Drop In PSR Results A Concern

Ministry heeds His Majesty's call, looks into root cause of the problem
Bandar Seri Begawan - The Ministry of Education is concerned with a slight decline in last year's Primary School Assessment (PSR) results.

His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam had mentioned about this in his New Year titah and urged the authorities to look into and make serious efforts to improve it and find the root cause as to why some of the students could not master the basic skills.

"Probably, the teacher education and training needs to be stepped up," the ruler said.

A closed door dialogue session between the Permanent Secretary (Core Education) at the Ministry of Education, Dr Hj Junaidi bin Hj Abd Rahman with primary and secondary school and college leaders of Brunei-Muara and Temburong districts was held at Rimba II Primary School yesterday.

The Acting Director of Schools at the Ministry of Education, Awg Hj Kassim bin Mohd Yassin said last year's PSR results were not encouraging and for schools to tackle this, school leaders must ensure that projects are assessed especially with regards to literacy and numeracy. It should not be done without monitoring and evaluation.

The Primary Education Division took note of the achievements of PSR students in mathematics and one of the programmes that has been arranged is through the cooperation of the Curriculum Department and the School Inspectorate to ensure better results in PSR especially in mathematics.

His Majesty in the New Year titah underlined the need to acquire quality workforce. "This effort won't bear fruit if we fail to equip schoolchildren with basic skills such as reading, writing and numeracy. This is crucial and should become a culture as progressive people are those who are strong in reading, writing and know how to calculate," His Majesty said.

Dr Hj Junaidi said the dialogue was to hear from the school leaders on the status of the programmes and issues faced in carrying out their duties as principals. He said the Ministry of Education has carried out many programmes not only in the context of the National Education System for 21st century (SPN21) but also in other fields.

The dialogue was to gain feedback on the initiatives undertaken as well as to give opportunities for them to raise questions for the Ministry of Education to assist.

It was not just merely on strategic matters but also on issues like teaching and learning especially pertaining to the curriculum in the context of SPN21, on assessment like exam and test, school administration and on continuous development programmes for teachers.

The dialogue also touched on infrastructure and facilities. It was not meant to find faults with anyone but to seek solutions.

The dialogue was an effort undertaken to nurture two-way communications more effectively among school leaders and the management to discuss about school achievement and strive towards excellence, educational development and quality.

Awg Hj Kassim added that the dialogue should be utilised wisely by the school leaders to share any grievances and to share any programmes implemented at the respective schools in order to improve PSR results. ~ Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

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