LINUS programme for early learning
Wednesday, September 5th, 2012LITERACY and numeracy lay the foundation for learning in primary education and beyond.
Reading, writing, arithmetic are implicit in the basic right to education.
Without these abilities, it is nearly impossible for students to attain higher education and function in the modern society. However, statistics showed that a sizeable student population in Malaysia are still ill-equipped with basic literacy and numeracy skills.
In 2008, 54,000 Year One pupils identified with low literary skills were enrolled in the Early Intervention Reading and Writing Class (KIA2M) while 117,000 Year Four pupils without basic numeracy skills were on the 3R Remedial Programme (Protim).
Under the Government Transformation Programme, the Education National Key Results Area (NKRA) aims to eradicate the dropout problem caused by students’ inability to cope with mainstream education.
In 2008 alone, 31,939 students dropped out from school at both the primary and secondary levels.
The Literacy and Numeracy Screening (LINUS) programme is aimed at ensuring that all Malaysian children acquire basic literacy and numeracy skills after three years of mainstream primary education.
The Education NKRA has set a 100% literacy and numeracy target for all Year Three pupils in Malaysia.
By basic literacy skills, the children are expected to have the ability to read, write and understand words, simple and complex sentences (using conjunctions) in Bahasa Malaysia and apply such knowledge in learning and everyday communication.
For basic numeracy, the children must be able to read, write, count and arrange (in order) whole numbers from one till 1,000 by Year Three.
They are also expected to demonstrate the ability to solve basic mathematical operations, apply mathematical skills and knowledge in everyday activities involving time, currencies and measurements.
Unlike previous efforts to address the numeracy and literacy problems, LINUS focuses on early intervention in the early primary years before the pupils enter Year Four.
Previous programmes either only focused on literacy skills (KIA2M) or conducted much later between Year Four to Six (Protim).
by Kang Soon Chen.
Read more @ http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2012/9/5/nation/11945027&sec=nation