly 25 percent of students
attending these National-Type Schools need to spend one extra year to
improve their mastery of Bahasa Malaysia in order to help them cope at
secondary level.

National Policies and Legislation Regarding Provision of Primary

Education

The government’s actions to ensure that all children can access to and
complete primary education regardless of gender, ethnicity, socio-economic
background, location and abilities are guided by the MPs, the Education
Development Master Plan 2001-2010 as well as the Education Blueprint,
which states that “every child in Malaysia deserves equal access to
education.” In line with the vision of becoming a developed country by 2020,
the GoM has taken several steps and is continuously striving to transform
the system to ensure that high quality education is accessible and affordable
for all. The Education Act 1996 (Act 550) has been amended under the
Education (Compulsory Education) Regulations 2002, which came into effect
in 2003, to make primary education compulsory. Since 2012 the Government
has adopted the policy of free education.

Key Programmes and Initiatives/Strategies to Achieve Goal 2

The education system in Malaysia has progressed considerably when it comes

to providing access to education for the majority of the school age population.
Therefore, most of the efforts in recent years have been directed towards
dealing with the challenges of how to reach the marginalised or remaining
children who are not enrolled or are lagging behind scholastically. The
priority of the MoE now is to reach out to children with special education
needs, children from minority groups, from poor families and those residing

39
in remote areas. Affordability and access have been pointed out to be major
barriers for these children. Besides that the government has, in partnership
with NGOs and development partners, especially UNICEF, initiated several
programmes to address the needs of the marginalised children. Main target
groups and key strategies implemented are outlined below.

Main target groups:

 Children from poor families in urban and rural areas

 Children living in remote areas

 Children with special education needs

 The indigenous population

 Undocumented children, children living in plantation estates and

refugees.

Key strategies implemented:

Financial Support Programmes: In order to alleviate the financial burden

and encourage students from poor families to attend school, the MoE has
been providing a range of different types of financial support to children from
low SES backgrounds or for children who are not in school due to poverty.

 Support includes the Poor Student Trust Fund or KumpulanWang

Amanah Pelajar Miskin (KWAPM) that in 2013 provided assistance close
to 800,000 primary and secondary school students in the amount of
RM200 million (equivalent to over USD60 million); the Supplementary
Food Programme that provided meals to almost 550,000 children in 2013;
allowances for school uniforms for about 12,000 children. The poor
students also benefit from a host of support programmes listed under the
general aid category including the 1Malaysia Milk programme, which
provided milk to over 1,400,000 students in 2013. Assistance also include

40
 provision of text books, which was previously only a textbook loan scheme
for poor students, but has since 2008 been extended to all primary and
secondary school students.

 The Tuition Aid Scheme (TAS), launched in 2004 to assist students from
low income families to boost their academic achievement through
provision of extra classes in the subjects of Malay, English, Science and
Mathematics. TAS was suspended in 2010 for a review of its
implementation.

Programmes Targeting Special Education Needs Students: SEN

students are officially defined in Malaysia as students with hearing and
visual impairment, speech difficulties, physical disabilities, multiple
disabilities and learning disabilities such as Down’s syndrome, autism,
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and dyslexia. There are three types of
school options for SEN students: (1) Special Education School which are
school for students with the same type of disability; (2) Special Education
Integrated Programme (SEIP) with special classes dedicated to SEN students
in regular schools; (3) Inclusive Education Programme where one to five SEN
students are integrated into mainstream classes.

41
 The “School in Hospital” (SDH) is a joint initiative between the
Ministry of Education (MoE), Ministry of Health Malaysia (MoH)
and Yayasan Nurul Yaqeen (YNY) an NGO, for students who are
in hospitals allowing them to continue their education in a
flexible, conducive, and engaging environment.

While YNY provides the necessary apparatus and learning tools

such as laptops, interactive software and other additional reading
materials, MoH is responsible for providing and allocating space
for classes, and MoE provides teachers and learning materials
such as textbooks and internet access. SDH programme began on
4 July 2011 at Kuala Lumpur Hospital (HKL), Ampang Hospital
and Serdang Hospital as a pilot test for two years. Currently there
are eight SDH.

Special Programme for the Orang Asli and the Penan: In response to
the high dropout rates and poor scholastic performance among the children
from the indigenous population, the MoE has recently developed and
implemented an all-inclusive set of strategies to address the barriers for the
Orang Asli and the Penan to remain in school. The strategies include:

 The K9 Comprehensive Model School, which provides six years of

primary schooling and three years of lower secondary education at the
same school within the vicinity of the indigenous communities. This way
the indigenous children will not have to leave their community to continue
their secondary education elsewhere. To resolve the issue of
transportation, free accommodation is provided either at the school or at
other residential accommodations in nearby schools, in so called hostels.
To date, five (5) schools with all students (100 percent) from indigenous

42
 background have been established around their local communities. Two
(2) more K9 schools are due to be opened: one under the Education
Transformation Initiative for Indigenous Peoples and the other under the
Interior Schools Education Transformation Initiative.

 Training of indigenous teachers, who have a better understanding of

the needs and challenges facing the indigenous children, and are thereby
in a better position than non-indigenous teachers to communicate with
both the children and the community.

 The design of a special curriculum for Orang Asli (KAP), which is

tailored to the needs of the children from indigenous communities and
isolated rural areas. The curriculum takes into consideration the context
of their surroundings and culture.

Alternative education programmes (AEP) for street children,

undocumented children, and children to plantation workers: In order
to accelerate access to education for all, the MoE has allowed other
organisations or government agencies to implement alternative education
programmes for children who cannot be reached with conventional measures
of schooling. These programmes use the national curriculum while being
funded and operated outside the regular education system. The experience,
lessons learnt, and outcomes from these programmes will inform the design
of the Alternative Education Policy in Malaysia.

School for Street Children (SBJK): In collaboration with the Social

Welfare Department, National Security Council and NGOs such as the Nur
Salam Foundation and Chow Kit Foundation, the MoE has established a
school programme for abandoned and street children, who have failed to
pursue their education due to various reasons. The school, better known as
Sekolah Bimbingan Jalinan Kasih (SBJK) was first opened in the Chow Kit
area of Kuala Lumpur in August 2013. Trained teachers run the school using

43
a teaching module provided by the MoE. Counselling teachers are also placed
there to provide counselling and guidance. Children enrolled in this school
are from the ages of 5 to 18 years, from pre-school to secondary education.
The learning concept used is based on a modified National Curriculum with
more emphasis on Basic Vocational Education. SBJK will be extended
nationwide in stages to curb dropouts among children in Malaysia.

Education for undocumented children: The first national curriculum-

based learning centre for children who could not access formal education in
government or private institutions due to the lack of legal status has been set
up in Kg Numbak; Menggatal Sabah. This is a collaboration project between
UNICEF, the Sabah Special Task Force and the Yayasan Guru Malaysia
Berhad. The centre began its operations in January 2011 and has to date,
provided basic education to more than 700 refugees and undocumented
children.

The government has also approved other alternative education centres

operated by NGOs or other private sector organisations. In 2013 the MoE
has registered a total of 177 such institutions with a total number of 15,039
students.

2.2.1 Analysis of the Goal

The national commitment in Malaysia for achieving the goal of every child
completing basic education by 2015, translated into concrete education
transformation initiatives, has resulted in a steady growth of both intake and
enrolment of students in primary as well as secondary education. As depicted
in Figure 2.10, the intake rate has increased from 95 percent in 2000 to close
to 98 percent in 2013, but with substantial annual fluctuations. As a result,
the number of children not entering grade 1 has more than halved since

44
2000.8 The decreasing number of the school age population has probably also
played a role in this context as there have been less children to cater for.

Figure 2.10 Gross Intake Rate (GIR) in Primary Education for

Selected Years: 2000, 2005 and 2010-2013

As revealed in Figure 2.11 below, the GER for primary education has
increased only slightly from an already high GER of 95.6% in 2000 to 96.6%
in 2013, underscoring the challenge of reaching the last few segments of the
school age population without access to education. The combined GER for
primary and secondary education shows that the increase in the enrolment
rate for secondary education accounts for the major gain in GER for the 7 to
15 age cohort. As for the intake rate, the percentage of the school age
population who remain outside the education system in 2013 seems relatively
small (3 to 6 percent). Even though the actual number is decreasing as

8Note that the number of children not entering school, as well as subsequent analysis of out
of school children, is derived from taking the difference between total no. of school age
population minus total enrolment.

45
compared to the number of children out of school in 2000, there is still
approximately 100,000 primary school age children unaccounted for and
another 250,000 youth that could be pursuing secondary education. It must
be clarified that these numbers include school age children who are home-
schooled and those attending alternative education centres that are not
registered with the MoE such as Tahfiz Religious Schools.

Figure 2.11 Percentage of Children Enrolled in Primary Education

and Secondary Education (GER), and Number of Out of School
Children for Selected Years: 2000, 2005 and 2010-2013

However, as can be seen in Figure 2.12, there has been a substantive

improvement regarding the differences in the number of out of school
primary age children across the different states in Malaysia, particularly in
the states of Sabah and Selangor. This suggests that the targeted efforts to
reach some of the marginalised groups by specially designed programmes
might have had some positive effect.

46
Figure 2.12 Number of Out of Primary School Age Children by State
for Selected Years: 2001, 2007, and 2012

47
Figure 2.13 shows that the percentage of children who reach Grade 6 has
improved from 96.9 percent in 2000 to 99.2 percent for the last cohort who
reached grade 6 in 2013. The transition rate from primary education to lower
secondary education as seen in
Figure 2.14 has also risen from
Enforcing compulsory primary
90 percent to 97 percent
education
between 2000 and 2013, intact
Malaysia has a legal framework for
with the MoE’s effort in
compulsory education as outlined in the
increasing access through a fee- Education Act 550. All parents must
free policy and generous register their children at the nearest
education aid packages extended school in their community before the
child reaches the age of 6 and remains
to secondary education. The in the primary school for a duration of
improvement in retaining six years. Information regarding
children represents a reduction registering children at schools is
disseminated through the media via
in the number of children who
television, radio, the web, as well as
drop out of school before Grade pamphlets to children with younger
6, as well as the number of siblings to alert the parents. Non-
adherence to this act entails a
students that choose not to
punishment of a fine not exceeding five
continue to secondary education, thousand Ringgit or imprisonment for a
which has decreased from term not exceeding six months or both.
Owing to this policy, the primary school
45,000 to just over 14,000 during
completion rate has been close to 100
the same period. percent over the whole period.

48
Figure 2.13 Percentage of Students Surviving to Grade 6, and School
Dropouts for Selected Cohorts: 1995-2000, 2000-2005, 2005–2010, 2006-
2011, 2007-2012 and 2008-2013 Cohorts

Figure 2.14 Transition Rate to Lower Secondary Education for

Selected Years: 2000, 2005 and 2010-2013

49
Similar to the improvement in the number of children not enrolled in primary
education by state, the state of Sabah has seen a dramatic reduction in the
number of children abandoning school before Grade 6 (Figure 2.15). This is a
positive sign that the efforts of reaching the indigenous communities with
programmes more suitable for their needs have been fruitful. However, a
paper elaborated by a team of experts from the Institute of Teacher
Education Malaysia on the prevention of dropout initiatives for Malaysian
indigenous children sheds light on some prevailing challenges facing these
children.9 The paper notes that many of the Orang Asli students drop out at
the end of Grade 6 and before taking the SPM exam at Form 5. As
documented above, the MoE has initiated several programmes to address the
challenges facing these children including transportation problems, and
making education more relevant for their needs.

Figure 2.15 Number of Children Who Enter and Abandon School

before Grade 6 by State: 2000-2006 and 2008-2013 Cohorts

9Dropout Prevention Initiatives for Malaysian Indigenous Orang Asli Children, published in
the International Journal on School Disaffection, 2011.

50
Educational Support Programmes

Figure 2.16 presents the number of recipients in the major support

programmes targeting poor students. With the exception of the
Supplementary Food Programme and the Tuition Aid Scheme, which was
suspended in 2010 for a review, the number of students in targeted support
programmes has been increasing. Most notably, this is the case with the
number of students in the milk programme, which has more than tripled
from just fewer than 400,000 in 2006 to over 1.4 million in 2013. The
recipients of other support programmes for poor students have been
relatively stable with some fluctuations during the same period.

Figure 2.16 Number of Students in Education Support Programmes,

Targeting Poor Students for Selected Years: 2006, and 2010-2013

Supplementary Food Programme

Source: MoE, Finance Division

51
The investment by the GoM in education support programmes is substantial;
the investment in 2013 amounted to RM3.5 million, which constitutes about
10 percent of the total operational budget for the K-12 education sector.

Figure 2.17 presents the distribution of education aid targeting poor and
special needs students, general aid targeting all students, and other non-
specific aid. The proportion of aid targeting poor students and students with
special needs in 2013 was roughly 15 and 3 percent, respectively. The MoE
allocated the bulk of the aid to KWAPM and the Supplementary Food
Programme amounting to RM200 million each.

Figure 2.17 Distribution of Annual Spending on Education Support

Programmes Targeting Poor Students, Special Education Needs
Students, and other Support Programmes as a Percentage of Total
Education Aid: 2005, 2010-2013

Source: MoE, Finance Division

2.2.2 Remaining Gaps, Issues and Challenges

The various strategies and initiatives implemented to facilitate access to

quality education for all have contributed positively towards the progress of

52
EFA Goal 2. However, there is still a significant number of children not
enrolled in basic education. The data available do not allow a breakdown of
those children lagging behind. Data with regards to special programmes
targeting specific groups, such as the indigenous population and other target
groups such as the alternative education programmes for street children,
children of plantation workers and other groups that have difficulties in
accessing mainstream education, are limited.

The research carried out by the team from the Teacher Education Institute
referred to above found that the outcomes of the programmes for the Orang
Asli children depend on the degree to which the teachers have the flexibility
of adjusting the content to suit their needs. The paper points out that the
challenges facing the Orang Asli are multidimensional which require
attention to both the curriculum, pedagogical skills of teachers, the social-
cultural environment, and how to reduce the risk factors associated with
them dropping out, particularly how to increase the Orang Asli’s attitude
towards schools and their exposure to the outside world.

2.2.3 Conclusions and Way Forward

 Although Malaysia is well on its way to achieve its target to provide

basic education for all, continued efforts to improve access to quality
education to reach out to the poor and other disadvantaged groups will
be essential.
 Mechanisms for distributing aid to children from poor economic
households need to be further refined as recent studies suggest that
the aid policies might not fully trickle down to the bottom 40 percent of
the households.

53
2.3 GOAL 3: Learning and Life Skills for Young People and
Adults

Goal 3: Ensuring that the learning needs of all young

people and adults are met through equitable access to
appropriate learning and life-skills programmes

Definition in Malaysian Context

The realisation of Malaysia’s ambitious development plans hinges upon the

development of human capital. This is not just limited to education for the
primary education cohort, but extends to young people and the adult
population through post-basic education and lifelong learning. The scope of
Goal 3 presented in this report focuses on programmes directed towards
extending access to further educational opportunities for young people,
defined as “those between 15-24, and adults not enrolled in higher education
academic institutions.” Life skills comprise the following skills:

 Basic Skills, which comprise literacy, numeracy, and the ability to use
ICT

 Psycho-social skills, which encompass reflective, personal and

interpersonal skills, including problem solving, critical thinking and
communication skills;

 Practical or contextual skills, which consist of technical or vocational

skills, income generation, health, gender, family, environment and
civics; and

54
  Living skills orientation and mobility, manipulative skills, behaviour
management, self-management, self-care, home living and leisure.

National Policies and Legislation

The right to education for Malaysians, whether formal or informal, is stated

in the Federal Constitution of Malaysia. Legal provisions that give
entitlements (or rights) to adults are mentioned in various education acts
including the Education Act 1996, which covers all levels of formal education
through post-secondary education. The National Education Philosophy,
introduced in 1989, is applicable to students of all ages (young children to
adults). Specific policies and implementation mechanisms for adult education
including lifelong learning are also highlighted in several national policy
documents such as the 9th and the 10th MPs, the Blueprint on Lifelong
Learning for Malaysia, 2011-2020, and the National Higher Education
Strategic Plan: Beyond 2020. The Persons with Disability Act 2002 and the
National Policy on Senior Citizens 2011 give provision for the right to basic
education and continuing education, regardless of age and disability status.

Key Programmes and Initiatives/Strategies to Achieve Goal 3

The attainment of the EFA goal of meeting the learning needs of all young
people and adults is realised through the provision of secondary education,
and TVET as well as through non-formal education and training.

Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET): Prior to

2012, the formal technical and vocational education system under the MoE
starts at the upper secondary level. This consists of secondary technical and
secondary vocational schools. These schools offer courses in three streams: a)
technical education, b) vocational education, and c) skills training. The
technical and vocational streams offer a course structure similar to the core
subjects in other upper secondary academic schools. In addition to these core

55
subjects, the vocational stream students can opt to select a package of
vocational subjects in accordance with the vocational course chosen. In the
technical stream, the subjects offered are more science- and mathematics-
based while technical subjects offered are more theoretical in nature. In the
skills training stream, more emphasis is given to practical work to develop
competency in various skills as required by related industries.

56
VOCATIONAL EDUCATION TRANSFORMATION PROGRAMME

The vocational education system is currently undergoing a transformation that

focuses on producing students who are professional, exceptionally competent in
the vocational skills chosen, and highly sought by the industries. The skilled
manpower and entrepreneurs produced would be marketable and competitive,
and possessing skills and qualifications that are recognised by the industry, and
thus, contribute to the development of the country in achieving Vision 2020.

