An MoU signing ceremony took place at Malaysia International Trade and Exhibition Centre (MITEC), Kuala Lumpur, that signifies an important step for EduCity to further solidify its position as Asia’s first multi-campus education city, by partnering with Pandai Education Sdn Bhd (Pandai) who specialises in providing customised digital learning for students based on the Malaysian national education curriculum.
This collaboration will see the implementation of at least two projects that are related to education technology and talent development initiatives, especially in the areas of teaching and learning using the technology currently being championed by Pandai.
The first project will leverage on Pandai’s educational app that is customised for EduCity and will focus on teaching English and Mathematics syllabi that are aligned with the national curriculum. These programmes will be rolled out to 5,000 primary (Year 3 & 4) and secondary students (Form 4 & 5) especially from the B40 segment.
In this project, Xcell Lab and Kira Lab programmes were designed with the objective of supporting young learners who are unable to learn at home in unconducive environments with limited access to suitable device or internet when schools switched to Pengajaran dan Pembelajaran di Rumah (PdPR) during the implementation of Movement Control Order (MCO). These are students who are considered part of the “lost generation” that is impacted due to disruptions to key services and access to education. These two programmes are seen as a critical measure needed to assist school students in the current disruptive learning environment,.
The second collaboration is the result of implementing Xcell Lab and Kira Lab through which Educity helps to address unemployment issues by training unemployed graduates to teach the students enrolled in these two programmes. This will be done through training of educators, specifically independent qualified tutors (gigster), to equip themselves with the latest effective teaching methods using relevant technologies in delivering educational content in fun and interactive ways. This programme is expected to run by Q2 2022 and will be open to only 200 (number) selected tutors for the year 2022.
“This collaboration comes at the right time, as we had recently decided to offer basic reading classes dubbed as Mahir Membaca to Johor’s affected school children, specifically from the B40 segment. This programme was supported by local community leaders, and we are currently seeing the success of our good effort as 85% (percentage) of those students have seen an increase in their reading level. This collaboration has accelerated our effort to reach more affected students within the B40 segment, using Pandai’s technology as the tool that will ensure a successful outcome for our future leaders,” said Wan Ahmad Saifuddin Wan Ahmad Radzi, Managing Director of EduCity Iskandar Malaysia Sdn Bhd.
CEO of Pandai Education Sdn Bhd, Khairul Anwar Mohamad Zaki, said “the Pandai app already incorporates interactivity, gamification, personalization, and artificial intelligence elements. With our recently launched module called ‘Pandai Teacher’, we are now equipped to assist not only the students and their parents, but also their teachers, tutors, and education institutions. Together with EduCity, we really hope to empower educators and provide quality education to as many school students using emerging technologies to increase the academic attainment of these 21st-century learners.”
Xcell Lab and Kira Lab will be managed by EduCity Academy (EA), a training centre set up to become a one-stop talent-lifecycle solution and ecosystem developer. It was designed as part of the bigger EduCity’s ‘PERANTIS’ship model, where this will set the young learners to have a pathway that focuses on building their skills aligned with the industry needs. An overview of the ‘PERANTIS’ship model that EA manages are as follows:
- For School: Offering key intervention and development programmes such as Kira Lab and Xcell Lab for primary and secondary schools
- For Youth: Introducing and implementing EduCity’s ‘PERANTIS’ship talent development programmes that will benefit youth on national and ASEAN level
- For Corporate: Talent development programmes and ecosystem-building services tailored for the industries. For example, current projects include leadership programmes for the real estate industry and developing an academy for a state government
