3 January 2020
We analysed the progress and impact of the 16 students who have joined Iskul since the inception for 3 consecutive years from 2015-2018. The 16 students were given Test 1 on Sept 2016, Test 2 eight months after, followed by Test 3, a year later (March 2018). Assumptions made for this analysis are:
- There were a minimum of 2 hours per class, 2 classes per week
- Students’ attendance is at an average of 70%
Using these assumptions and data, according to national school days (5 hours/class, 5 days/week), they attended about 70 days or 14 weeks (less than 4 months) of school over the past three years.
Overall, we are pleased with the result considering that the actual time our 16 students spent on a normal schooling period is just less than 4 months. Based on our observation, Iskul students have mastered basic numeracy, however, they are still mostly weak in the Bahasa Malaysia language, although most of them have no problem understanding and engage in basic conversation in Bahasa Malaysia. The greatest outcome is that two of our students from this test have now become Mastal Arikik (MA) to teach the new batch of students.
From the result, we noticed the shift in students’ progress when we provide teaching camps to our MAs to improve their teaching quality and when we find SPM graduates to teach. We also like to note that the involvement of our Headmistress in teaching demonstrated that students learned faster.
In a nutshell, we found that MAs with better results can teach better and have better skills in transferring knowledge to the students, although it is not as efficient as having an adult/qualified teacher to conduct the teaching.
Moving forward, Iskul aims to:
- focus on language mastery
- consult a language (BM) teacher
- create a learning-enabled environment
- employ an adult teacher
Iskul feels strongly that if the children do not continue practising what they learned, they will forget as time passes and it would be a waste. Therefore, for the graduating students, Iskul hopes to create programme(s) to encourage the students to continue learning and contribute to Iskul long-term.
The analysis’ results are divided into three parts:
- Result 1: The basic evaluation criteria used during Test 1 for all three tests
- Result 2: Further evaluation on Mathematics in Test 3
- Result 3: Further evaluation on Bahasa Malaysia in Test 3
Result 1: The basic evaluation criteria used during Test 1 for all three tests
Graph 1. Progress Analysis for 16 Iskul Students who have taken the Evaluation for 3 Consecutive Years
As shown in Graph 1, there is a steady increase in the number of students who can perform all five basic criteria of assessment from Test 1 to Test 3.
By Test 3, all 16 students can write A to Z and read and write number 1 to 10. All except for 1 can write his/her own name. Those who can do simple 1 digit addition increased by 19% to 14 students from Test 2. Oddly, two students digress from being able to write the number 1-50 to only 1-20. Further investigation reveals that their attendance is an average of 60%.
Result 2: Further evaluation of Mathematics in Test 3
In the further evaluation of Mathematics, the students were tested on how many digits they can write and recognise, reading clock and questions related to addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
Graph 2. Read and Write Number and Read Clock Result in Test 3
Graph 2 shows that all students can write the basic number from 1-10, while only 10 students can write from 1-50. Interestingly, 1 student can write up to 1,000 and 5 can write up to 100. With regards to reading time, about 94% of the students can read only up to the “hour” hand.
Graph 3. Mathematical operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division according to digits
We’re delighted to note that more than 75% of our students can solve additional operation questions up to 4-digits. More than 70% of them can solve subtraction questions up to 2-digits while only 43% of them can do up to 4-digits. Furthermore, about half of them can memorise the multiplication table from 1 to 4. However, a majority of them are still unable to solve division problems.
Interestingly, one student has mastered the basic arithmetics – able to memorise multiplication table up to 12 and solve up to 4-digits division questions
Result 3: Further evaluation on Bahasa Malaysia in Test 3
Test 3 for Bahasa Malaysia evaluates students on two things: (1) recognising body parts and (2) recognising terms for family members.
For the former, 10 of the students can identify the whole body parts while the remaining 6 are only able to identify “rambut”, “mata”, “hidung”, “kening”, “ibu jari”, “kaki”, “perut” and “dahi” only. (Refer to Graph 4)
As for the latter, firstly only 10 students can recognise the term for parents. Secondly, more than six students who can recognise terms for close family members (i.e., parents and siblings). Finally, a average of 39% of our students able to recognise terms for extended family members (i.e., grandparents, relatives) (Refer to Graph 5)
Graph 4. The number of students who can recognise Body Parts in Test 3
Graph 5. The number of students who can recognise terms for family members in Test 3.