The reengineering of the vocational education system will be implemented in

three phases of the strategic action plan within the period of 2011 to 2020: The
Leap Phase (2011-2013), the Growth Phase (2014-2016) and the Strengthening
Phase (2017-2020). And through five strategies, manifested in five initiatives:

Five Strategies Five Initiatives

I To develop a vocational education curriculum that can Vocational education

produce skilled human capital ready for employment transformation
and able to further their education at higher level.

II To develop vocational institutions that can produce Vocational education

skilled human capitals ready for employment and able institution transformation
to further their education at higher level.

III To intensify collaborative efforts with strategic Collaboration with industries

partners in order to broaden access, to ensure quality
vocational education and increase the employability
level of the vocational education graduates.

IV To provide an assessment mechanism leading towards Vocational education

accreditation and recognition of vocational education assessment transformation
graduates.

V To enhance the capability of MoE vocational education Vocational education

organisation. organisation

57
The Vocational Education Transformation Programme, highlighted in the
text box above, will be implemented through a detailed action plan containing
eleven actions. In the first phase, the Leap Phase, covering 2011-2013 the
following activities have been implemented:

o Formulation of a curriculum for Vocational College or Kolej

Vocational (KV), and the Basic Vocational Programme or
Program Asas Vokational (PAV);

o Initiated the process of upgrading the existing upper secondary

vocational education programme by transforming Vocational
Secondary Schools, or Sekolah Menengah Vokasional (SMV) into
KVs. These colleges will offer a revamped curriculum as well as
certificate and diploma-level accreditation, the Vocational
Diploma of Malaysia, or Diploma Vokasional Malaysia (DVM).
This will be recognised for credit under national and
international standards. The new diploma curriculum comprises
70 percent practical skills training and 30 percent general
academic education (similar to PAV);

o Initiated a collaborative effort with industries and higher

learning institutions (HLI);

o Initiated recognised qualification and certification;

o Initiated the establishment of the National Vocational

Education Advisory Council or Majlis Penasihat Pendidikan
Vokasional Kebangsaan (MPPVK).

The Growth Phase, on the other hand, from 2014 to 2017 will concentrate on
expanding the new model. In the third phase, the Strengthening Phase,
covering 2017 to 2020, efforts will be focused on quality, monitoring and
evaluation. The actions under the three phases of the Vocational Education

58
Transformation initiative also overlap with the Waves articulated in the
Education Blueprint. In Wave 1 (2013-2015) strengthening vocational
education and developing the vocational pathway will be key priorities. Wave
1 also focuses on the following actions:

1. Building public awareness and enabling informed choices by students and

parents;

2. Increasing access to quality vocational programmes;

3. Making vocational training more industry relevant; and

4. Facilitating industry acceptance and validation of vocational education and

training.

Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) for Higher

Education

Under the Ministry of Education Malaysia, the polytechnic is one of TVET

institutions that play the role of educating and training young people and
adults. The polytechnic education began in Malaysia with the establishment
of the Ungku Omar Polytechnic, Ipoh in 1969 under the United Nations
Development Plan. Currently, there are 33 polytechnics in Malaysia,
comprising three premier polytechnics, 25 conventional polytechnics and five
metro polytechnics. With the increase in the number of polytechnics built
across Malaysia, these institutions are able to offer a greater variety of
programmes to cater to the demands of more semi-professionals in the
engineering, commerce and services sectors.

59
Strategies by the Ministry of Education for lifelong learning and Life skills
include:

 The establishment of community colleges as institutions to champion

technical and vocational education and training (TVET), and lifelong
learning in 2001 has provided post-secondary and adult Malaysians
with an alternative avenue to pursue tertiary education and upgrade
their skills and qualifications. The Cabinet also approved the
endorsement of Community Colleges as the hub of Lifelong Learning,
in 2005.

 The incorporation of life skills content into the curriculum and

teaching/learning processes in both formal and non-formal education,
including technical and vocational education and training, is done to
produce well-rounded individuals who are marketable.

Strategies/Programmes Provided by Other Ministries and Agencies

Besides the MoE, several other ministries and government agencies as well
as the private sector are involved in the provision of both formal and non-
formal education and training for young people and adults catering to lifelong
learning and life skills.

The Manpower Department or Jabatan Tenaga Manusia (JTM) under The

Ministry of Human Resources (MOHR), established in 1964 provides skills
training programmes for youth and industrial workers for heavy industries
equipping both the local and multinational industries with skilled manpower.
JTM has grown rapidly, and has today 32 institutions and become the
significant player for TVET in heavy industrial training. The target is to
produce an additional 50 percent skilled workers by 2020.

60
The Ministry of Youth and Sports implements programmes jointly organised
by public and private sector agencies, youth associations and non-
governmental organisations aimed at empowering youth. The focus is on
knowledge building and skills development including programmes for
leadership and personal development to build self-resilience to be able to
function effectively in the family and in the community.

MARA (Council of Trust for the People), an agency under (MoRRD) and the
Skills and Technical Division or Bahagian Kemahiran dan Teknik (BKT),
implements and develops programmes accredited by public, private and
foreign bodies, provides training facilities complying to the standards of
current technological development, and oversees the training of teachers.
MARA first started the skills training programme at the MARA Skills
Institute or Institut Kemahiran MARA (IKM) Jasin, Melaka in 1968. To date,
BKT has established 10 Mara Higher Skills College or Kolej Kemahiran
Tinggi MARA (KKTM) and 13 IKMs throughout Malaysia.

In addition to the training provided by the Ministry of Youth and Sports, and
the MARA institutions, the Ministry of Human Resources, the Ministry of
Rural and Regional Development, and the Ministry of Defence offer skills-
based training leading to the Malaysia Certificate of Education or Sijil
Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) with vocational subjects. Figure 2.20 provides an
overview of the different TVET providers including the number of
participants in various programmes.

61
2.3.1 Analysis of the Goal

Malaysia’s progress in addressing the learning needs of all young people and
adults has partly been met by extending access to secondary education. As
reported earlier under Goal 2, a vast majority of the school age population
continues to secondary education. The youth literacy rate for the population
aged 15 to 24, based on the Malaysia Labour Force Survey (LFS), has been
around 98 percent during the whole review period.

The national transformation framework underscores the critical role of a

highly skilled, creative, and innovative workforce in achieving the objective of
Vision 2020 for Malaysia to become a high income country that is both
sustainable and inclusive. Figure 2.18 shows the composition in the labour
force by educational attainment. The proportions of the labour force with no
formal education and only primary education have decreased from 5.6
percent and 24.9 percent to 3.1 percent and 16.8 percent, respectively,
between 2000 and 2012. Similarly, the proportion with tertiary education has
increased by 10 percent from 14.5 to 24.4 percent during the same period.
Despite these gains, the fact remains that Malaysia’s labour force is still
fairly low-skilled, with 75 percent or three quarters of the labour force having
only secondary level education or below. With less than 25 percent of the
workforce having a tertiary degree makes Malaysia far below countries such
as Singapore, Chinese Taipei, and Korea where for instance 40 percent of the
working age population (25-64) has attained tertiary education and 80
percent at least secondary education.10

10 Source: OECD Education Statistics.

62
Figure 2.18 Percentage Distribution in the Labour Force by
Educational Attainment for Selected Years: 2000, 2005, and 2010-2012

As revealed in Figure 2.19, MoE’s focus to broaden access to TVET has

resulted in a larger proportion of the school age cohort enrolled in upper
secondary level TVET: the GER increased from less than 11 percent to almost
20 percent in 2012. The drop in 2013 could be due to the on-going
transformation of TVET. In order to improve quality the MoE has reduced
intake to facilitate a more effective class size, as students are expected to
carry out hands-on projects. Despite progress made in providing access to
TVET, the Economic Planning Unit (EPU 2010) 11 notes that the GER for
TVET is still much lower than the average enrolment rate of 44 percent for
the OECD Countries.

11 Tenth Malaysia Plan (10MP) 2011-2015)

63
Figure 2.19 Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in TVET (Upper Secondary
Education) for Selected Years: 2000, 2005, and 2010-2013

Figure 2.20 presents the enrolment in post-secondary TVET by type of

programme and provider. The number of students enrolled in post-secondary
TVET has more than doubled since the year 2000, reaching a peak in 2010.
The growth in the number of centres providing post-secondary TVET (Figure
2.21) displays a similar trend. Similar to secondary level TVET, the number
of centres and enrolments have declined in the last few years, which might
also be caused by the transformation of TVET. The enrolment in private
centres constitutes a small fraction of total enrolment in TVET. TVET has
been a viable option for students from low-income backgrounds to get out of
poverty since private TVET is too expensive to be affordable for these
students.

64
Figure 2.20 Enrolment Distribution of Post-Secondary TVET by
Programme Year: 2000, 2005, and 2010-2013

‘a’

‘a’ ‘a’

N.A. N.A.
‘a’ ‘a’
‘a’

N.A. = Not Available

‘a’ = Not Operational
Source: Moe, MoD, MoRRD, MoW, MoHR

65
Figure 2.21 Number and Distribution of Post-Secondary TVET
Centres by Programme year: 2000, 2005, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013

‘a’

‘a’ = Not Operational

Source: Moe, MoD, MoRRD, MoW, MoHR

The Quality of TVET

The 10th Malaysia Plan notes that there is a lack of high quality TVET
centres to meet the demand for skilled labour. This is to be coupled with the
mismatch between the skills acquired by the job seekers and those demanded
by the labour market; a survey by the World Bank12 from 2009 showed that
more than 40 percent of firms reported vacancies for skilled production
worker positions, and the average time required to fill a vacancy was about
four weeks. The main reason given by the firms for this long process was that

12World Bank (2009b), Malaysia Productivity and Investment Climate Assessment Update,
World Bank, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Sector Unit East Asia and
Pacific Region, Report No. 49137-MY, Washington DC.

66
the applicants did not have the required basic skills or the right technical
skills needed to carry out the jobs in question. Moreover, a recent assessment
of the Malaysian National Dual Training System by Pang (2010)13 shows,
skill-training programmes remain mismatched with industry requirements in
Malaysia, partly because the private sector has not been given a sufficient
role in shaping the programmes.

2.3.2 Remaining Gaps, Issues and Challenges

Although, the TVET sector in Malaysia has grown considerably since the year
2000, the facts presented above indicate that the progress made so far may
not be sufficient to fulfil the demand of the labour market. This refers both to
the growth in enrolment and the quality and relevance, as there are
emerging evidence of a mismatch between skills acquired and those that the
employers ask for.

The over emphasis on academic achievements in public examinations in

Malaysia are further hindrances towards the acceptance and expansion of
TVET.

Conclusions and way forward

The success of TVET ultimately depends on the employability of the

graduates, which are influenced by global and national economic
development trends. A higher level of output from TVET institutions per se
does not mean that there will be a better match between the output from
education and what the labour market requires; in many countries including

13Pang, Chao Leong (2010), “Skills development in the workplace in Malaysia”, background
paper for ILO/SKILLS AP/Japan Regional Technical Workshop and Study Programme on
Skills Training in the Workplace Overseas Vocational Training Association, Chiba, Japan, 1-
5 February.

67
Korea there has been an oversupply of skilled labour, which either leads to
unemployment or the crowding out of lower skilled workers.

The TVET Transformation Programme, which is the government’s response

to the challenges of the TVET sector, will hopefully bring about desirable
outcomes. The objectives and the actions planned for each stage of the
transformation are expected to make TVET an attractive choice for
prospective students and make TVET more industry relevant by greater
private sector involvement in the development of the programmes. However,
in order to avoid the scenario of oversupply of skilled labour it will be
important to control the over expansion of TVET. Tracer studies should be
conducted regularly to guide further expansion and direction of TVET
programmes.

There are also many providers and operators of public TVET in Malaysia,
which make it difficult to get an overview of what is happening in the sector.
The setting up of a TVET board representing all major ministries and
government agencies involved in the TVET sector could be a way forward.
The board could also function as an accreditation body, and act as a link
between TVET institutions and the industry to make TVET more industry
relevant.

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2.4 GOAL 4: Adult Literacy

Goal 4: Achieving a 50 per cent improvement in levels of adult

literacy by 2015, especially for women, and equitable access to
basic and continuing education for all adults

Definition in the Malaysian Context

More recent measures of literacy subsequent to the last census rely on the
sample from the Malaysia Labour Force Survey (LFS) and use the 2000
census definition of literacy as “having attended or currently attending
school”. For the adult literacy rate, the age refers to 15 years and above. It is
assumed that those who have attended basic education should be literate.

National Policies and Legislation

In line with Malaysia’s national development goals, the GoM is committed to

remove any obstacles towards becoming a fully developed nation, which
includes eradication of illiteracy and the provision of opportunities for adults
to upgrade their skills or acquire new skills. In addition to sector-wide
education policies, the Illiteracy Eradicating Policy (1961), the National
Policy for Women (2009), and Persons with Disabilities Act (2008) are some
of the major policies and acts applicable to provision of literacy training and
basic and continuing education for all adults.

Key Programmes and Initiatives/Strategies to Achieve Goal 4

The focus on reducing adult illiteracy and continuous adult education is part
of an overall effort to eradicate poverty, and to reduce social and economic

69
inequalities in the Malaysian society. As such, the GoM has focused its
resources on the poor and other disadvantaged groups, including the
indigenous population. In this effort, the GoM has taken a multi-pronged
approach where programmes and activities are implemented through
different government agencies and ministries to reach the target groups.
While mainly the MoE together with MoRRD have led the efforts to increase
the number of adults attending literacy classes, the main public providers of
basic and continuing education programmes for adults are the MoRRD and
the MoWFCD.

Literacy Programmes and Basic Education

The MoE programme has been focusing on reducing the number of non-
literates among the indigenous adults in Malaysia, mainly the Orang Asli in
Peninsular Malaysia, and the indigenous peoples of Sabah and Sarawak. The
programme known as the Adult Class for Indigenous Parents or Kelas
Dewasa Ibu Bapa Orang Asli dan Peribumi (KEDAP) was launched in 2008
after many focus group meetings. The programme is part of the overall effort
in eradicating hard-core poverty through education, which also includes the
earlier mentioned interventions for improving the scholastic achievement of
the indigenous children, and encouraging them to stay in school. Priorities to
become a participant of the programme are given to illiterate parents who
have children enrolled in the school. The venues for the KEDAP classes are
the schools where the indigenous children study. The programme utilises the
2008 KEDAP Curriculum prepared by the MoE.

Since 2012, the KEDAP classes are held in 3 sessions (2 hours per session)
per week for a total of 75 days or 150 hours. All classes are completed within
a 25-week period. To encourage participation in the programme, the GoM
provides monetary incentives; every KEDAP participant is entitled to the
following allowances:

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 i. Loss of income allowance – RM15.00 a day for a maximum of 75 days;
ii. Food allowance – RM4.00 a day for a maximum of 75 days;
iii. Clothing allowance – RM 50.00 per year;
iv. Books and stationery – RM 50.00 per year;
v. Health allowance – RM50.00 per year;
vi. Visiting package – RM 50.00 per year;
vii. Teacher allowance – RM50.00 per hour (paid to teachers limited to 150
hours).

Since its launch in 2008, the number of participants for KEDAP classes have
reached 18,195 with an administrative expenditure of close to RM 35.8
million.

A research team from the Institute of Teacher Education Malaysia evaluating the
impact of KEDAP found encouraging results. According to the interviewed
teachers, the programme has brought many positive changes to the participants;
they are more articulate, more concerned about their personal appearance, and
eager to attend classes. Their children are also more motivated after noticing their
parents’ enthusiasm. As suggested by the authors of the paper, the positive
feedback from these programmes deserves more attention. However, while efforts
to expand access should be encouraged, the research team also identified some
issues that need to be addressed. These include the need to improve the teaching
modules and methodology, and the need to resolve some of their transport
problems, due to the distance and cost of travelling. The participants also
expressed their demand for an extension of the classes beyond the basic 3 Rs.
(Source: International Journal on School Disaffection, 2011.)

The Department of Community Development or Jabatan Kemajuan

Masyarakat (KEMAS) under the MoRRD, is focusing on the rural and the
indigenous population through three main literacy programmes:

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1. The Functional Literacy Education Programme (Pendidikan Literasi
Fungsian, PLF): The main components of PLF are basic literacy
classes, courses on income generating activities, and co-curriculum
activities. The classes are conducted 2 hours daily and three times a
week for three stages (each stage takes one year to complete).

2. The new type of PLF class known as the LEADS (Literacy Education
for Adult Skills) was introduced by KEMAS in 2010 targeting the
outreached community in the states of Sabah and Sarawak. LEADS
curriculum was constructed based on the 3M Class Curriculum, but
unlike the 3M Class which has elements of ‘life skill’ integrated into it,
the LEADS focuses only on writing, reading and numeracy. LEADS
classes are offered 3 hours a day, 3 times a week for a total duration of
10 weeks. In order to ensure good outcomes, LEADS is community
driven and relies on the local culture. Since 2010, 107 LEADS classes
have been conducted covering 3,207 adults. The programme has so far
cost RM 2.6 million.

3. To cater to the needs of the Orang Asli community that were not
covered by the KEDAP-KPM programme, the Department of Orang
Asli Development or Jabatan Kemajuan Orang Asli (JAKOA) under
MoRRD has also started its own literacy programme. This programme,
called the KEDAP-JAKOA programme, commenced in 2013 with an
allocation of RM 4.82 million. The programme adapted the KEMAS’s
LEADS programme and recruits facilitators from the indigenous
community. The facilitators have a minimum of the SPM to be
qualified and have attended the training organised by JAKOA before
being eligible to conduct the classes. In 2013, a total of 2,465 Orang
Asli adults from all over the country have attended these classes.

