Empowering Teachers to be Community Shapers
Strengthening school leaders towards an inclusive education for indigenous students
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Empowering Teachers to be Community Shapers
Samuel Isaiah, the first Malaysian on the Top 10 of the Global Teacher Prize, has taught in schools attended by indigenous students for a decade. He now shares his insight with 15 such schools in Perak under PEMIMPIN GSL’s Accelerated Leaders Initiative Programme for Orang Asli Schools (ASLI).
The two years of pandemic caused severe learning loss while a lack of technology and tools worsened already high dropout rates. This resonates with the headmaster (or Guru Entoi as he is called in the local dialect of) SK Pos Musuh Landing Zone, Cikgu Mohd Khairil Azizan Mohd Zamri. He noticed that one student starting Standard Three this year was not able to read or write.
Cikgu Azizan is one of the 30 school leaders participating in 18 months of coaching sessions curated to help change outcomes for indigenous students
“It is my dream to empower teachers to be successful. Only then can they nurture successful students,” he says resolutely. He is also passionate about creating a welcoming environment following his own unpleasant experience years ago as a young educator. He To him, the best learning has been implementing the indigenous pedagogy which ensures inclusive lessons which are related to the students’ culture and way of life. Following ASLI, half the participating schools are now implementing this.
Hasanah’s Education Head, Dr Nur Anuar Abdul Muthalib agrees there is no cookie-cutter solution to combating learning loss. “The approach cannot be the same as other schools; it must be specific to the Orang Asal community.”
“YH is building trust with us, PEMIMPIN is building trust with the school leaders and the school builds trust with the community,” Samuel describes the ecosystem of empowerment ASLI is building.
It seems that after all, it does take a village to raise a child.