Teaching pupils high-tech skills

PETALING JAYA: Year Four pupils will be introduced to computer programming, robotics and Artificial Intelligence in a new subject starting next year.

Design and Technology (RBT) will be a compulsory subject where students will get to learn about these new high-tech skills while still in primary school, the Education Ministry’s Curriculum Development Division deputy director (Policy and Science and Technology) Datin Dr Ng Soo Boon told The Star.Ng said pupils will be taught algorithms and how to develop simple to more complicated computer programmes.

They will learn how to programme hardware such as Arduino and Micro Bit, which is an introduction to Robotics and Artificial Intelligence.

“From next year, they will also learn how to use Scratch, a freeware for coding and other resources,” she said.

Ng said pupils will use Scratch to “come up with simple programming that can make a remote control toy car move”.

She said RBT is already available in secondary schools with the Form One students in 2017 the first batch introduced to the subject.

Coding is also currently taught in secondary schools through the Basics in Computer Science (Asas Sains Komputer) subject offered in lower secondary schools and Computer Science (Sains Komputer) subject in upper secondary schools.

Students are exposed to the use of application software such as Microsoft Visual Basic, JAVA, HTML, Javascript, Microsoft Access, MySQL, XAMPP and Notepad.

Ng said certain skills such as learning to how to use Microsoft Word and Powerpoint programmes will no longer be taught in a standalone subject.

These skills will instead be included in subjects where pupils are required to do presentations in class using a computer.

The ministry has been working with Malaysia Digital Economy Corpo­r­­a­­tion (MDEC) to train Institutes of Teacher Education (IPG) lecturers over the past few months.

Ng said the ministry also aimed to train about 500 primary school teachers over the next few months in coding, to prepare them to teach RBT.