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Computer literacy programmes for rural adults:

KEMAS has conducted computer literacy courses for the rural adult
population throughout the country. The main objective of the course is to
give exposure and guidance to the rural community on computer and
information technology. Since 2000, KEMAS has conducted computer
literacy classes for 26,122 rural adults.

The establishment of the Village Information Centre (MID) or Medan

Infodesa equipped with ICT infrastructure by MoRRD is a further effort
to bridge the digital gap between the rural and urban population. Among
the services provided at the MID are basic ICT skills training, computer
and internet services, computer printing, website services, computer
repair and upgrade workshops. The 213 MIDs were transformed to small
Rural Transformation Centres (RTC) in 2012 to diversify its services as a
one-stop centre for the rural community.

The 1Malaysia Internet Centre and the 1Malaysia Wireless Village - The
Universal Service Provision (USP) programme by the Malaysia
Communication and Multimedia Commission has set up 1Malaysia
Internet Centre (PI1M) across the country that commenced in 2007 to
ensure underserved community receive access to broadband services and
are not left behind in the information revolution. Besides providing
computer and internet infrastructure, the centres also provide ICT-
related training to the village population. By February 2014 there were
426 PI1Ms with an internet capacity of 4Mbps.

73
For the Disabled, the Department of Social Services or Jabatan Kebajikan
Masyarakat (JKM) under the MoWFCD coordinates with other agencies to
provide basic education for the disabled population. The disabled, who are
grouped according to type of disability, can enrol in Community
Rehabilitation Centres or Pemulihan Dalam Komuniti (PDK). They can also
stay in shelters for the disabled called Taman Sinar Harapan. The PDK
centres are run by NGOs but assisted by the JKM. It started out as a pilot
programme in 1984 involving 55 people with disabilities, and was created as
an alternative to rehabilitation in institutions where the disabled can
undergo rehabilitation in a familiar environment. In 2012, there were 468
PDKs all over Malaysia catering to 417 disabled persons aged 15 and above.

Taman Sinar Harapan, which is run by the JKM, provides care, protection
and rehabilitation for those with learning disabilities and abandoned orphans
in need of remedial training. In addition to basic education skills of reading,
writing and numeracy, the centres also offer training to cope with everyday
life, social skills and pre-vocational training for independent living.

Continuing Education for Adults

Continuing education for adults consists of a diverse set of programmes

ranging from human development and basic skill-based training to basic
leadership and management training. Besides KEMAS outreach programmes
for the rural population including programmes by JAKOA, KEMAS also
provides training and education in human development and family well-
being, as well as basic skills in sewing, cooking and personal grooming.

The Institute for Rural Advancement (INFRA), another agency under the
MoRRD, serves the rural community leaders. The objectives of INFRA
training programmes are to empower community institution leaders which
includes the Village Development and Security Committee or Jawatankuasa
Kemajuan dan Keselamatan Kampung (JKKK), members of the Village

74
Heads, Agency Extension Officers, Leaders of Non-Government
Organisations (NGOs) and the District Technical Officers. The two categories
of courses offered to the target population are community leadership and
management courses, and skill-based courses.

Continuous Education for Women of Disadvantaged Situation

Since 2008 and until 2012, the Department of Women Development under
the MoWFCD has provided basic skills training to 2,687 single parents from
15 states in Malaysia through the single parent skill incubator programme (I-
KIT). The RM 6.9 million programmes includes skills training on beauty care,
food preparation, sewing, and small-scale business training.

Women entrepreneur incubator (I-KEUNITA) programme is another

programme that is dedicated to women in disadvantaged situation. In this
RM 2.2 million programme, the women are trained, guided and monitored
until they are capable of generating income to improve the quality of their
lives. Since its introduction in 2010, 1,241 women have participated in the
programme.

2.4.1 Analysis of the Goal

Data Source

The main sources for monitoring progress in adult literacy in Malaysia are
the LFS, which is conducted annually, and the Population and Housing
Census of Malaysia conducted once in 10 years. The scales used for these
instruments to measure literacy differs, for example, the LFS uses aged 15
and above as a point of reference, while the Malaysia Population and Housing
Census uses aged 10 and above. Therefore, they are difficult to compare.

75
Based on the 90 percent literacy rate assessed in the year 2000 LFS, the EFA
target has been set to 95 percent based on the EFA target of 50 percent
increase by the year 2015. As depicted in Figure 2.22, Malaysia is on track to
reach the adult literacy rate target. In 2012 the literacy rate (based on the
definition of attending or had attended school) had reached 94.1 percent, only
0.9 percent short of the 2015 national target.

Figure 2.22 National Literacy Rate

The Malaysia Population and Housing Census for the year 2000 (refer box
below) assessment of the national literacy rate was 91 percent for Malaysian
citizens aged 10 years and above, with a significant gap between the urban
and rural area population; the literacy rate of the urban population was 94.3
percent as compared to 85.4 percent of the rural population. The census also
indicated that Kelantan and the two states in East Malaysia, Sarawak and

76
Sabah had a literacy rate of less than 90 percent; 85.8 percent for Kelantan,
81.6 percent for Sarawak and 84.6 percent for Sabah. These three states also
marked the lowest rural literacy rates; Sarawak (72.1%), Sabah (79.2%) and
Kelantan (83.1%).

The text box below also shows the progress in literacy rates between the 2000
and 2010 census. For the population aged 10 and above the literacy rate
increased from 91 percent to 95.2 percent. The literacy rate for the three
states of Kelantan, Sarawak and Sabah that had the lowest rates in the 2000
census reached 92.1, 89.3 and 93.4 percent, respectively. The literacy rates
have also increased in the rural areas of the three states having the lowest
literacy rate in 2000; the state of Sarawak which had the lowest rate in 2000
improved from 72.1 percent to 82.1 percent in 2010. This suggests that the
government’s effort to increase access to primary school for young citizens
has been fruitful.

77
The gains in literacy rates are probably higher than recorded by DoS as the
data do not capture those who have attended non-formal literacy
programmes. In 2013 the total number of adults that had attended some kind
of literacy classes since 2001 had reached 98,697 (Figure 2.23). Excluded from
Figure 2.23 is the number of people with disabilities that have received basic
education provided by the JKM. In 2012, there were 285,128 people with
disabilities registered with JKM. As also shown in Figure 2.23, adult literacy
education has by and large been conducted by the MoRRD KEMAS
Functional Literacy Education (PLF) programme, followed since 2008 by
MoE’s programme (KEDAP-KPM) for the parents of the indigenous children,
which is still relatively small with less than 20,000 participants until 2013.

Figure 2.23 Annual and Cumulative Enrolments in Literacy Classes,

2001-2013

2.4.2 Remaining Gaps, Issues and Challenges

The collected efforts to cater for adults with none or limited formal education
have resulted in several programmes, which accumulatively have provided
access to literacy training or basic education to a fair number of adults. Based
on a simple calculation of subtracting the literate population from the total
adult population makes the illiterate population over one million people.

78
Since the year 2000 roughly 100,000 people have attended literacy classes,
which is less than 10 percent of the target population. Moreover, there has
not been any known study that has evaluated the impact of the programmes,
for example, whether or not participants complete a full course and the
impact on their living conditions. Part of the reason is that several of the
programmes are new initiatives, which have not yet been evaluated. Since
multiple government agencies are involved in the implementation of these
programmes, efforts need to be taken to coordinate the implementation of
these programmes and to facilitate the collection of data on the performance
of the different programmes.

Similarly, there is a need to identify a more effective way of assessing literacy

levels amongst the adult population in Malaysia other than by using
educational attainment as the proxy.

2.4.3 Conclusions and Way Forward

 In light of the fact that at present there is a limitation in gauging the

level of literacy proficiency in Malaysia, an important step forward is
to develop assessment tools for literacy. Malaysia could join UNESCO’s
Literacy Assessment Programme (LAMP) or any other suitable
programmes. Most importantly, the definition for literacy needs to be
redefined in line with the internationally accepted definition of
literacy.

 As has been observed in many other countries, in order to attract

adults to attend classes, adult education needs to be adjusted to the
schedule and be relevant to the participants’ daily lives. In addition,
the possibility of joining mainstream education after completing basic
literacy training or skills-based education could also be considered, as
this will be in line with the policy on life-long learning and also

79
 encourage higher attendance in current programmes in adult
education. The possibility of joining courses offered by community
colleges or other institutions could be an option, as this would further
improve life chances and the ability to secure better jobs.

 The scaling up of the KEDAP literacy classes for the parents of the
indigenous children might be worth considering based on the positive
feedback from interviews with teachers.

2.5 GOAL 5: Gender Equality

Goal 5: Eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary

education by 2005, and achieving gender equality in education by 2015,
with a focus on ensuring girls' full and equal access to and achievement
in basic education of good quality

Definition in Malaysian Context

Equity, including gender equality, is part of the MoE’s aspiration in providing

equal opportunities to quality education for all regardless of gender,
geography, or socio economic background. The concept of gender from a
human rights perspective is not limited to equal access to public services
including education. It also involves equal opportunities for both men and
women to realise their full potential, as well as the right to equally contribute
to and benefit from economic, social and political development.

80
National Policies and Legislation

The focus on gender has figured in Malaysia’s development plans since the
mid-seventies in the 3rd Malaysia Plan (1976-80), where women’s active
participation in development and their contribution to the economy have
been emphasised. With time, gender issues have increasingly received higher
prominence in the Malaysia Development Plans. A major initiative
undertaken by the government was the formulation of the National Policy for
Women (NPW), approved by the Cabinet in 1989 with the following primary
objectives:

a) To ensure equitable sharing in the acquisition of resources and

information, opportunities and benefits of development for men and
women;

b) To integrate women in all sectors of national development in

accordance with their capabilities and needs in order to eradicate
poverty, ignorance, and illiteracy; and

c) To ensure a peaceful, harmonious, and prosperous nation.

The National Policy for Women (NPW) 2009 is a continuation of the First
National Women’s Policy. The policy supports the ambition to achieve gender
equality and the development of a balanced and sustainable country.

Key programmes and initiatives/strategies to achieve Goal 5

The initiatives and efforts in meeting the EFA goals emphasise access, equity
and quality in education for males and females. There is no discrimination
against female students in terms of legislation, policy, mechanism, structures
or allocation of resources. Nor is there any particular gender bias in sending
children to school; Malaysia has in fact generally achieved gender parity in

81
education since 2005. As a result, girls and women in Malaysia have
benefited from the education system and the government continues to play a
crucial and supportive role in improving educational opportunities for girls
and women.

As Malaysia has been on track for achieving gender parity in primary and
secondary education, the reform initiatives are directed towards changing the
typical gender stereotypes replicated within the education system by
encouraging women to choose traditionally male dominated fields of studies
such as engineering and technical education, as well as raising awareness on
gender issues in classroom teaching and in textbooks. Efforts to encourage
boys to stay longer in school are also part of promoting gender equality.

Strategies that have been employed to address remaining gender issues

include:

 Offering female students technical and engineering based courses in

upper secondary education electives as opposed to more traditionally
female oriented courses in home-economics, commerce, and
entrepreneurship. At the lower secondary school level, female students
are offered carpentry, wiring and electronics, besides the traditional
sewing and cooking classes.

 Raising awareness on issues of gender discrimination and stereotypes

in career and vocational choices by offering career counselling in
schools, and through written information on career opportunities made
available in resource centres in schools, and the development of
manuals for career counsellors to be used in advising the students on
career choices;

 Encouraging female participation in sports and physical education;

82
  Raising awareness in gender issues in textbooks to ensure that the
content, presentation of materials, and graphics in textbooks are not
gender biased;

 Introducing vocational subjects in regular secondary schools to

encourage boys to stay longer in schools;

 More recently, encouraging male students to opt for a teaching career

to avoid feminisation of the teaching profession as this has been
brought up as one reason why boys are not performing as well as girls
in schools. The reason being that children might relate better to
teachers of the same gender. There are also initiatives to make the
teaching profession more attractive.

2.5.1 Analysis of the Goal

The Gender Parity Index has been derived from the Labour Force Surveys
findings. The Gender Parity Index (GPI) for adult literacy has slightly
improved from 0.92 in 2000 to 0.96 in 2012 (Figure 2.24). However, there are
still fewer women than men with basic literacy skills. The GPI may be
affected by differences in the life expectancy between males and females,
especially for the older age groups where females on the average live longer
than males and this might have contributed to the current trend. Among the
younger age-group 15-24 gender parity was achieved before 2000.

83
Figure 2.24 Gender Parity Index for: Youth Literacy (15-24) and
Adult Literacy (15+) for Selected Years: 2000, 2005, and 2010-2012

While Malaysia has achieved gender parity in primary education in the year
2000 and in ECCE in 2005, there has been a growing concern that boys are
falling behind. As shown in Figure 2.25 for secondary education the challenge
for MoE is to retain the boys since gender parity has not been achieved.

84
Figure 2.25 Gender Parity Index for GER in ECCE, Primary and
Secondary: 2000, 2005, 2010-2013

Similar to the enrolment rates, gender disparity has not been an issue for
survival rate to Grade 6 since 2000; the GPI for survival to Grade 6 and
primary school completion rates have been around 1 (Figure 2.26). While
there is no gender disparity between boys and girls regarding the completion
of a full cycle of primary education in Malaysia, Figure 2.26 shows that girls
were slightly disadvantaged in the transition to secondary education before
2005, but has since then been on par with the boys. Not shown here, the GPI
for GER in upper secondary education is more in favour of girls, indicating
that boys in Malaysia seem to drop out in lower secondary education during
transition to upper secondary.

85
Figure 2.26 Gender Parity Index for Survival Rate to Grade 6 and
Transition Rate from Primary to Secondary Education for Selected
Years: 2000, 2005, 2010 - 2013

As revealed by the gender parity index for the passing rate in Lower
Secondary Assessment (PMR) and in the Malaysian Certificate Assessment
(SPM) (Figure 2.27) girls outperformed boys on all four subjects (Malay,
English, Mathematics and Science). This situation has been the same during
the whole (2000-2013) period covered by the EFA review.

86
Figure 2.27 Gender Parity Index: Percentage of Students with
Competency Level in Lower Secondary Assessment (PMR) and
Malaysian Certificate Assessment (SPM) 2013

The National Education Policy emphasises science and technology as an

important thrust in planning to generate trained manpower in such fields.
While enrolment has slowly increased in TVET, it is still dominated by male
students (Figure 2.28). The percentage of female students in TVET has been
around 32 percent throughout the period.

87
Figure 2.28 Percentage of Female Students in Secondary Education
TVET: 2000, 2005, 2010 – 2013

Figure 2.29 presents the composition of the teaching workforce in primary,

secondary and upper secondary TVET. Except for TVET, female teachers are
more prominent in both primary and secondary education where close to 70
percent of the workforce are women. The gender composition of teachers
might explain the observed gender disparity in enrolment where boys tend to
drop out or perform worse compared to girls in primary and general
secondary, but are more inclined to enrol in TVET than girls.

Meanwhile, the gender profile of the leading positions reveals that male
teachers are more likely to be promoted to principals and school heads as
suggested by the greater proportion of men in these positions. This is

88
particularly the case at primary level where only about 35 percent of the
management are women, which is ironic considering the high proportion of
female teachers in primary education.

Figure 2.29 Percentage of Female Teachers, Principals and School

Heads, in Primary, Secondary and TVET: 2000, 2005, 2010-2013

2.5.2 Remaining Gaps, Issues and Challenges

 Contrary to what is happening in many EFA countries, the issue of

gender in Malaysia is more a question of how to sustain males in
school and how to improve their performance.

 The imbalance in the ratio of male to female teachers in Malaysia is

also an issue brought about by a relatively lower number of males
interested to take up teaching as a career.

89
2.5.3 Conclusions and Way Forward

The tendency for boys to be more inclined to drop out at an earlier stage than
girls is increasingly being observed in many developed countries around the
world. This circumstance has caused some to ask whether children relate
better to teachers of the same gender and whether male teachers are more
likely to teach in ways best suited for boys. Tackling boys’ lower performance
will require a comprehensive approach that addresses their disadvantage due
to labour market demands as well as their disengagement due to classroom
practices and gender attitudes. In view of this, the MoE is increasing its
efforts to make the teaching profession more attractive to the male
community. Special criterion for male applicants was applied to entice more
to apply; however, eligible female applicants still greatly outnumber males.

Achieving gender parity and gender equality in education require not only
that girls and boys have an equal chance to enter and stay in school, but also
that they have equal opportunities in learning. Indeed, there may be no
inherent difference in the capacities of boys and girls in reading,
mathematics or science. Girls and boys may perform equally well in these
subjects under the right circumstances. To close the gap in reading, parents,
teachers and policy makers need to find creative ways to entice boys to read
more, such as by harnessing their interest in digital texts.

Policy interventions may also be necessary to actively promote the entrance

of women into non-traditional fields of study in order to reduce subsequent
occupational segmentation. As more women join the labour market, a more
concerted effort is needed in education and labour market policies to prevent
females from sorting into lower-paying occupations and lower-productivity
sectors, which represents a distortion in the allocation of talent with negative
economic implications (World Bank, November 2012). Options such as
offering scholarships to girls and women to study fields such as engineering

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or accountancy ensure a high participation by female students in the
technical and vocational fields. Another option is to use female role models
and encourage female pupils into non-traditional careers.

