Feature Stories
Supporting Continued Access to Education
Community 30 October 2020
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck Malaysia in mid-March 2020, school children were faced with unforeseen disruptions in their study as schools were closed across the country. Students in institutions of higher learning were also affected as colleges and universities suspended in-person lectures and sent students home.
In support of the United Nation’s SDG 4 – Quality Education to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all, YTL Foundation launched the Learn from Home Initiative in collaboration with YES and FrogAsia to ensure that Malaysian children would not be adversely impacted during the period when schools were closed and could continue to learn at home without additional costs to their parents. They did this by providing free mobile data and online learning materials to all students registered in Malaysian government schools to learn from home.
YTL Foundation also committed to SDG 10 - Reduce Inequality to minimise inequalities by extending the Learn from Home initiative to those in need. YTL Foundation offered up to five free YES 4G prepaid SIM cards, one for each school-going child in the family, to parents of children in government schools and free mobile phones to students from B40 families. In support to SDG 17 – Partnerships For The Goals, YTL Foundation also collaborated with Deloitte Malaysia to provide free SIM cards to a total of 100 children from B40 families. With the free data provided by YTL Foundation and tablets provided by KassimChan Foundation, volunteers from Deloitte Malaysia used the lessons from the Learn from Home Initiative to provide online tutoring to these children.
As the Movement Control Order (MCO) continued into the months of April and May, free SIM cards were also offered to students from independent Chinese secondary schools as well as universities and colleges across the country. YTL Foundation provided 24 families in Kampung Sion, Sarawak with free mobile phones so that their children could continue learning during the MCO. With these devices, the children were able to join the online classes provided by YTL Foundation. To further assist remote learning in the village, a laptop, monitor, speakers and camera were also donated to the community. These items improved the accessibility of online classes for the children. Online learning has opened up new learning opportunities for children in remote communities that previously did not exist.
The English, Science and Mathematics lessons developed specifically for learning from home for students from pre-school level to Form five were developed by FrogAsia, in partnership with Teach For Malaysia, Pelangi Publishing Group, Kindity Montessori Preschool, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and MyReaders and over 800 lessons made available for free on YTL Foundation’s website. As of the end of August 2020, these lessons have been accessed over 300,000 times with the most popular being the English lessons. There are plans to add lessons in Bahasa Melayu in September 2020 with the view that the entire syllabus for the four subjects will be made available by the end of the year.