KOTA BARU: The start of the school session may be brought forward by a week next year, says Education director-general Datuk Pkharuddin Ghazali.
He said that they were still working on the matter.
“We understand the wishes of the community, parents and perhaps some teachers who want the school session to start in January due to certain factors.
“It will take some time and we have to sacrifice holidays – and it is also important to give students a break. If the holidays can be shortened, maybe in 2024, the school will start a week earlier than this year,” he said.
Pkharuddin also said the Education Ministry was in the process of distributing 50,000 laptops to all schools nationwide to facilitate learning using digital textbooks.
He said the ministry was also finding a suitable formula to distribute them so that every school would receive them.
“We are in the process of procuring the laptops before distributing them to all schools,” he told reporters after inspecting the first day of school for the 2023/2024 session at SJK (C) Chung Hwa here yesterday.
A total of 1.53 million students started their school session yesterday, involving 3,044 schools in Group A states, namely Johor, Kedah, Kelantan and Terengganu.
Elaborating, Pkharuddin said the use of digital textbooks required suitable electronic devices, adding that the ministry had produced over 70% of digital textbooks since the initiative was introduced in 2021, Bernama reported.
“We are moving towards implementing a digital education policy, and it will be brought to the Cabinet.
“If approved, our direction will be towards digital education so that our children can have more interesting learning resources which can have a big impact on their understanding,” he said.