The education system should also ensure that it does not play a role in
reinforcing stereotypes of gender roles. The MoE may need to pay closer
attention to the content of textbooks submitted for approval to ensure that
these books depict men and women in a variety of similar occupations, and do
not restrict women to stereotype employment that is an extension of their
domestic and maternal activities. At the school level, schools could play their
part by ensuring that both girls and boys have equal access and opportunities
for student leadership positions.

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2.6 GOAL 6: Quality of Education

Goal 6: Improving all aspects of the quality of education and

ensuring excellence of all so that recognised and measurable
learning outcomes are achieved by all, especially in literacy,
numeracy and essential life skills.

Definition in Malaysian Context

As highlighted throughout all policy documents, Malaysia puts the

importance of quality education at the forefront in its effort to transform
Malaysia into a developed nation by 2020. Quality is a concept that is context
dependent, and evolves over time. Quality in the Malaysian context could be
interpreted as the ultimate purpose of education articulated in the National
Philosophy of Education or Falsafah Pendidikan Kebangsaan (FPK), and
further reflected in the national curriculum. The goal is to ensure well-
rounded Malaysian graduates and possessing skills for the 21st century global
arena including Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS), communication skills
as well as the ability to be good team players.

Key programmes and initiatives/strategies to achieve goal 6

The quality of education in Malaysia is an on-going effort towards the

production of holistic individuals in line with the overall spirit of the NPE.
The main strategies employed from the year 2000 onwards are articulated
and operationalised in the education plans and in the MPs, which can be
categorised as:

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 i. Improvement in infrastructure and hardware
ii. Curriculum development
iii. Quality assurance, monitoring and evaluation
iv. Upgrading of teacher’s qualifications
v. Developing effective school leaders
vi. Other initiatives

Improvement in infrastructure and hardware: From the year 2000 until 2005
a total of 7930 classrooms were constructed to improve the student classroom
ratio in secondary school. This is to accommodate the growing number of
students transitioning from primary to secondary education (1.94 million
students in 2000 to 2.29 million students in 2005). Consequently, the pupil-
classroom ratio improved from 1:0.83 in 2000 to 1:0.86 in 2005. During the
same period the teaching and learning process in the primary schools was
enhanced through the introduction of computer literacy programmes and
computer-aided learning methods. Computer laboratories were built in 2,100
schools of which 60 percent were in rural areas and 8,000 schools were
equipped with computers. Quarters were constructed in various areas to
provide accommodation for teachers.

Curriculum Development: As mentioned earlier, the implementation of the

National Preschool Curriculum, which was made mandatory in 2003, has
been accelerated to ensure standardisation and quality. The National
Preschool Standard Curriculum (2010) was developed to nurture students'
potential in all aspects of development, such as mastering basic skills and
developing a positive attitude. The new curriculum for primary schools
KSSR, which replaced KBSR in 2011, is a platform for developing Higher
Order Thinking Skills (HOTS). It emphasises innovation in areas such as
curriculum content, organisation, pedagogy and classroom approaches to
enhance the potentials of the students. It also focuses on the modular
approach and is tailored to meet the relevant needs of present and future

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challenges. The transformed curriculum is student-centred and supports
students' assessment based on achievement and attainment of competencies
rather than academic and cognitive accomplishment.

Quality assurance, monitoring and evaluation: The Standard for Quality

Education in Malaysian Schools or Standard Kualiti Pendidikan Malaysia
(SKPM) is an instrument for schools to assess their own performance based
on defined standards and guidelines. It has been widely used in schools since

The Early Intervention Class for Reading and Writing (KIA2M), and
Literacy and Numeracy Screening (LINUS) 1.0 (Bahasa Malaysia
Literacy and Numeracy) and 2.0 (Bahasa Malaysia Literacy, Numeracy
and English Literacy). Since 2006, the GoM ensures that all children
must acquire the basic 3R skills regardless of their background. The
KIA2M is an intensive class to teach writing and reading skills for Grade
1 and remedial classes for pupils who have difficulties in acquiring the
basic reading and writing skills. In year 2011, the KIA2M programme was
replaced by the LINUS programme.

LINUS Programme is one of the four areas under the NKRA which aims
for every child in the mainstream to be able to master the literacy and
numeracy skills as they complete their lower primary education. With
LINUS 1.0, remedial support was provided for Bahasa Malaysia literacy
and numeracy. In 2013, LINUS 2.0 English literacy was added to the
programme. To facilitate the running of LINUS a professional assistant
called FASILINUS is stationed at every District Education Office or
Pejabat Pendidikan Daerah (PPD) and monitored by the schools
Inspectorate and Quality Assurance or Jemaah Nazir dan Jaminan
Kualiti (JNJK).

The implementation of LINUS shows encouraging success when BM

literacy improved from 87 percent to 98 percent and numeracy increased
from 76 percent to 99 percent for the first cohort (2011). For literacy
skills, students should be able to read, write and understand words and
simple sentences and apply the knowledge in their learning and daily
communication by the end of Grade 3.

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2003, and was revised and renamed SKPM 2010 in line with the educational
transformation and National Key Results Area (NKRA).

An important step towards improving the quality and the service delivery is
the establishment of the Performance and Delivery Unit (PADU) in 2012.
PADU is in charge of the delivery of all initiatives contained in the Malaysia
Education Blueprint 2013-2025, and as such it monitors progress and
provides support to all organisational bodies and officers involved in the
implementation process.

School Improvement Programme (SIP): SIP provides targeted support for

under performing schools through principal and teacher coaches and
increased monitoring from the PPDs.

Developing effective school leaders: With a view to transform Malaysia into a

high performing school system, the MoE has taken steps to improve school
management by developing effective school leaders. Apart from providing
training to school leaders, the MoE has developed an assessment instrument
for effective leadership, called SKPM Standard 1 - Leadership and Direction
to support the evaluation and impact of an effective principal. Based on the
performance score in 2013, out of 257 school leaders, 110 were found to be
excellent, 108 promising, 32 satisfactory, and 7 unsatisfactory.

Upgrading of teachers’ qualifications: In an effort to raise teacher’s quality,

the MoE has been encouraging teachers to pursue graduate degrees at local
universities through Special Graduate Programmes. Teachers are given the
opportunity to attend graduate degree programmes part-time allowing them
to continue teaching in schools while attending lectures or pursuing online
learning.

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MoE also encourages Continuous Professional Development (CPD) to equip
teachers with good practices. The introduction of the School Improvement
Specialist Coaches (SISC) is a breakthrough towards providing on the ground
training where a pool of subject experts among teachers are appointed to

Teach for Malaysia: ‘Teach for Malaysia’ Programme (TFM) is one

of MoE’s efforts to recruit outstanding graduates and young
professionals from local and foreign universities as teachers. ‘Teach
For Malaysia’ was implemented by the MoE and Aminuddin Baki
Institute (IAB) was given the mandate as the implementing agency
at MoE level in cooperation with Teach For Malaysia Foundation
or Yayasan Teach For Malaysia (YTFM) to plan, implement and
coordinate development and management of TFM programme.
From 2012 to 2015, 370 TFM participants will be selected for this
programme. TFM candidates will be selected through various
stages of interviews, personality and skills assessment that will be
focused on leadership and academic excellence. From the training
aspect, candidates who have been selected will undergo a pre-
placement course for eight-weeks in IAB. Then, they will be posted
to the selected school for two years and will undergo a periodic
training in IAB. The TFM candidates who meet the requirement
will be awarded a Post Graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE).
TFM participants will lead students towards significant and
measurable academic achievement. TFM participants will teach in
15 schools that have truancy problems and low-performing
students, where English is not widely spoken. This directly relates
to schools with low performance in English where the students are
unable to read, write or communicate in the language. TFM
participants have started teaching full-time in secondary schools in
Kuala Lumpur, Selangor and Negeri Sembilan from January 2012
to December 2013 where most parents are from the low income
group.

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share their experiences and expertise with colleagues from other schools in
their community.

Other Initiatives:

Performance Development Programme - High Performing Schools (HPS): the

School Performance Development Programme or Program Peningkatan
Prestasi Sekolah (PPPS), launched in 2012, is one of the mechanisms to assist
under-performing schools to improve their students’ performance. The thrust
of this programme is to help school leaders to assess and track their school’s
performance by providing a band for school performance, a toolkit and a
service line support programme. The School Improvement Toolkit is an online
instrument that collects specific information to assist principals and
headmasters in making strategic plans and setting performance targets. The
Service Line Support Programme provides assistance and support to the
schools based on the school information generated by MoE to help
principals/headmasters, teachers, and students.

New Deals: In 2011 the New Deals was introduced to recognise the
importance of schools’ instructional leadership in teacher development and
student performance. A band for school performance means the school will be
listed and ranked based on the school’s average grade in public exams and
school self-rating scores using the SKPM. Performing schools will be
awarded with Bai’ah (performance based contracts).

The Trust School Framework: With ten schools piloted beginning 2011, the
Trust School Framework is intended to enable Public Private Partnership
(PPP) in the management of ten selected government schools. The
government will provide Trust Schools with greater autonomy in decision-
making and in return greater accountability in improving student outcomes.
The private partners appoint consultants to the school to identify issues that

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need to be addressed. MoE allows some form of guided autonomy to
accommodate the changes needed to reform the school performance. Trust
Schools range from very high performing schools to low performing schools.
Thus, the PPP will be able to accelerate quality improvement of the school
system. The Trust School Programme, first established in Malaysia in 2010,
was an initiative by MoE with Yayasan AMIR (Amir’s Foundation) as a
partner. Although it was initially funded by Khazanah Malaysia Berhad via a
RM 100 million investment, the programme has since roped in “a couple of
public listed companies” as sponsors. Khazanah Malaysia Berhad, with the
cooperation of public listed companies aims to establish 50 Trust Schools by
2015.

2.6.1 Analysis of the Goal

Figures 2.30 and 2.31 show students’ achievements in the primary and lower
secondary national examinations, respectively. The percentage of candidates
who managed to get at least a minimum level pass increased for both exams
from 2000 to 2005. While the test scores have continued to improve for the
lower secondary education exam with close to 70 percent reaching minimum
competency level, the results on the primary education exam seems to have
stagnated after 2005. As indicated in the Education Blueprint not all
geographical areas perform equally well. For instance, in 2011, there was
almost a difference of 20 percentage points between the better performing
larger states such as Johor, and the lowest performing state of Sabah.
Sixteen out of twenty of the lowest performing schools in the UPSR
examinations, and ten out of twenty for SPM were in Sabah.

Despite the noticeable gains on national exams observed over the years, the
Education Blueprint notes that the gap between Malaysia and other
countries on international assessment tests such as the TIMSS and PISA are

98
widening; in TIMSS the score dropped considerably between 1999 and 2007,
and in PISA, Malaysia was ranked in the bottom third of all participating
countries in both the 2009 and the 2012 PISA. Malaysia recognises the need
for effective implementation of HOTS in the classrooms. The recent
curriculum reform for primary education and the new school-based
assessment is expected to improve the Malaysian students’ higher order
thinking skills.

Figure 2.30 Primary School Achievement Test (UPSR) for Selected

Years: 2000, 2005, and 2010-2013

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Figure 2.31 Lower Secondary Assessment Test (PMR) for Selected
Years: 2000, 2005, and 2010-2013

The government’s effort in improving the learning environment through

recruiting more teachers has resulted in a considerable improvement in the
pupil teacher ratio (PTR) for both primary and secondary schools. Figure 2.32
shows that the PTR in public primary schools dropped from 19 to 12 between
2000 and 2013, which is better than the mean ratio recorded by the
Organisation for Economic Cooperation Development (OECD) countries at
16.5 in 2003. Likewise, the PTR for public secondary schools has also seen an
improvement from 18 to 13 during the same period, which is also better than
the OECD recommended PTR for secondary education of 13.6. However,
there are wide variations in the PTRs, where many urban schools with a high
student enrolment have a much higher PTR than the national average. The
PTR is also affected by the so-called under-enrolled schools, which bring
down the PTR. Data on the pupil classroom ratio (PCR) (Figure 2.33) by state
shows encouraging results where the differences observed in the beginning of
2000 across states have been reduced considerably, most notably in the states
of Sabah and Sarawak. This is an effect of the government’s effort to build
new schools and deploy more qualified teachers to underserved areas.

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 Figure 2.32 PTR in Public Primary and Secondary Schools for
Selected Years: 2000, 2005, 2010-2013
PTR

Source: MoE

Figure 2.33 PCR in Public Primary Schools by State for Selected

Years: 2000, 2005, and 2013

Nearly all teachers in primary and all teachers in secondary are certified
according to national standards (Figure 2.34). The dip seen in 2005 was due

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to the large number of teachers going on study leave to complete their first
degree.

Figure 2.34 Number and Percentage of Certified Teachers in Public

Primary Schools for Selected Years: 2000, 2005, and 2010-2013

Percent Certified

Despite the majority of teachers meeting the required national qualifications,

a small study conducted by researchers from the Higher Education
Leadership Academy or Akademi Kepimpinan Pengajian Tinggi (AKEPT) at
the Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) in 2011, found that lessons did not
sufficiently engage students, rather they were passive in nature focusing
more on content delivery by the teacher. The motivation was more on
achieving surface-level content understanding for summative assessment
purposes, rather than on cultivating higher-order thinking skills. For
example, students were more likely to be tested on their ability to recall facts
(70% of all lessons observed) than to analyse and interpret data (18%) or
synthesise information (15%).”14

Amongst the MoE’s efforts in addressing the issue of ineffective teachers

involves the provision of attractive incentive packages to reward high

14 Source: The Education Blueprint, Ch. 5: Teachers and School Leaders

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performing teachers, and attracting new talents to become teachers by
“making teaching the career of choice.” The PER reports that the teacher
salaries are already attractive; based on EMIS salary data, teacher pay in
relation to GDP per capita was 3.9 to 1 in 2010 which, PER concludes, is well
within the benchmark for developing countries (in the range from 3.5-4.0).
Comparative figures for OECD are 1.5-2.0 to 1. As a point of comparison too,
Table 2.1 below shows the evolution of a teacher’s salary comparing the entry
salary with more experienced teachers. For the more experienced teacher, the
rate is more than 3 times that of a new teacher. This is to compare with
OECD countries where “statutory” salaries for lower secondary school
teachers with 10 years of experience is 24 percent higher, on average than
starting salaries. At the top of the salary scale, which is “reached after an
average of 24 years of experience, is on average 64 percent higher than
starting salaries.”15 The teaching profession in Malaysia compared to many
other countries appear to be an attractive choice with a low level of attrition
rates and high demand for teacher training as reported in the PER.

15 Source: Education at a Glance, OECD 2011

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Table 2.1 Evolution of Teacher Salaries for
Graduate and Non-Graduate School Teachers 2005 and 2013

2005 NON-GRADUATE GRADUATE

TEACHERS TEACHERS

STARTING PAY RM 1125 RM 1474

SALARY AFTER 10 YRS SERVICE RM 1591 RM 2593

% INCREASE IN SALARY AFTER 10 41.4% 75.9%

YRS SERVICE

SALARY AT RETIREMENT RM 2429 RM 5023

% AT RETIREMENT compared to 115.9% 240.8%

STARTING SALARY

2013 NON-GRADUATE GRADUATE

TEACHERS TEACHERS

STARTING PAY RM 1588 RM 1917

SALARY AFTER 10 YRS SERVICE RM 3038 RM 5871

% INCREASE IN SALARY AFTER 10 91.3% 206.3%

YRS SERVICE

SALARY AT RETIREMENT RM 4469 RM 8828

% AT RETIREMENT compared to 181.4% 360.5%

STARTING SALARY

Source: MoE

Resources and financial management to achieve the goals

The GoM has been investing substantially in education for a long time. The
resources allocated to the education sector, including the amount allocated to
the MoE alone, constitute about 16 percent of the total federal budget (Figure
2.35).16 From an international comparative perspective the education sector

16Not shown here, if the allocation to the MoHE is also included, the total public expenditure
on education is around 21-23 percent of the total federal spending. The lowest percentage for
which data is available was observed in 2005, when 14.2 percent of the federal budget was
allocated to the education sector.

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is adequately funded. Federal spending on education also constitutes a
sizeable proportion of GDP with basic education including the sectors under
the MoE, from preschool to secondary education amounts to roughly 4
percent of GDP. As noted in the Public Expenditure Review (PER) 2011 for
Malaysia, in comparison with the ASEAN countries and other key
comparative groups, Malaysia’s spending on basic education (primary and
secondary) is more than double the spending in the ASEAN countries and
more than 60 percent higher than key comparison groups such as Hong Kong,
Singapore, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand. The level of
spending on education in relation to GDP is even higher than some high-
income countries.

Figure 2.35 Federal Spending on Education as Proportion of Total

Federal Spending and as Percentage to GDP
(RM) Millions

Percentage

Source: MoE Finance Division, and Ministry of Finance: Treasury Department.

As mentioned under Goal 2, the MoE is providing different types of education

aids to facilitate and encourage students to remain in school. The system is
complex with close to 25 different types of grants, which require more
effective coordination and mechanism to identify students who are most in

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need of these education aids. Teachers and school management should be
equipped with the skills to recognise students in need of education aids.

