- Aim to create multiplier effect across schools in four PPDs with train the teachers program
- Three-phase rollout from June to September with Arus Academy as program implementor
The expanded phase of the Ministry of Education’s (MOE) FS4A (Future Skills 4 All) programme, known as Advancing FS4A–Selangor Scale Up, is being rolled out in Selangor to equip teachers with the tools to teach digital literacy. The ambitious target is to digitally equip as many as 13,000 students across 88 schools in the pilot which has three phases with an expected end result of 88 teachers trained and assisted by some students.
Conducted in collaboration between MOE, CelcomDigi Bhd, Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) and UNICEF Malaysia, with Arus Academy Sdn Bhd as the program implementer, with funding provided by Google, it aims to strengthen the digital skills foundation in schools and prepare teachers and students for an AI-driven future.
Selangor, one of Malaysia’s most developed states with ambitions of becoming a Smart State with a digital savvy population, aims to accelerate the impact of FS4A which provides students and teachers with access to an online course featuring instructional videos, online notes, and quizzes aligned with the national syllabus.
Amirudin Shari, Selangor Chief Minister, officiating at the launch on 11 June, said “We have approximately 1 million students from preschools to Form Six, thus we have to start with a pilot batch of four PPDs (the Bahasa Malaysia acronym for district education department).”
The programme is designed to address real needs, beginning with schools in the districts of Gombak, Petaling Utama, Petaling Perdana, and Klang, with a three-phase rollout from June to September this year.
To be clear, digital skills have been formally introduced into the Malaysian education system since 2016 when an MOE program in partnership with MDEC saw the introduction of computational thinking into the teaching methods used by teachers.
[Read also: Computational thinking comes to the fore in Malaysian schools]
The FS4A is an exsiting MOE program that was introduced five years ago in Feb 2020, starting in Sabah, with Arus as the program implementer. The programme has since grown into a key learning initiative leveraging MOE’s DELIMa (Digital Educational Learning Initiative Malaysia) platform which has over 2 million page views and over 270,000 users nationwide.
MDEC is one of the organizations that has leveraged FS4A. Anuar Fariz Fadzil, CEO of MDEC said, “As Malaysia progresses toward becoming a leading digital nation, empowering our educators and young learners is critical to driving this transformation. Through the MDEC Cikgu Juara Digital programme (MDEC’s own initiative since 2019 to drive digital skills in schools), 150 teachers have been trained in the FS4A modules, impacting over 4,000 students by equipping them with essential, future-ready digital skills.”
‘AI is like a very dangerous weapon’
While excited about the potential of AI as a tool to advance the digital skills of the state’s students, Amirudin also expressed concerns about the younger generation who use AI without understanding the ethical implications.
“This year, hopefully the state government will present a white paper on AI to make sure that we enter the AI era with knowledge and understanding of the ethics, to help us progress in our life.”
Idham Nawawi, CelcomDigi CEO, emphasizes the importance of the nation’s youth in learning to use AI. “In today’s digital-everything era, Malaysia must invest in building a digitally agile workforce capable of sustaining the nation’s ambitions for the next two to three decades.”
However, he also echoed Amirudin’s caution, “AI is like a very dangerous weapon. If we don’t teach our youth how to use it properly, it can do more damage than good.”
How the Advancing FS4A–Selangor Scale Up works
Selected teachers of Computer Science, and Design & Technology subjects as well as District Education Officers from the four PPDs will be upskilled and trained, via online sessions, to co-lead digital workshops for fellow teachers in their districts. The aim is to create a multiplier effect across schools, especially in underserved and near low-cost housing areas.
Students will benefit from coding lessons such as python, SQL, and HTML which will lay the foundations to understanding the fundamentals of AI with specific AI-related content to be introduced in the near future.
Arus Academy, an education social enterprise founded by four Teach for Malaysia alumni in 2015 as part of an effort to develop a sustainable education initiative, will be playing a crucial role, not only in the digital education of teachers and students, but in the selection of schools within the four PPDs as well with demographic composition and geographic area of the schools being part of the criteria. “Specifically, we assess if the school is near to areas of higher rates of poverty and on the school’s readiness. The latter involves Arus visiting the school, getting school leaders to pledge support for the program, and forming a team of dedicated teachers,” explained David Chak, director and co-founder of Arus Academy.
“We’re working very closely with each school to figure out their needs and their requirements and design support programs that are specific to their needs,” he added.
In Phase 1, 48 teachers from 12 schools in each PPD, one teacher per school, will undergo a two-week course to become Master Trainers. These teachers are hand picked by JPN (State Education Department) based on their knowledge and skills.
On completion, these Master Trainers with the support of the District Education Officers will then co-lead Phase 2 from July to Aug by conducting hands-on digital skills workshops in 40 new schools (10 schools each in the four PPD). These 40 schools will in turn dedicate one teacher and two students as trainers for FS4A–Selangor Scale Up which will result in 40 teachers and 80 students trained, bringing it to 88 schools involved over the two phases.
“While we are asking each teacher to train at least 30 students, in reality, we expect them to reach 150 students (5 classes) as no teacher teaches one class,” said Chak in explaining how the 13,000 students target was set, ie 88 teachers teaching 150 students in each school across the four PPDs. This will be Phase 3 of the program after which a review will be done by collaborating parties with an eye to the next step in expanding Advancing FS4A–Selangor Scale Up.
For more information on FS4A initiative, please visit https://futureskills.moe-dl.edu.my/
Cultivator Schools
There is yet another component to FS4A–Selangor Scale and this is supported by Arus.
“Twelve schools will be selected as the pioneering cohort of FS4A Cultivator schools (three from each PPD) to receive further training and personalised support from Arus Academy,” said Chak. But these Cultivator Schools will be picked after the 88 schools have been trained in the program.
“We believe in the power of giving; empowering schools to make their own intervention program, which is why, beyond the training, we actually provide a grant of RM500 for schools to apply for, so they can run on a bigger scale in their own school as well,” he said.
Arus will work with the schools to see how they can design and implement their own intervention programs suitable to their own needs. “We can provide not only skills and knowledge support, but also financial support to them,” Chak said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
