Less than a year after its formation, the robotics club of a special education school in Batu Pahat, Johor, has been on a winning streak in national and international competitions.
SK Pendidikan Khas Batu Pahat teacher Abdul Hafiz Margono, 29, said he started the club to provide pupils with an equal opportunity to explore their talents.
“Robotics is often associated with pupils from elite schools or fully residential schools, but I wanted to break the stereotype.
“I wanted to show that children with special educational needs are just as capable of learning robotics and competing with pupils from mainstream schools.
“Previously, our school focused more on sports, but I wanted to explore other opportunities for our pupils, especially those who may not be physically suited to sports,” he told StarMetro.
Abdul Hafiz, who has been teaching at the school for five years, said the club was started via a collaboration with Makerspace Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM).
“Since then, we have taken part in 12 robotics competitions, from district to international level, and managed to win in most of them.
“We also won a gold award in an open-category national innovation competition where we were the only school team competing against participants from universities and colleges.”
He said among the club’s achievements were winning a gold and two bronze medals at the 12th Kontes Robot Nusantara (KRON) International 2026 by Universitas Indonesia, as well as taking first and second places at UTHM Maker Robot.
However, funding remains a challenge, particularly when it comes to participating in international competitions, he said.
“We want to give as many pupils as possible the opportunity to compete, but sometimes we are limited by the cost.
“For the recent competition in Jakarta, we could only afford to send one pupil, although the innovation was developed by several pupils,” he added.
Abdul Hafiz hopes more parents and schools will recognise the potential of their children with special needs.
“Sometimes, people assume that children with disabilities cannot do certain things, but there are many approaches we can use to help them learn and develop their abilities.
“We just need to give them the opportunities to show what they can do,” he said.