2.6.2 Remaining Gaps, Issues and Challenges

The Malaysian Government has taken major steps in improving the quality
of education across Malaysia through various initiatives. This has resulted in
improved infrastructure and learning environment with more and better
qualified teachers in the classrooms. In addition to this, the transformed
holistic curricula is more in tune with the needs of the learners and emerging
national development objectives. Besides that, measures to correct disparities
across geographical areas have also reduced the gap in access to quality
inputs. Yet, results on national exams indicate that not all students may
have the same opportunity to learn; there are significant variations in test
scores both across and within geographical areas.

The greatest challenge Malaysia is facing along with other countries is the
issue of teacher effectiveness and performance in the classroom. The
formulation of sound national level policies do not mean much, unless policies
and strategies are being properly implemented and carefully monitored and
evaluated on a regular basis. This fact is even more potent in the light of
Malaysia’s poor performance in PISA and TIMSS, which assess competencies
such as higher order thinking skills, creativity and the ability to be
innovative, skills that Malaysia will need to nurture in the transformation to
a high-income country. However, too much focus on test scores alone can be a
danger if other equally important outcomes of education are neglected; the
ability to live together with people with other values and ideas,
communication skills, and being a good team player are outcomes that cannot
be captured on any single test.

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2.6.3 Conclusions and way forward

 The challenges and issues highlighted above will not be easy to tackle
as it involves a culture of change with different attitudes and incentive
structures. This transformative process will take time; the newly
introduced means of strengthening the school management and the
monitoring and evaluation functions, along with renewed focus on
developing and recruiting effective teachers are approaches that have
been introduced and worked out well elsewhere.

 The teaching profession, compared to many other countries, is an

attractive choice in Malaysia with low levels of attrition rates and high
demand for teacher training. The salary increment for teachers
increases substantially with seniority, thus encouraging teachers to
stay on in the system. However, an exit policy for ineffective teachers
has recently been introduced.

 As the education support system is rather complex with many

overlapping grants benefitting all students, consolidating the grants
into fewer grants could result in efficiency gains. For example, the
provision of block grants directly to schools has been tried successfully
in several other countries. This will reduce the administrative
overheads while allowing for greater flexibility and autonomy for
schools to decide what will be the best use of resources. A cost-
benefit/incidence analysis is being carry out to ensure the grants are
properly targeted.

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3 REVIEW OF EFA STRATEGIES AND SECTOR
MANAGEMENT

This chapter reviews and critically examines the strategies and initiatives
that Malaysia has used towards the attainment of the EFA goals, including
enabling and constraining factors. The chapter also highlights key lessons
and some best practices.

3.1 Assessment of EFA Strategies

Malaysia’s progress in reaching the six EFA goals reported in the previous
chapter can be attributed to its policy and legal framework as well as
deliberate actions. By the same token, the challenges Malaysia’s education
system is facing could be seen in the light of constraints and unresolved
policy and legal issues. The areas relevant for the assessment of the EFA
strategies in the context of Malaysia are discussed within the following sub-
domains:

i. The Policy and Legal Framework

ii. Sector Management & Coordination
iii. The Quality of Teaching and Learning

The Policy and Legal Framework

The achievements in the education sector in reaching the EFA goals are, to a
large extent, due to the GoM’s political commitment to education and the
elaborate policy and planning framework, as well as legal actions initiated to
protect the rights of minorities, and those with special educational needs. As
mentioned earlier, some of these actions include the Special Education Act of
1997, the Child Act of 2001 (Act 611), Persons with Disabilities Act 2002 and

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2008 and the Aboriginal Peoples Act of 1954. The legal framework has also
been used as an instrument for quality assurance by regulating the provision
of educational services and making the national curriculum mandatory in all
preschools.

The education sector plans including policies to promote EFA such as the
Education Development Master Plan 2001-2010, Education Blueprint (2006-
2010) and the Education Blueprint 2013-2025 are directly linked to national
development objectives and strategies through the operationalisation in the
five year national development plans, the Malaysia Plans, and in the
Government’s transformation programmes GTP and ETP. For instance, in
order to address the shortages of skilled labour, which have been identified as
a major obstacle for Malaysia’s progress towards a high-income economy, the
MoE has developed the Vocational Education Transformation Plan to
strengthen the training of skilled graduates.

Sector Management and Coordination

The GoM’s commitment to education is evident by the high amount of
resources allocated to the education sector, which has been around 21 percent
of total federal spending, which is at a level well in line with international
standards or guidelines. However, to ensure spending on education becomes
more cost-effective through more efficient allocation of resources within the
sector has emerged as an issue, since educational outcomes, in comparison to
other countries that spend relatively less, are not matched with the amount
of federal spending. One possible explanation for the high spending is the
highly centralised administration with similar staff levels across the different
hierarchical levels (Federal, State and District), which, according to
UNESCO Policy Review 2012, is also one of the largest central
administrations in the world, “relative to the number of schools”. Currently
the MoE is in the midst of restructuring its administrative system to improve

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the delivery system. The Blueprint has recommended that the Ministry be
downsized and plays the role of strategist while the State Education
Department, also to be downsized and function as the driver of the
implementation of education policies. Emphasis is given to the District
Education Offices to carry the most important role, which is to support and
mentor schools in achieving excellence and overcoming education disparities
in schools.

Although the Government has put many sound policies in place and has a
clear vision of how to reach education sector goals, there is always the
possibility of gaps between planning and delivery. As reported in the
Education Blueprint, the large number of programmes, both academic and
non-academic, has led to some schools losing focus. Moreover, limited use of
data to inform decision-making, where monitoring is focused on process
rather than outcomes, is seen as a hinderance for effective management. In
addition, the occasional lack of coordination across key divisions creates
overlaps or gaps in activities. Currently, financial and operational data are
not linked and remain scattered across multiple platforms.

The Quality of Teaching and Learning

The Government has invested in infrastructure and in the training and
recruitment of teachers to enhance the learning environment. Of special
concerns is the lack of student engagement and that teaching is still more
oriented towards summative assessments rather than cultivating higher-
order thinking skills. Malaysia is also dealing with a young teaching force,
where 50 percent of all teachers are under 40 years old, and another 30
percent between 40 and 49, which means that over 80 percent of the teaching
force is younger than 50 years of age.17 The teacher salary system, which is
set up to reward seniority with a low entry salary compared to teachers with
10 or more years of experience encourages even poor performing teachers to

17 Source: MoE Human Resource Statistics

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remain as teachers. The task of changing the mind-set and developing the
pedagogical skills of many of these teachers is daunting, and will require a
massive effort from all partners involved in education in Malaysia.

3.2. Enabling/Constraining Factors impacting EFA progress and

overall educational development

Enabling Factors

 Committed Government and Government counterparts both in terms

of allocation of resources and development of sound and effective
policies in reaching the goals;
 Political and social stability; and
 Education highly regarded in Malaysia and its importance to national
development is recognised in all major national policies and
programmes.

Constraining Factors

 Lack of coordination with multiple providers, especially with regards

to Goals 1, 3, and 4;
 Implementation constraints between policy and practice (transfer of
information from top level down to the local level and the classroom
not effective, teachers are still practising rote learning and teacher-
centred pedagogy); teachers are not able to carry out their teaching
duties due to other administrative obligations;
 Lack of monitoring especially in remote areas, not enough MoE budget
to reach all the schools in these areas;
 Standard for Quality Education in Malaysia Schools (SKPM) is used
for quality assurance and empowering schools, but not all schools have

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 been able to implement SKPM. There are issues of transfer of
knowledge;
 Resistance to change at grassroots level. Some schools perform but do
not have enough awareness; the culture at the grassroots level does not
fully embrace new initiatives;

3.3 Lessons Learned and Best Practices

Lessons Learned:

 Involving teachers to a greater extent in policy making and using more

participatory processes by teachers, school heads from different areas,
ages, and not only focus on high performing schools.

 The lack of data management that goes beyond the EFA indicator
framework and data processing has been a major constraint for
evaluating the impact of the EFA strategies and monitoring progress.
This is partly due to the difficulty in capturing data from unregistered
schools and agencies such as PASTI (Pusat Asuhan Tadika Islam),
sekolah pondok, madrasah, tahfiz, and other religious schools
including Christian schools.

 Limited coordination amongst the different public agencies involved in

the provision of education in the different areas covered by the EFA
framework has made it difficult to prioritise and streamline
programmes to ensure that only programmes that are effective will be
implemented.

Best Practices:

 Special programmes for addressing the marginalised population, i.e.,

the indigenous population, the street children, and children living on

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 the plantations, with multiple partnerships with government,
international organisations and the private sector. The adult literacy
programme for parents of the indigenous children, KEDAP, has
produced tangible results that are promising;

 The LINUS Programme which has shown significant impact in

reducing the learning deficit of students in the early years of primary
school should be further strengthened;

 The TVET model: Vocational Education Transformation Programme,

with a comprehensive approach to TVET including industry relevant
curriculum, collaboration with strategic partners to ensure
employability of TVET graduates, and assessment tools enabling
accreditation and recognition of TVET programmes.

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4 EMERGING CHALLENGES AND GOVERNMENT PRIORITIES

4.1 Major Emerging Development Challenges

The emerging challenges for Malaysia are, to a large extent, those related to
the barriers to achieve VISION 2020 and the structural transformation
required for Malaysia to emerge as a high-income country that is both
inclusive and sustainable; inclusive entailing that the progress in socio-
economic development will benefit broader segments of the population, and
sustainable from the perspective that growth will not come at the expense of
our next generation’s welfare and well-being. Some of these national
challenges, which could also be opportunities, while bearing on the future
educational development, but not necessarily limited to, migration patterns,
technological change, and the issue of national unity and cultural diversity.

Migration patterns: as hinted at earlier, Malaysia is a popular destination

for refugees, migration workers, mixed with children without papers
including children to illegal immigrants. As brought up by the ILO in the
Global Employment Trends (2014) the shortage of skilled labour has led to
the growth of foreign labour. This trend will most likely continue with the
increasing regional integration with freer flow of labour and Malaysia’s
favourable economic position within the South East Asian Economic
Community. Based on projections by ILO, the labour force will continue to
grow relatively fast, far above 1.5% annually in countries such as Cambodia,
Laos PDR, Malaysia and the Philippines, while Myanmar, Singapore,

114
Thailand, and Vietnam will experience a considerable slowdown with less
than 1 percent per year. “Such disparity in labour force growth and diverse
employment opportunities within the region, in addition to considerable
income differences, among others, leads to both push and pull factors for
workers to move across borders.”

Technological Change: The speed by which technology is being introduced

globally is also affecting Malaysia in several ways. First, the availability of
scientifically and technically skilled labour being able to apply and take
advantage of technological advancement to bring Malaysia at par with high-
income countries will continue to be a challenge for the education system.
Second, the intensified use of information and communication technology
(ICT) may exacerbate the digital divide between rural and urban areas, and
between those who can or cannot afford computers and ICT gadgets at home.
Children from disadvantaged backgrounds may fall further behind their more
privileged contemporaries. Similarly, the increasing pressure of using ICT in
classroom teaching will most likely continue to be a challenge as it involves
teachers’ understanding, beliefs and skills about teaching and learning using
ICT.

National Unity: Malaysia’s rich cultural heritage stemming from its

cultural and ethnic diversity has created a vibrant society that embraces
diversity in cultures, and belief systems. Although there is no indication of
any overt conflict amongst the various ethnic communities, public debate and
Government efforts are increasingly centred on how to further strengthen
social cohesion while maintaining individual communities’ identities.

4.2 New National Policy Directions in Socio-economic

Developments

115
In light of the emerging challenges and national development priorities, the
Government’s current focus and top priority in the New Economic Model are
on measures to improve skills and knowledge-based industry, leaner public
sector, as well as inclusive and sustainable economic growth.

As a consequence of these ambitious national goals, the Malaysian education

system will need to be transformed into a high performing educational
system that is inclusive, and yet cost-efficient. A high performing system will
ultimately lead to the development of a knowledge society with a broad mix of
skills ranging from higher order thinking skills to well-developed social and
life skills that will allow Malaysia to mature into a high-income country that
is both inclusive and sustainable. This will imply that the content of
education does not only need to be in tune with the demands of the labour
market and the economy, but also to contribute to reducing inequities and
broader social and cultural outcomes including sustained national unity
without compromising on cultural and social diversity.

4.3 A New Vision of Education Towards and Beyond 2015

Many of the issues brought up in this report including the remaining gaps
and emerging challenges have been addressed in the recently and above
mentioned national policy framework including the new directions put forth
in the Education Blueprint. This section outlines some of the key programme
areas and policy responses to issues relevant for the post-2015 agenda.

The Education Blueprint provides a roadmap of what actions the Government

plans to take in the next ten years in turning Malaysia’s schools into a high
performing system. Eleven different shifts are targeted, which are deemed

116
important for Malaysia’s educational transformation. As mentioned in
Chapter 1, the implementation will be carried out in three waves, the first
one is on-going while the second and third waves refer to post 2015. Table
4.1 shows the ten shifts and main actions relevant for the EFA review that
are planned under them. (Note Shift 3: Develop Values-Driven Malaysians is
not included, as this area has not been subject to evaluation in this review).

The new vision or forward looking education agenda centres around

improving the quality and effectiveness of education with a focus on teachers
and school leaders, as well as measures of transferring responsibility and
decision-making from the central Government to the schools and the district
education offices, thereby allowing for increased local autonomy and
flexibility. Mechanisms for strengthening accountability, increasing
transparency, and parental involvement will also be part of this deal.

In response to the ambition to develop a first class talent in line with Vision
2020, there will be more emphasis on HOTS in the national curriculum.
Consequently, the national examinations will see an increasing number of
test items measuring competences of HOTS as those measured on PISA and
TIMMS.

With a view to increase retention in schools for boys and to close the demand
gap for skilled workers, TVET will be transformed into a comprehensive and
high performing system. Through increased collaboration with industry and
other strategic partners, for accreditation and recognition of educational
graduates, the new TVET is expected to produce students who are
professionally competent and highly sought by the industry.

To make service delivery more cost-efficient and effective, a leaner central

administration is envisaged with a significant number of personnel to be
deployed from the central and state level to the districts. Efforts to

117
rationalise and streamline high impact programmes on student outcomes will
also help to improve cost-effectiveness.

Major initiatives will be carried out to transform the teaching profession into
a highly effective and competent teaching force by attracting top performing
students into the teaching career. Increased opportunities for professional
development and performance-based career progression are measures
intended to encourage greater teacher involvement in students’ learning as
well as emotional and cognitive development, and thus make classroom
teaching more effective.

Similarly, the focus on developing effective school leaders and the move
towards increased school-based management will open up for more flexible
and local solutions with greater operational flexibility for school
improvement.

The current system with two types of Government schools and government-
aided schools will most likely continue to cater to the different cultural and
socio-linguistic needs of the student population. In addition to the benefits of
early education in the mother tongue, the availability of National-Type
schools will help to preserve Malaysia’s rich cultural and linguistic heritage.
Unity is one of the MoE’s main system aspirations whereby the Ministry
aspires to create a system where students are given the opportunities to
share experiences and aspirations that form the foundation for unity. In this
effort the MoE is working on strengthening the Malay language as the
unifying language through the policy of Upholding the Malay Language and
Strengthening the English Language (MBMMBI). At the same time, this
policy aims to strengthen the English language proficiency for international
commerce, communication and knowledge-acquisition.

On a broader scale, measures include changes in the modality of funding

which mirrors the more cost-effective performance-based funding practised

118
by most private institutions. As part of the demand side funding, various
options will be explored for example, the NKRA voucher schemes for pre-
schools and the introduction of a comparable scheme for child care and basic
education to low income families. Instead of allocating funding to
institutions, families can choose providers, thereby generating competition
and higher quality of service.

