Globalization Malaysia: On Board Teach For Malaysia

The government has always stressed the need of education reform to close knowledge gap and reduce unskilled workforce, so it's no surprise that the recent launch of Teach For Malaysia (TFM) has been given high hope to tackle educational inequity in this country. It's hard to make any assessment at its current conceptual stage, while we can be optimistic and encouraged by the pioneering success of Teach For America but there are also plenty reasons to beware that replication of education reform program is never straight forward, there are few critical aspects that demand greater attention under our unique circumstances.

A government program or social enterprise?

TFM is backed by government investment arm along with heavy involvement from Education Ministry, so it's unknown of who's really in charge of the program. TFM also doesn't resemble a social enterprise pilot, backed by extensive government resources with meticulous planning in place, the team decides to take over 18 months to take the concept to the ground by 2012. The ownership issue is important because what really matters is that the TFM team should retain leadership and flexibility to experiment teaching instructions, content delivery and classroom experience. I seriously doubt the program effectiveness in achieving its original goals if the focus is to primarily fit top graduates to follow existing teaching instructions already dictated by the Education Ministry.

Promises and potential aside, it's really about tracking long-term transformation

We shouldn't get carried away by the excitement of recruiting top graduates in teaching. We don't know how they will perform as teachers, 8 weeks of intensive training for new graduates is not a realistic indicator of their readiness to teach in the toughest schools for the first time. We need to get the priority right, the most important goal is not to recruit top graduates and retain them for 2 years but to transform underperforming schools and to encourage promising fellows to follow civil service path. It takes a lot more transparency, accountability and solid performance measurement culture to see the program through. It's nothing more than basic expectation that we should see TFM be open about sharing what works and what doesn't, adopt rigorous standard in tracking performance and long-term social impact.