Wednesday, February 16th, 2022
by NURUL SUHAIDI / pic credit: cimb.com
CIMB Foundation has joined Teach For Malaysia (TFM) and YTL Foundation to launch Phase 2 of the Learn From Home Frog School Lessons.
The education recovery effort focuses on developing classroom leaders, learning content material, as well as hosting community workshops to support bottom 40% income group (B40) students and parents during the post-pandemic academic year (2022-2023).
CIMB Foundation CEO Rafe Haneef (picture) said the adoption of online learning remains a necessity as Covid-19 continues to cause disruptions to the education system across Malaysia.
“As such, it is important that online resources are made available to support the continuity of education by accommodating various delivery modes in line with their respective household context and environment,” he said in a statement yesterday.
Rafe added that education is one of CIMB Foundation’s impact areas, and this programme is part of its mission to reach out to communities in providing access to quality education.
“We hope to build resilient learning systems where students who need extra support can access high-quality learning resources that are aligned to the curriculum at any time,” he said.
Since its introduction, the platform has been accessed over one million times with lessons covered include English, Bahasa Malaysia, Mathematics and Science for Standard 1 to Form 5.
It is noted that an additional 1,000 lessons to address the remaining core subjects in the curriculum will be added to the platform this year so that students can catch up with their lessons through self-directed learning.
FrogAsia learning can be found on YTL Foundation’s website and the FrogPlay mobile app.
“Together with TFM and YTL Foundation, we will continue to extend our support to drive this programme and ensure that no child’s educational success is limited by their socio-economic background,” Rafe added.
TFM CEO Chan Soon Seng noted that the past two years of remote learning had been challenging for students that did not have equal access to learning resources and have continued to fall behind.
“Moving forward, we need to continue to provide these students with access to high quality learning materials.
“We also need to invest in local community leadership development for the communities themselves to be able to support students’ education recovery sustainably,” he said.
TFM and CIMB Foundation have focused on building strong leadership in the classrooms through the former’s fellowship and workshops with students and parents from the People’s Housing Programme (PPR) communities.
“The goal is to reach at least six PPR communities, 60 teachers and 9,600 students by 2023.
“Initiatives such as our PPR workshops are aimed at increasing students’ motivation and promoting interactive learning outside the classroom,” Chan added.
CIMB Foundation also hoped parents would actively participate as they play an important role in their children’s learning and development.
YTL Foundation, on the other hand, has been collaborating with volunteer tutors to help children in PPR areas using the platform’s lessons to make up for the learning loss caused by the pandemic.
YTL Foundation programme director Datuk Kathleen Chew said students living in these communities had a hard time coping with home-based learning since the pandemic.
“Under our Learn from Home initiative, we provided data and smartphones to over 100,000 students in B40 families, but many are still left without a device and resources for learning.
“Through partnerships with CIMB Foundation and TFM, we hope that many more communities will be empowered to help their students make up for the learning loss not only in the core subjects of Bahasa Melayu, English, Mathematics and Science but in all other subjects in the curriculum through the additional 1,000 lessons we will be releasing this year,” she said.
CIMB Foundation and YTL Foundation are also supporting TFM’s 10th cohort of fellows, who will be placed in primary schools for the first time.