119
Table 4.1 Summary of the Education Transformation Programme with Selected Initiatives
Provide Equal Access to Ensure Every Child is Transform Teaching into a Ensure High Performing Empower JPNs, PPDs,
Quality Education of an Proficient in Bahasa Profession of Choice School Leaders in Every and Schools to Customise
International Standard Malaysia and English School Solutions Based on Need
Language and is
Encouraged to Learn an
Additional Language

Benchmark learning of Roll out the KSSR Bahasa Raise the entry bar for Enhance selection criteria Accelerate school
languages, Science and Malaysia curriculum for teachers from 2013 to be and succession planning improvement through
Mathematics to National-Type schools amongst top 30% of process for principals from systematic, district-led
international standards with intensive remedial graduates 2013 programmes rolled out
support for students who across all states by 2014
Launch revised Primary require it Revamp the IPG to world Roll out a New Principal
(KSSR) and Secondary class standards by 2020 Career Package in waves Allow greater school-
(KSSM) Curriculum 2017 Expand the LINUS with greater support and based management and
programme to include Upgrade the quality of sharper accountability for autonomy for schools that
Revamp examinations and English literacy continuous professional improving student meet a minimum
assessments to increase development (CPD) from outcomes performance criteria
focus on HOTS by 2016 Upskill English Language 2013
teachers Ensure 100% of schools
Strengthen STEM Focus teachers on their meet basic infrastructure
education Make English Language core function of teaching requirements by 2015,
SPM paper a compulsory from 2013 starting with Sabah and
Enhance access and pass and expand Sarawak
quality of existing opportunities for greater Implement competency
educational pathways exposure to the language and performance-based Ensure all Government
starting with vocational career progression by 2016 and government-aided
track Encourage every child to schools receive equitable
learn an additional Enhance pathways for financial support
Raise quality of all language by 2025 teachers into leadership,
preschools and encourage master teaching and
universal enrolment by subject specialist roles by

120
2020 2016

Increase investment in Develop a peer-led culture

physical and teaching of excellence and
resources for students with certification process by
specific needs 2025

Move from 6 to 11 years of

compulsory schooling

121
Leverage ICT to Scale Up Transform Ministry Partner with Parents, Maximise Student Increase Transparency for
Quality Learning Across Delivery Capabilities and Community, and Private Outcomes for Every Direct Public
Malaysia Capacity Sector at Scale Ringgit Accountability

Provide internet access Empower JPNs and PPDs Equip every parent to Link every programme to Publish an annual public
and virtual learning through greater decision- support their child's clear student outcomes report on progress against
environment via making power over budget learning through a parent and annually rationalise Blueprint targets and
1BestariNet for all 10,000 and personnel from 2013, engagement toolkit and programmes that have low initiatives starting from
schools and greater accountability online access to their impact the year 2013
for improving student child's in-school progress
Augment online content to outcomes Capture efficiency Conduct comprehensive
share best practices Invite every PIBG to opportunities, with stock-takes in 2015, 2020
starting with a video Deploy almost 2,500 more provide input on funding reallocated to the and 2025
library of the best teachers personnel from the contextualization of most critical areas such as
delivering lessons in Ministry and JPNs to curriculum and teacher teacher training and
Science, Mathematics, PPDs in order to better quality from 2016 upskilling
Bahasa Malaysia and support schools by 2014
English language Expand Trust School
Strengthen leadership model to 500 schools by
Maximise use of ICT for capabilities in 150-200 2025 by including alumni
distance and self- paced pivotal leadership groups and NGOs as
learning to expand access positions from 2013 potential sponsors
to high-quality teaching
regardless of location or Design new functions and
student skill level structure for the Ministry,
with implementation from
2016

Source: The Education Blueprint 2013-2015

122
5 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

5.1 Recapitulation of Major Findings and Conclusions

Malaysia has made great progress in education on many fronts, including

increased access to preschool education, primary and secondary education, as
well as expanded opportunities to pursue post-secondary and tertiary
education. Measures taken to address inequities in the system, including
special programmes for the indigenous population, support programmes for
poor students, and the focus on narrowing the gap between rural and urban
populations by upgrading and expanding educational facilities and
deployment of more qualified teachers, have produced tangible results.
However, the performance on national examinations with significant
variations across states as well as within states suggest that there are still
some issues related to equal access to quality education. Renewed efforts to
address the needs of the “hard to reach population” will also be necessary as
there are still many bottlenecks related to achievement gaps, and dropout
rates that need to be resolved and monitored. However, the MoE and the
GoM alone cannot be expected to provide education for these marginalised
groups, but could provide support by facilitating the use of national
curriculum, and exercising quality assurance. Providing teacher training, co-
funded by private sector and NGOS, and other development partners would
also be fruitful. In any event, there is a need to device a clear policy on these
learning centres and its relation to the mainstream education system in the
country. Most importantly, the monitoring and systematic follow-up of the
progress in achievement and dropout rates among children from less

123
privileged backgrounds will be imperative to ensure effective programme
delivery.

The gender gap is both significant and increasing, where girls consistently
outperform boys. The difference in performance is already evident at UPSR
level and increases over the course of a student’s academic career.
Furthermore, boys are more likely to drop out at an early stage leading to a
situation wherein the male to female ratio for any given cohort decreases
with higher levels of education. If this trend is unchecked it runs the risk of
creating a community of educationally marginalised young Malaysian men.

5.2 Key Directions for Future Education Development

Following the points mentioned in the previous section some of the key
recommendations that the MoE and the Malaysian Government will consider
are highlighted below.

 Continued focus on the marginalised and poor students, by offering

alternative education programmes, while consolidating financial aid to
those programmes that are more cost effective and are targeted for
those most in need. By the same token, the mechanisms for
distributing aid can be made more efficient by, for instance, providing
block grants directly to schools, as this will make the implementation
of aid more streamlined and manageable.

 Continued and accelerated move towards a decentralised system with

more local autonomy and flexibility by strengthening school-based
management, and parental involvement in school activities. However,
initiatives to support and encourage parental involvement tend to
attract more educated and well to do families, in comparison to poor
parents, who may not have an interest or time to be involved in school

124
 matters. Hence, measures need to be taken to encourage poor working
families to be more involved.

 Increased coordination among different ministries and government

agencies in areas such as ECCE, TVET and adult education would be
desirable. Similar to the National ECCE council, the establishment of
a TVET Board would enhance the effectiveness of TVET. The mandate
of this Board would be to oversee and coordinate programmes
implemented by different government agencies, as well as acting as an
accreditation body.

 It will be essential to strengthen the data management and the

monitoring and evaluation functions further. Cost-benefit analysis
could be carried out to ensure that spending on education is cost-
effective, and for TVET tracer studies to evaluate the employability of
graduates of TVET programmes.

 While recent initiatives have focused on promoting high-performing

teachers, the current tenure and salary system does not address the
issue of ineffective teachers. Implementation of the exit policy may
pose an issue unless an efficient system of monitoring the teachers’
work is put in place.

125
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128
Annex : Data Tables
GOAL 1:

Enrolment in Registered Childcare by Type of Childcare

Institution Work Community Home Based

Year Public Private Public Private Public Private
2010 6,560 3,618 675 306 97 0
2011 7,811 8,676 799 552 280 0
2012 9,656 29,665 1,827 844 494 776
2013 11,144 43,151 2,283 913 718 2,268
Source : KEMAS, JPNIN, PERMATA, JAKOA, Private

Number of Trained Childminders by Type of Childcare

Total
Total
Year Institution Work Community Home Based Trained
Childminders
Childminders
2010 49.8 55.7 93.8 0.0 2,163 1,099
2011 48.6 58.8 88.3 0.0 3,641 1,829
2012 57.0 55.5 80.0 58.0 8,691 4,971
2013 52.3 55.4 69.2 53.7 12,272 6,469
Source : KEMAS, JPNIN, PERMATA, JAKOA, Private
 Children With Special Needs Enrolled in Preschool Education by Type of Disability

Number of special needs students in ECCE

Year Learning Disabilities Visually Impaired Hearing Impaired Total
2005 368 0 5 373
2010 661 21 94 776
2011 617 17 112 746
2012 591 19 83 693
2013 607 13 81 701
Source : MOE

Indigenous People Enrolled in ECCE

Year Sarawak Sabah Peninsular Malaysia Total

2010 762 7,962 6,223 14,947
2011 962 8,163 5,802 14,927
2012 971 8,212 6,236 15,419
2013 973 9,313 6,358 16,644
Source : MOE, JAKOA

Gross Enrolment in ECCE

Year Public Private GER

2000 296,755 205,992 46.24
2005 417,175 285,722 59.56
2010 404,505 284,081 72.95
2011 471,748 234,298 74.41
2012 443,204 282,679 76.03
2013 487,937 311,108 83.29
Source : MOE, KEMAS, JAIN, PRIVATE, ABIM, PERPADUAN
Gross Enrolment Rate ECCE by States

State GER 2001 GER 2005 GER 2013

JOHOR 73 70 100
KEDAH 57 54 80
KELANTAN 42 42 69
MELAKA 57 55 112
NEGERI SEMBILAN 76 78 94
PAHANG 66 68 94
PERAK 59 59 89
PERLIS 74 67 107
PULAU PINANG 67 57 80
SABAH 48 52 83
SARAWAK 52 47 94
SELANGOR 62 58 61
TERENGGANU 72 83 89
WP KUALA LUMPUR 41 37 83
LABUAN 69 56 116
Source : MOE, KEMAS, JAIN, PRIVATE, ABIM, PERPADUAN
Percentage of New Entrants to Primary Grade 1 who have Attended Some Form of Organised ECCE Programme

Percentage of New Entrant with ECCE

New Entrants with ECCE Exp New Entrants to Primary Grade 1
Year Exp
Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total

2000 122,744 116,626 239,370 261,715 247,614 509,329 46.90 47.10 47.00

2001 129,649 123,745 253,394 260,341 246,803 507,144 49.80 50.14 49.96

2002 139,105 140,638 279,743 265,295 250,960 516,255 52.43 56.04 54.19

2003 154,851 154,338 309,189 264,506 250,739 515,245 58.54 61.55 60.01

2004 173,442 171,055 344,497 264,353 250,045 514,398 65.61 68.41 66.97

2005 183,312 183,639 366,951 253,240 238,753 491,993 72.39 76.92 74.58

2006 188,644 180,862 369,506 254,211 239,157 493,368 74.21 75.62 74.89

2007 196,981 204,040 401,021 269,633 255,385 525,018 73.06 79.90 76.38

2008 217,389 217,196 434,585 247,645 233,626 481,271 87.78 92.97 90.30

2009 215,441 211,414 426,855 244,025 229,817 473,842 88.29 91.99 90.08

2010 216,962 213,791 430,753 237,858 223,712 461,569 91.22 95.57 93.32

2011 216,885 213,058 429,943 236,185 222,914 459,099 91.83 95.58 93.65

2012 216,523 207,986 424,509 232,074 220,002 452,076 93.30 94.54 93.90

2013 209,895 200,897 410,792 225,987 213,434 439,421 92.88 94.13 93.48
Source : MOE, KEMAS, JAIN, PRIVATE, ABIM, PERPADUAN
Percentage of Trained Teachers in ECCE Programme

Percentage ECCE
Total number of ECCE teachers who are trained to Teachers trained to
Year Total number of ECCE teachers
teach according to national standards Teach According to GPI
National Standards
Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total
2000 825 17,192 18,017 825 18,625 19,450 100.00 92.31 92.63 0.923
2001 798 11,596 12,394 798 12,592 13,390 100.00 92.09 92.56 0.921
2002 783 15,876 16,659 783 16,971 17,754 100.00 93.55 93.83 0.935
2003 785 18,743 19,528 785 20,245 21,030 100.00 92.58 92.86 0.926
2004 790 18,272 19,062 790 19,579 20,369 100.00 93.32 93.58 0.933
2005 855 20,897 21,752 855 22,589 23,444 100.00 92.51 92.78 0.925
2006 1,379 38,630 40,009 1,438 41,192 42,630 98.50 93.78 93.85 0.952
2007 1,352 40,456 41,808 1,362 43,142 44,504 99.27 93.77 93.94 0.945
2008 1,370 38,469 40,574 1,384 41,798 43,182 98.99 92.04 93.96 0.930
2009 1,408 41,145 42,553 1,408 41,626 43,034 100.00 98.84 98.88 0.988
2010 1,481 42,589 44,070 1,482 42,692 44,174 99.93 99.76 99.76 0.998
2011 1,138 36,973 38,111 1,142 37,528 38,670 99.65 98.52 98.55 0.989
2012 1,209 41,002 42,211 1,211 41,508 42,719 99.83 98.78 98.81 0.989
Source: MOE, KEMAS, JAIN, PRIVATE,ABIM,PERPADUAN
Note : Data for 2000-2005 excluded MOE teachers
 Pupil Teacher Ratio for ECCE

Year Total number of pupils in ECCE Total number of teachers in ECCE PTR for ECCE

2000 502,747 19,450 25.85

2001 548,171 13,390 40.94
2002 554,417 17,754 31.23
2003 603,029 21,030 28.67
2004 657,064 20,369 32.26
2005 702,897 23,444 29.98
2006 698,223 22,638 30.84
2007 751,642 27,007 27.83
2008 832,344 40,574 20.51
2009 781,058 43,034 18.15
2010 799,909 44,174 18.11
2011 706,046 37,583 18.79
2012 725,883 42,719 16.99
2013 799,045 42,509 18.80
Source : MOE, KEMAS, JAIN, PRIVATE, ABIM, PERPADUAN
GOAL 2 :

Gross Intake Rate In Primary Education

Number
of
Children
Population of the official primary school- age 7
New Entrants to Grade1 (all ages) GIR in Primary Education
Year entrance age not GPI
enrolled
in grade
1
Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total Total
2000 265,075 250,590 515,665 280,518 261,369 541,887 94.49 95.88 95.2 26,222 1.015
2001 264,266 250,011 514,277 277,680 259,774 537,454 95.17 96.24 95.7 23,177 1.012
2002 269,811 254,517 524,328 278,615 260,480 539,095 96.84 97.71 97.3 14,767 1.010
2003 269,736 254,704 524,440 281,376 262,926 544,302 95.86 96.87 96.4 19,862 1.011
2004 269,662 254,122 523,784 279,684 260,831 540,515 96.42 97.43 96.9 16,731 1.010
2005 261,591 245,929 507,520 272,005 252,973 524,978 96.17 97.22 96.7 17,458 1.011
2006 256,796 241,294 498,090 272,309 249,688 521,997 94.30 96.64 95.4 23,907 1.025
2007 269,199 254,990 524,189 283,375 266,168 549,543 95.00 95.80 95.4 25,354 1.008
2008 247,164 233,192 480,356 266,521 249,464 515,985 92.74 93.48 93.1 35,629 1.008
2009 243,228 229,144 472,372 250,344 233,693 484,037 97.16 98.05 97.6 11,665 1.009
2010 236,825 222,979 459,804 242,869 237,214 480,083 97.51 94.00 95.8 20,279 0.964
2011 236,185 222,914 459,099 246,726 231,042 477,768 95.73 96.48 96.1 18,669 1.008
2012 232,218 220,098 452,316 240,594 225,614 466,208 96.52 97.56 97.0 13,892 1.011
2013 235,010 221,275 454,819 240,929 224,183 465,112 97.54 98.70 97.8 10,293 1.012
Source: MOE, Private, SRAN, SRAR
Completion Rate of Primary Education to Year 6

Enrolment in Year 1 Enrolment in Year 6 Survival Rate to Grade 6

Year GPI
Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total
2000 254,658 240,846 495,504 245,840 234,266 480,106 96.54 97.27 96.9 1.008
2001 233,670 221,287 454,957 225,457 215,939 441,396 96.49 97.58 97.0 1.011
2002 250,545 237,115 487,660 239,850 227,250 467,100 95.73 95.84 95.8 1.001
2003 253,911 238,923 492,834 241,683 230,135 471,818 95.18 96.32 95.7 1.012
2004 258,044 243,619 501,663 253,319 239,944 493,263 98.17 98.49 98.3 1.003
2005 261,715 247,614 509,329 256,564 243,052 499,616 98.03 98.16 98.1 1.001
2006 260,341 246,803 507,144 256,466 243,712 500,178 98.51 98.75 98.6 1.002
2007 265,295 250,960 516,255 257,914 245,052 502,966 97.22 97.65 97.4 1.004
2008 264,506 250,739 515,245 261,607 249,014 510,621 98.90 99.31 99.1 1.004
2009 264,353 250,045 514,398 260,825 248,454 509,279 98.67 99.36 99.0 1.007
2010 256,564 243,052 499,616 248,465 235,933 484,398 96.84 97.07 97.0 1.002
2011 254,211 239,157 493,368 249,937 237,005 486,942 98.32 99.10 98.7 1.008
2012 262,425 249,015 511,440 258,747 247,882 506,629 98.60 98.60 99.1 1.010
2013 243,127 229,872 472,999 239,852 229,227 469,079 98.65 99.72 99.2 1.011
Source : MOE
Gross Enrolment Rate in Primary Education

GER in Primary
Year Enrolment in primary education Population of the official primary school age GPI
Education
Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total
2000 1,506,851 1,425,058 2,931,909 1,585,215 1,480,967 3,066,182 95.06 96.22 95.62 1.012
2001 1,511,580 1,431,363 2,942,943 1,601,021 1,495,167 3,096,188 94.41 95.73 95.05 1.015
2002 1,536,051 1,453,126 2,989,177 1,636,310 1,527,692 3,164,002 93.87 95.12 94.47 1.013
2003 1,563,564 1,478,400 3,041,964 1,650,514 1,541,376 3,191,890 94.73 95.91 95.30 1.012
2004 1,583,290 1,496,038 3,079,328 1,671,500 1,560,628 3,232,128 94.72 95.86 95.27 1.012
2005 1,586,888 1,497,637 3,084,525 1,670278 1,558353 3,228631 93.72 94.95 94.31 1.014
2006 1,558,203 1,472,148 3,030,351 1,662,069 1,546,672 3,208,741 94.62 95.93 94.44 1.014
2007 1,560,815 1,474,362 3,035,177 1,667,564 1,553,066 3,220,630 95.61 96.86 94.24 1.013
2008 1,556,564 1,469,542 3,053,511 1,655,270 1,542,050 3,197,320 94.04 95.30 95.50 1.013
2009 1,545,459 1,454,992 3,000,451 1,624,238 1,512,817 3,137,055 95.15 96.18 95.65 1.011
2010 1,521,694 1,437,766 2,959,460 1,587,423 1,489,200 3,076,623 95.86 96.55 96.19 1.007
2011 1,493,176 1,411,302 2,904,478 1,562,144 1,467,269 3,029,413 95.59 96.19 95.88 1.006
2012 1,475,118 1,392,094 2,867,212 1,530,429 1,443,195 2,973,624 96.39 96.46 96.42 1.001
2013 1,446,313 1,361,225 2,807,538 1,496,154 1,410,627 2,906,781 96.67 96.50 96.59 0.998
Source: MOE, Private, SRAN, SRAR, SMAN, SMAR
GER for Combined Primary Education and Secondary Education

Population of the official primary Enrolment primary and GER Combined Between Primary and
Year
and secondary school age secondary school age Secondary Education
2000 5,489,565 5,033,786 91.70
2001 5,576,872 5,072,707 90.96
2002 5,639,423 5,116,688 90.73
2003 5,670,368 5,183,742 91.42
2004 5,726,793 5,233,030 91.38
2005 5,848,309 5,344,897 91.39
2006 5,769,134 5,316,995 92.16
2007 5,845,337 5,338,213 91.32
2008 5,856,158 5,422,728 92.60
2009 5,828,668 5,423,103 93.04
2010 5,780,276 5,382,250 93.11
2011 5,716,157 5,317,522 93.03
2012 5,644,711 5,275,900 93.47
2013 5,588,116 5,250,732 93.96
Source: MOE, Private, SRAN, SRAR, SMAN, SMAR
Education Support Programs

Special Needs Others Non

General for All Students Poor Students Indigeneous Total
Students Specific

Year No No No No No
No of
Allocation of Allocation of Allocation of Allocation of Allocation of Allocation
Prog
Prog Prog Prog Prog Prog

10 1,340,427,476 - 1,961,367,958
2005 6 470,938,492 - 1 6,644,250 3 143,357,740 20
10 1,488,829,194 591,096,583 - 2,236,081,482
2006 6 - 1 7,582,475 4 148,573,230 21
10 1,563,013,665 701,790,000 - 2,545,738,610
2007 6 - 1 18,964,800 4 261,970,145 21
10 1,767,777,779 1,004,199,195 5,750,000 3,094,564,844
2008 6 1 1 22,235,700 4 294,602,170 22
10 2,073,337,371 997,671,210 6,437,500 3,414,250,671
2009 6 1 1 72,000,000 5 264,804,590 23
10 1,340,427,476 697,198,820 2,730,000 2,467,358,883
2010 6 1 1 90,839,750 5 336,162,837 23
10 1,954,437,690 408,423,787 9,847,500 2,704,008,057
2011 5 1 1 106,086,450 5 225,212,630 22
13 2,626,360,900 485,004,974 6,000,000 3,442,784,074
2012 5 1 1 112,408,500 5 213,009,700 25
13 2,698,277,620 507,746,500 6,000,000 3,453,972,350
2013 5 1 1 119,750,300 5 122,197,930 25
Note : All programs include those program targetting the entire school age population. Some of which refer only to pre-school(12,13,21) and some to only secondary (25)
The programs targetting poor are exclusively for poor students the same applies to indegeneous and special needs students.
Other categories includes special programs for poor and gifted students (4,5,6,7)
Source : Finance Division, MOE
 Number Of Students In Selected Education Support Programs Targetting Poor Students

Poor Students

Fully Residential
Total Education Support Supplementary Food Co-Curriculum
KWAPM Tuition Aid Scheme School Special
Programs Program Uniform
Project
Year

Number Number Number Number Number Number

Allocation Allocation Allocation Allocation Allocation
of of of of of of Allocation
(RM) (RM) (RM) (RM) (RM)
Students Students Students Students Students Students (RM)

2005 5,355,029 1,961,367,958 357,310 100,000,000 591,091 143,635,062 - - 539,474 205,000,000 5,249 2,681,200

2006 5,364,587 2,236,081,482 545,386 200,000,000 614,270 167,657,670 - - 526,316 200,000,000 5,347 2,811,050

2007 5,421,158 2,545,738,610 621,108 200,000,000 532,435 237,451,000 - - 453,455 236,861,000 5,986 2,800,000

2008 5,395,473 3,094,564,844 743,019 300,000,000 680,912 243,521,594 1,880,000 188,000,000 470,087 242,399,541 5,975 2,800,000

2009 5,416,924 3,414,250,671 821,395 400,000,000 771,506 254,920,200 200,680 20,068,000 483,649 248,827,030 5,651 2,800,000

2010 5,422,742 2,467,358,883 631,080 400,000,000 710,661 237,641,520 18,227 1,822,700 157,183 50,999,500 5,651 2,800,000

2011 5,366,115 2,704,008,057 806,724 200,000,000 519,150 187,480,000 25,073 2,507,300 - - 6,916 3,286,000

2012 5,366,115 3,442,784,074 870,689 200,000,000 544,056 193,722,724 24,414 2,441,400 - - 7,330 4,450,000

2013 5,042,906 3,453,972,350 909,023 200,000,000 537,977 197,017,190 30,769 3,076,900 - - 6,500 3,500,000
Source : Finance Division, MOE
Distribution of Annual Spending on Educational Support Programs Targeting Poor Students, Special Needs Student, and Other Support
Programs as Percentage of Total Education Aid

Total Allocation Targetting Poor

Special Needs Students Allowance Others Support Programs
Students
Year % Others
Number of % Special
Total (RM) % Poor Student Allocation (RM) Allocation (RM) Support
Students Needs Students
Programs
2005 470,938,492 24.0% 22,150 6,644,250 0.3% 1,483,785,216 0.76
2006 591,096,583 26.4% 25,275 7,582,475 0.3% 1,637,402,424 0.73
2007 701,790,000 27.6% 31,608 18,964,800 0.7% 1,824,983,810 0.72
2008 1,003,399,195 32.4% 36,600 22,235,700 0.7% 2,068,929,949 0.67
2009 958,089,110 28.1% 40,000 72,000,000 2.1% 2,384,161,561 0.70
2010 697,198,820 28.3% 50,466 90,839,750 3.7% 1,679,320,313 0.68
2011 457,575,347 16.9% 58,937 106,086,450 3.9% 2,140,346,260 0.79
2012 485,026,274 14.1% 54,877 112,408,500 3.3% 2,845,349,300 0.83
2013 503,594,090 14.6% 67,474 119,750,300 3.5% 2,830,627,960 0.82
Source : Finance Division, MOE
GOAL 3

No formal
Year Total Primary Secondary Tertiary
education
2000 100.0 5.6 24.9 55.1 14.5
2005 100.0 4.6 20.6 55.7 19.2
2010 100.0 3.7 17.6 55.2 23.5
2011 100.0 3.2 16.9 55.5 24.5
2012 100.0 3.1 16.8 55.8 24.4
Source : Department of Statistis
Gross Enrolment Rate in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) at Upper Secondary Level

Year Number of enrolments in TVET at Upper Total Population at Secondary Level Age GER in TVET
Secondary Level
Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total
2000 64,084 48,056 112,140 522,000 505,179 1,027,179 12.28 9.51 10.92

2001 68,123 53,672 121,795 504,157 475,465 979,622 13.51 11.29 12.43

2002 71,093 57,349 128,442 514,783 485,285 1,000,068 13.81 11.82 12.84

2003 70,797 54,937 125,734 511,575 478,146 989,721 13.84 11.49 12.70

2004 74,714 58,938 133,652 517,650 484,363 1,002,013 14.43 12.17 13.34

2005 81,303 62,637 143,577 526,700 502,900 1,029,600 15.44 12.46 13.94

2006 82,459 63,323 145,782 505,758 472,746 978,504 16.30 13.39 14.90

2007 88,402 68,823 157,225 525,870 490,821 1,016,691 16.81 14.02 15.46

2008 92,178 71,381 163,559 537,826 502,176 1,040,002 17.14 14.21 15.73

2009 90,073 68,518 158,591 553,745 516,617 1,070,362 16.27 13.26 14.82

2010 88,360 68,475 156,835 558,398 521,143 1,079,541 15.82 13.14 14.53

2011 89,895 68,432 158,327 556,695 520,254 1,076,949 16.15 13.15 14.70

2012 90,604 68,553 159,157 560,191 523,406 1,083,597 16.17 13.10 14.69

2013 85,556 67,414 152,970 561,060 523,757 1,084,817 15.25 12.87 14.10

Source : MOE
Enrolment and Percentage Distribution of Post-Secondary TVET Programme

2000 2005 2010 2011 2012 2013

Gende
Institution
r No % No % No % No % N0 % N0 %
32,94
MoE 43,285 62.45 67.32 33,176 67.39 34,461 67.97 34,943 68.50 27,313 68.62
M 0
(Vocational
15,98
Colleges & 26,029 37.55 32.68 16,055 32.61 16,240 32.03 16,070 31.50 12,492 31.38
F 9
Technical
48,92
School) 69,314 100.00 100.00 49,231 100.00 50,701 100.00 51,013 100.00 39,805 100.00
Total 9
M 0 0 0 0 49,833 57.00 48,644 54.00 50,067 54.00 48,114 54.00
MoE F 0 0 0 0 37,918 43.00 40,648 46.00 42,081 46.00 41,389 46.00
(Polytechnic) 73,83
52,500 0 0 87,751 100.00 89,292 100.00 92,148 100.00 89,503 100.00
Total 4
MoE M 0 0.00 6,058 61.00 10,692 60.00 10,415 64.00 14,251 63.00 13,738 39.00
(Community F 0 0.00 3,871 39.00 7,122 40.00 5,818 36.00 8,129 37.00 7,730 61.00
College) Total 0 0.00 9,929 100.00 18,180 100.00 16,233 100.00 22,380 100.00 21,468 100.00
MoE M 0 0 0 0 167 59.22 719 65.19 632 62.39 651 59.72
(Technical F 0 0 0 0 115 40.78 384 34.81 381 37.61 439 40.28
Matriculation
Colleges) Total 0 0 0 0 282 100.00 1,103 100.00 1,013 100.00 1,090 100.00

MoD (Armed M 116 100.00 304 100.00 0 0.00 150 100.00 149 100.00 0 0.00
Forces F 0 0.00 0 0.00 0 0.00 0 0.00 0 0.00 0 0.00
Apprentice
Trade School 116 100 304 100 0 0 150 100 149 100 0 0
- AFATS) Total
MoHR 12,70
3,381 84.34 76.65 10,951 78.10 11,719 80.68 13,298 80.69 14,388 81.85
(Manpower M 1
Department F 628 15.66 3,869 23.35 3,070 21.90 2,807 19.32 3,183 19.31 3,190 18.15
Training 16,57
Institutes) 4,009 100.00 100.00 14,021 100.00 14,526 100.00 16,481 100.00 17,578 100.00
Total 0
 MoYS M 0 0 0 0 6,409 73.35 6,404 72.91 7,636 75.32 8,235 74.90
(National F 0 0 0 0 2,329 26.65 2,380 27.09 2,502 24.68 2,759 25.10
Youth Skills
Institute) Total 0 0 0 0 8,738 100.00 8,784 100.00 10,138 100.00 10,994 100.00
M 0 0 0 0 19,044 89.11 20,153 90.14 9,005 91.40 9,400 91.38
MoRRD
(MARA Skills F 0 0 0 0 2,327 10.89 2,205 9.86 847 8.60 887 8.62
Institutes) 10,77
4,982 0 0 21,371 100.00 22,358 100.00 9,852 100.00 10,287 100.00
Total 1
MoRRD M 0 0 0 0 3,327 74.08 3,762 70.78 2,996 71.42 3,496 71.73
(MARA F 0 0 0 0 1,164 25.92 1,553 29.22 1,199 28.58 1,378 28.27
Higher Skills
Colleges) Total 0 0 1,489 0 4,491 100.00 5,315 100.00 4,195 100.00 4,874 100.00
MoW M 408 99.76 9219 94.62 19407 90.38 17745 90.66 14438 92.14 16490 92.17
(Constructio F 1 0.24 524 5.38 2066 9.62 1829 9.34 1232 7.86 1401 7.83
n Industry
Development
Board -CIDB) Total 409 100 9743 100 21473 100 19574 100 15670 100 17891 100
M 0 0 0 0 4,723 31.23 5,326 42.36 4,102 47.72 8,669 54.67
Privates F 0 0 0 0 10,398 68.77 7,246 57.64 4,494 52.28 7,189 45.33
Institutes 18,06
5,755 0 0 15,121 100.00 12,572 100.00 8,596 100.00 15,858 100.00
Total 1
61,22 150,49
M 47,190 2 157,729 159,498 151,517 4
24,25
TOTAL
F 26,658 3 82,564 81,110 80,118 78,854
189,6 229,34
Total 137,085 30 240,659 240,608 231,635 8
Source : MOE, AFATS, MoHR, MoYS, MoRRD, MoW, Privates Institutes
Number Distribution Of Technical/Vocational Education And Skills Training(TVET) Centres And For Young People And Adults

Institution 2000 2005 2010 2011 2012 2013

Ministry Of Education (Vocational Colleges & Technical School) 86 87 90 88 88 89

Ministry Of Education (Polytechnic) 13 20 27 30 32 32

Ministry Of Education (Community College) 0 36 69 75 82 86

Ministry Of Education (Technical Matriculation Colleges) 0 0 3 3 3 3

Ministry Of Defence (Armed Forces Apprentice Trade School - AFATS) 1 1 1 1 1 1

Ministry Of Human Resources (Manpower Department Training

20 27 32 32 32 32
Institutes)

Ministry Of Youth and Sports (National Youth Skills Institute) 7 15 20 20 20 20

Ministry of Rural and Regional Development (MARA Skills Institutes) 10 12 12 12 13 13

Ministry of Rural and Regional Development (MARA Higher Skills

2 3 9 10 10 10
Colleges)

Ministry Of Work (Construction Industry Development Board -CIDB) 0 6 6 6 6 6

Privates Institutes 168 369 327 243 269 255

TOTAL 307 576 596 520 556 547
Source : MOE, AFATS, Ministry of Human Resources, Ministry of Rural and Regional Development, Ministry Of Youth and Sports, Ministry Of Work, Privates Institutes
GOAL 4

Literacy Rates Of Population Aged 15–24 And 15 Years And Over, Malaysia, 2000-2012

LITERACY RATE (%)

Gender
15 + 15 - 24
TOTAL (M+F) 90.0 98.2
NATIONAL (The whole country) 2000 Male (M) 93.7 98.3
Female (F) 86.3 98.1
TOTAL (M+F) 90.4 98.4
NATIONAL (The whole country) 2001 Male (M) 94.2 98.5
Female (F) 86.5 98.3
TOTAL (M+F) 90.6 98.2
NATIONAL (The whole country) 2002 Male (M) 94.2 98.3
Female (F) 87.0 98.2
TOTAL (M+F) 91.3 98.3
NATIONAL (The whole country) 2003 Male (M) 94.6 98.4
Female (F) 87.8 98.3
TOTAL (M+F) 91.5 98.3
NATIONAL (The whole country) 2004 Male (M) 94.7 98.4
Female (F) 88.1 98.2
TOTAL (M+F) 91.6 98.4
NATIONAL (The whole country) 2005 Male (M) 94.7 98.4
Female (F) 88.4 98.3
TOTAL (M+F) 92.5 98.4
NATIONAL (The whole country) 2006 Male (M) 95.3 98.4
Female (F) 89.6 98.4
TOTAL (M+F) 92.3 98.5
NATIONAL (The whole country) 2007
Male (M) 95.1 98.5
 Female (F) 89.5 98.5
TOTAL (M+F) 92.1 98.4
NATIONAL (The whole country) 2008 Male (M) 94.7 98.4
Female (F) 89.5 98.4
TOTAL (M+F) 92.7 98.5
NATIONAL (The whole country) 2009 Male (M) 95.2 98.5
Female (F) 90.2 98.4
TOTAL (M+F) 93.1 97.9
NATIONAL (The whole country) 2010 * Male (M) 95.3 97.8
Female (F) 90.7 98.0
TOTAL (M+F) 93.9 98.1
NATIONAL (The whole country) 2011* Male (M) 95.9 98.0
Female (F) 91.8 98.2
TOTAL (M+F) 94.1 98.1
NATIONAL (The whole country) 2012 Male (M) 96.0 97.9
Female (F) 92.1 98.4
Source : Labour Force Survey, Department of Statistics, Malaysia

Notes :
1 - Literacy is proxy from question/ variables ever been to school (formal education).
2 - Population figures are derived from the Labour Force Survey.
3 - Population includes non-Malaysian citizens.
4- Data provided is never never been published and meant for planning and internal reference only and not to be
disseminated or
quoted in any form of publication or other media.
5. * Data in 2010 and 2011 has been revised based on the latest population estimates from the Census of
Population and Housing
2010, which was adjusted for under-enumeration.
Number of KEDAP-MOE Programmes

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Perak 25 18 15 35 24 28
Pahang 23 28 20 46 28 26
Kelantan 10 12 6 12 9 12
Selangor 9 5 3 15 9 11
Johor 10 12 5 17 9 10
N.Sembilan 4 11 2 10 4 4
Terengganu 2 2 2 2 2 2
Sarawak 4 7 9 14 9 7
Sabah 5 8 5 14 12 6
Total 92 103 67 165 106 106
Source : MOE

Number of KEDAP - JAKOA Programmes

2013
Johor 3
Negeri Sembilan/
Melaka 1
Pahang 44

Kelantan /
Terengganu 18
Perak/Kedah 18
Selangor/ W.
Persekutuan 3
Total 87
Source : JAKOA
GOAL 5

Percentage Of Female Enrolment In Public Voc/Tec Education

Number of female enrolment in Total number of enrolment in % Female Enrolment in Voc/Tec

Year
Voc/Tec education Voc/Tec education Education

2000 18,927 60,425 31.32

2001 23,215 67,607 34.34
2002 24,661 69,110 35.68
2003 22,973 64,933 35.38
2004 24,972 68,742 36.33
2005 26,770 72,838 36.75
2006 25,789 69,302 37.21
2007 26,044 69,427 37.51
2008 25,021 68,920 36.30
2009 19,956 58,820 33.93
2010 16,055 49,236 32.61
2011 16,246 50,909 31.91
2012 16117 51341 31.39
2013 15010 47023 31.92
Source : Vocational and Technical Schools Only
Number of Principals and School Heads by Gender

Primary Secondary
Year Total
Male Female Total % Female Male Female Total % Female
2013 4,892 2,710 7,602 35.65 1,220 1,029 2,249 45.75 9,851
2012 4,625 2,622 7,247 36.18 1,094 953 2,047 46.56 9,294
2011 4,790 2,635 7,425 35.49 1,105 987 2,092 47.18 9,517
2010 4,879 2,629 7,508 35.02 1,137 967 2,104 45.96 9,612
2009 4,866 2,660 7,526 35.34 1,117 958 2,075 46.17 9,601
2008 4,698 2,512 7,210 34.84 1,129 922 2,051 44.95 9,261
2007 4,810 2,444 7,254 33.69 1,088 905 1,993 45.41 9,247
2006 4,913 2,414 7,327 32.95 1,098 874 1,972 44.32 9,299
2005 4,966 2,329 7,295 31.93 1,080 869 1,949 44.59 9,244
2004 5,021 2,168 7,189 30.16 1,084 815 1,899 42.92 9,088
2003 5,133 1,840 6,973 26.39 1,002 675 1,677 40.25 8,650
2002 5,360 1,733 7,093 24.43 1,070 674 1,744 38.65 8,837
2001 5,495 1,665 7,160 23.25 1,031 633 1,664 38.04 8,824
2000 5,606 1,470 7,076 20.77 1,007 591 1,598 36.98 8,674
Source : MOE
Gross Enrolment Rate in Primary Education

Enrolment in primary education Population of the official primary GER in Primary Education
Year school age GPI
Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total
2000 1,506,851 1,425,058 2,931,909 1,585,215 1,480,967 3,066,182 95.06 96.22 95.62 1.012
2001 1,511,580 1,431,363 2,942,943 1,601,021 1,495,167 3096188 94.41 95.73 95.05 1.015
2002 1,536,051 1,453,126 2,989,177 1,636,310 1,527,692 3164002 93.87 95.12 94.47 1.013
2003 1,563,564 1,478,400 3,041,964 1,650,514 1,541,376 3191890 94.73 95.91 95.30 1.012
2004 1,583,290 1,496,038 3,079,328 1,671,500 1,560,628 3232128 94.72 95.86 95.27 1.012
2005 1,586,888 1,497,637 3,084,525 1,662,069 1,546,672 3208741 95.48 96.83 96.13 1.014
2006 1,558,203 1,472,148 3,030,351 1,662,069 1,546,672 3,208,741 94.62 95.93 95.25 1.014
2007 1,560,815 1,474,362 3,035,177 1,667,564 1,553,066 3,220,630 95.61 96.86 96.21 1.013
2008 1,556,564 1,469,542 3,053,511 1,655,270 1,542,050 3,197,320 94.04 95.30 95.50 1.013
2009 1,545,459 1,454,992 3,000,451 1,624,238 1,512,817 3,137,055 95.15 96.18 95.65 1.011
2010 1,521,694 1,437,766 2,959,460 1,587,423 1,489,200 3,076,623 95.86 96.55 96.19 1.007
2011 1,493,176 1,411,302 2,904,478 1,562,144 1,467,269 3,029,413 95.59 96.19 95.88 1.006
2012 1,475,118 1,392,094 2,867,212 1,530,429 1,443,195 2,973,624 96.39 96.46 96.42 1.001
2013 1,446,313 1,361,225 2,807,538 1,496,154 1,410,627 2,906,781 96.67 96.50 96.59 0.998
Source: MOE, Private, SRAN, SRAR
Transition Rates Between Primary and Lower Secondary Levels

New entrants in 1st Grade of Lower Enrolment in last Grade of Primary Transition rate Primary Level to
Year Secondary Level Level Lower Secondary Level GPI
Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total
2000 208,437 200,936 409,373 235,910 218,675 454,585 88.35 91.89 90.05 1.040
2001 213,099 208,490 421,589 240,877 225,194 466,071 88.47 92.58 90.46 1.047
2002 204,142 196,885 401,027 228,202 209,310 437,512 89.46 94.06 91.66 1.051
2003 215,486 209,000 424,486 238,653 220,977 459,630 90.29 94.58 92.35 1.047
2004 219,539 211,909 431,448 239,581 222,010 461,590 91.63 95.45 93.47 1.042
2005 228,081 220,703 448,784 249,171 229,808 478,979 91.54 96.04 93.70 1.049
2006 229,250 221,598 450,848 252,957 232,885 485,841 90.63 95.15 92.80 1.050
2007 228,353 220,838 449,191 253,280 231,988 485,268 90.16 95.19 92.57 1.056
2008 234,196 227,995 462,191 254,720 233,543 488,263 91.94 97.62 94.66 1.062
2009 234,738 228,742 463,480 243,279 235,439 478,718 96.49 97.16 96.82 1.007
2010 234,761 228,378 463,139 242,148 233,231 475,379 96.95 97.92 97.43 1.01
2011 223,574 217,159 440,733 233,131 224,464 457,595 95.90 96.75 96.32 1.01
2012 224,653 217,150 441,833 233,383 224,548 457,931 96.26 96.71 96.48 1.00
2013 246,415 243,213 489,628 256,856 247,168 504,024 95.94 98.40 97.14 1.03
Source: MOE
Gross Enrolment Rate In Secondary Education

Enrolment of official in secondary Population of the offical secondary

GER in Secondary Education
Year school age group school age GPI
Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total
2000 1,037,740 1,064,137 2,101,877 1,250,104 1,173,279 2,423,383 83.01 90.70 86.73 1.093
2001 1,056,961 1,072,803 2,129,764 1,279,733 1,200,951 2,480,684 82.59 89.33 85.85 1.076
2002 1,055,105 1,072,406 2,127,511 1,276,920 1,198,501 2,475,421 82.63 89.48 85.95 1.083
2003 1,065,717 1,076,061 2,141,778 1,280,611 1,197,867 2,478,478 83.22 89.83 86.42 1.079
2004 1,085,778 1,067,924 2,153,702 1,289,006 1,205,659 2,494,665 84.23 88.58 86.33 1.071
2005 1,129,411 1,130,961 2,260,372 1,363,954 1,275,614 2,639,568 82.80 88.66 85.63 1.071
2006 1,143,728 1,142,916 2,286,644 1,324,102 1,236,291 2,560,393 86.38 92.45 89.31 1.070
2007 1,157,514 1,145,522 2,303,036 1,357,495 1,267,212 2,624,707 85.27 90.40 87.74 1.060
2008 1,190,830 1,178,387 2,369,217 1,375,039 1,283,799 2,658,838 86.60 91.79 89.11 1.060
2009 1,214,856 1,207,796 2,422,652 1,391,816 1,299,797 2,691,613 87.29 92.92 90.01 1.065
2010 1,216,513 1,206,277 2,422,790 1,398,273 1,305,380 2,703,653 87.00 92.41 89.61 1.062
2011 1,209,640 1,203,404 2,413,044 1,389,760 1,296,984 2,686,744 87.04 92.78 89.81 1.066
2012 1,210,788 1,197,900 2,408,688 1,384,189 1,286,898 2,671,087 87.47 93.08 90.18 1.064
2013 1,226,406 1,216,788 2,443,194 1,388,749 1,292,586 2,681,335 88.31 94.14 91.12 1.066
Source: MOE, Private, SMAN, SMAR, MARA, RMC, DOS
Gross Intake Rate In Primary Education

Population of the official primary

New Entrants to Grade1 (all ages) GIR in Primary Education
Year school-entrance age GPI
Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total
2000 265,075 250,590 515,665 280,518 261,369 541,887 94.49 95.88 95.16 1.015
2001 264,266 250,011 514,277 277,680 259,774 537,454 95.17 96.24 95.69 1.012
2002 269,811 254,517 524,328 278,615 260,480 539,095 96.84 97.71 97.26 1.010
2003 269,736 254,704 524,440 281,376 262,926 544,302 95.86 96.87 96.35 1.011
2004 269,662 254,122 523,784 279,684 260,831 540,515 96.42 97.43 96.90 1.010
2005 261,591 245,929 507,520 272,005 252,973 524,978 96.17 97.22 96.67 1.011
2006 256,796 241,294 498,090 272,309 249,688 521,997 94.30 96.64 95.42 1.025
2007 269,199 254,990 524,189 283,375 266,168 549,543 95.00 95.80 95.39 1.008
2008 247,164 233,192 480,356 266,521 249,464 515,985 92.74 93.48 93.09 1.008
2009 243,228 229,144 472,372 250,344 233,693 484,037 97.16 98.05 97.59 1.009
2010 236,825 222,979 459,804 242,869 237,214 480,083 97.51 94.00 95.78 0.964
2011 236,185 222,914 459,099 246,726 231,042 477,768 95.73 96.48 96.09 1.008
2012 232,218 220,098 452,316 240,594 225,614 466,208 96.52 97.56 97.02 1.011
2013 235,010 221,275 454,819 240,929 224,183 465,112 97.54 98.70 97.79 1.012
Source: MOE, Private, SRAN, SRAR
SURVIVAL RATE TO YEAR 5

Enrolment in Year 1 Enrolment in Year 5 Survival Rate to Grade 5

Year GPI
Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total
2000 233,670 221,287 454,957 229,741 219,005 448,746 98.32 98.97 98.63 1.007
2001 248,914 235,894 484,806 243,422 230,784 474,206 97.79 97.83 97.81 1.000
2002 253,911 238,923 492,834 243,278 231,278 474,556 95.81 96.80 96.29 1.010
2003 258,044 243,619 497,663 254,830 241,041 495,871 98.75 98.94 99.64 0.986
2004 262,459 248,312 510,771 257,978 244,828 502,606 96.29 98.60 98.40 1.024
2005 260,341 246,803 507,144 257,978 244,828 502,806 99.09 99.20 99.14 1.001
2006 265,295 250,960 516,255 259,156 245,994 505,150 97.69 98.02 97.85 1.003
2007 264,506 250,739 515,245 262,420 249,267 511,687 99.21 99.41 99.31 1.002
2008 264,353 250,045 514,398 261,913 248,996 510,909 99.08 99.58 99.32 1.005
2009 253,240 238,753 491,993 250,248 236,706 486,954 98.82 99.14 98.98 1.003
2010 254,211 239,157 493,368 251,705 238,087 489,792 99.01 99.55 99.28 1.005
2011 261,917 248,490 510,407 258,993 247,556 506,549 98.88 99.62 99.24 1.007
2012 243,127 229,872 472,999 240,388 229,461 469,849 98.87 99.82 99.33 1.010
2013 240,122 226,646 466,768 238,131 226,462 464,593 99.17 99.92 99.53 1.008
Source: MOE
Completion Rate of Primary Education/Survival Rate to Year 6

Enrolment in Year 1 Enrolment in Year 6 Survival Rate to Grade 6

Year GPI
Male Female Total Male Female Total Male Female Total
2000 254,658 240,846 495,504 245,840 234,266 480,106 96.54 97.27 96.89 1.008
2001 233,670 221,287 454,957 225,457 215,939 441,396 96.49 97.58 97.02 1.011
2002 250,545 237,115 487,660 239,850 227,250 467,100 95.73 95.84 95.78 1.001
2003 253,911 238,923 492,834 241,683 230,135 471,818 95.18 96.32 95.74 1.012
2004 258,044 243,619 501,663 253,319 239,944 493,263 98.17 98.49 98.33 1.003
2005 261,715 247,614 509,329 256,564 243,052 499,616 98.03 98.16 98.09 1.001
2006 260,341 246,803 507,144 256,466 243,712 500,178 98.51 98.75 98.63 1.002
2007 265,295 250,960 516,255 257,914 245,052 502,966 97.22 97.65 97.43 1.004
2008 264,506 250,739 515,245 261,607 249,014 510,621 98.90 99.31 99.10 1.004
2009 264,353 250,045 514,398 260,825 248,454 509,279 98.67 99.36 99.00 1.007
2010 256,564 243,052 499,616 248,465 235,933 484,398 96.84 97.07 96.95 1.002
2011 254,211 239,157 493,368 249,937 237,005 486,942 98.32 99.10 98.70 1.008
2012 262,425 249,015 511,440 258,747 247,882 506,629 98.60 98.60 98.60 1.010
2013 243,127 229,872 472,999 239,852 229,227 469,079 98.65 99.72 99.17 1.011
Source: MOE
Primary School Achievement Test (UPSR)

Number of Candidates % of Candidates With

Number of Candidates % of Candidates With
Year Number of Candidates With Minimum Minimum Competency
With all 'A's' all 'A's'
Competency Level Level
2000 475,155 235,419 49.5 22,565 9.6
2001 436,628 221,572 50.9 22,464 5.2
2002 464,228 270,335 58.2 29,673 6.4
2003 468,129 281,955 60.2 31,562 6.7
2004 383,935 237,656 61.9 16,312 4.2
2005 413,358 268,270 64.9 20,101 4.9
2006 418,643 258,234 61.7 20,152 4.8
2007 438,206 278,189 63.5 24,582 5.6
2008 507,320 317,404 62.6 46,641 9.2
2009 506,620 319,336 63.0 48,171 9.5
2010 482,333 310,605 64.4 48,327 10.0
2011 485,160 315,033 64.9 46,012 9.5
2012 503,928 331,984 65.9 45,054 8.9
2013 466,167 305,028 65.4 42,646 9.2
Note : Candidates obtaining grades A,B or C in all subjects taken
Source : Examination Syndicate, MOE
Lower Secondary Assessment (PMR)

Number of Candidates % of Candidates With

Number of Candidates % of Candidates With
Year Number of Candidates With Minimum Minimum Competency
With all 'A's' all 'A's'
Competency Level Level
2000 392,962 209,228 53.2 11,575 2.9
2001 395,578 220,565 55.8 13,875 3.5
2002 388,622 243,654 62.7 17,994 4.6
2003 406,306 249,969 61.5 19,806 4.8
2004 383,935 237,656 61.9 16,312 4.2
2005 413,358 268,270 64.9 20,101 4.9
2006 418,643 258,234 61.7 20,152 4.8
2007 438,206 278,189 63.5 24,582 5.6
2008 442,948 278,767 62.9 26,378 6.0
2009 442,721 281,781 63.6 28,188 6.4
2010 439,456 296,251 67.4 30,863 7.0
2011 441,137 307,237 69.7 34,271 7.8
2012 440,643 303,573 68.9 30,474 6.9
2013 422,506 298,706 70.7 30,988 7.3
Source : Examination Syndicate, MOE
GOAL 6

Pupil Class Ratio In Public Primary Education

PCR for primary

Year Total number of pupils Total number of classes
education
2000 2,933,877 93,448 31.40
2001 2,943,152 94,123 31.27
2002 2,989,284 95,278 31.37
2003 3,071,121 98,600 31.15
2004 3,139,633 100,750 31.16
2005 3,044,977 101,046 30.13
2006 3,136,641 103,711 30.24
2007 3,167,775 104,757 30.24
2008 3,154,090 106,970 29.49
2009 2,959,092 99,125 29.85
2010 2,899,228 103,396 28.04
2011 2,860,340 103,447 27.65
2012 2,811,264 103,142 27.26
2013 2,742,989 102,897 26.66
Source : MOE
Pupil Teacher Ratio For Public Primary and Secondary Education

Total number of teachers

Total number of pupils in PTR for public primary PTR for public
Year in public primary
public primary education education secondary education
education
2000 2,933,877 154,509 19 18
2001 2,943,152 160,296 18 17
2002 2,989,284 165,358 18 17
2003 3,071,121 174,701 18 16
2004 3,139,633 183,851 17 16
2005 3,158,015 192,057 16 16
2006 3,136,641 194,879 16 16
2007 3,167,775 201,499 16 16
2008 3,154,090 210,912 15 15
2009 2,959,092 222,265 13 13
2010 2,899,228 223,537 13 13
2011 2,860,340 227,098 13 13
2012 2,811,264 228,818 12 13
2013 2,742,989 229,050 12 13
Source : MOE
 Public Expenditure

Publi
c
Expe
nditu
Public
re on Total
Gross Gross Expenditur
Basi Public
Domesti Nationa e on Basic
Total public c Expenditur
c l Education
expenditure Total public Total public Total public Total public Educ e on
Total public Product Income (PRE-
on ECCE expenditure on expenditure on expenditure on expenditure ation education Total
Year expenditure (GDP) at (GNI) at SECON) as
programs (or Primary secondary education (MOE on education (PRE as Population
on education Market Current Percentage
Pre-school education education only) (MOH only) - Percentage
Price Price of total
only) SEC of Total
(Billion (Billion federal
ON) Federal
MYR) MYR) expenditur
as Budget
e
Perc
enta
ge of
GDP

2000 25,080,900 3,422,857,600 2,987,587,800 na na na 356.4 4.0 18.0 2,458,800

2005 178,061,100 5,674,836,800 5,057,590,900 16,719,469,500 5,247,116,000 21,966,585,500 543.577 519.6 3.1 14.2 18.7 2,599,000

2010 196,097,000 10,127,272,900 8,797,017,200 30,519,112,700 13,023,022,500 43,542,135,200 797.327 771.0 3.8 15.9 22.7 28,631,118

2011 294,816,595 10,734,889,500 9,154,512,800 35,762,962,700 12,607,153,000 48,370,115,700 884.457 863.5 4.0 16.7 22.6 27,565,821

2012 396,243,375 11,881,488,900 10,130,054,800 37,280,783,100 12,897,556,800 50,178,339,900 941.238 905.9 4.0 16.0 21.6 28,300,000

2013 488,066,800 13,076,510,700 11,859,253,100 na na na 984.451 952.6 4.3 29,300,000

Note : na – data is not available
Source : MOE, MOF