SEA-PLM: ACHIEVEMENTS OF PUPILS REMAIN STABLE IN READING, MATHEMATICS DOMAINS

PUTRAJAYA, Dec 8 (Bernama) -- The performance of Malaysian students in the Southeast Asia Primary Learning Metrics (SEA-PLM) regional assessment has remained stable with both the Reading and Mathematics domains recording scores above the regional average, despite recording a slight decline compared to the first round of assessments.

Education director-general Dr Mohd Azam Ahmad said that for the Reading domain, Malaysia recorded scores above the regional average of 300 points despite a slight decline of five points compared to the 2019 SEA-PLM assessment.

He said the same picture was also recorded for the Mathematics domain when the country's score once again exceeded the regional average of 305 points, with a slight decline of five points.

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“This means that overall, Malaysian students are at a competitive reading literacy level despite facing learning disruptions.

“This shows that the numeracy foundation of Malaysian students is still relatively strong, despite various challenges in learning recovery,” he said when presenting the SEA-PLM 2024 results here today.

He said the cohort participating in SEA-PLM 2024 were students born in 2013, and described the cohort as unique because the students underwent PdPR (home-based teaching and learning) for almost two years while in Year 1 and Year 2, which was during the Movement Control Order (MCO) implemented from 2020 to 2021.

“Learning disruptions at the beginning of this schooling phase are a major factor affecting their mastery of basic skills and are an important context for interpreting the SEA-PLM findings accurately,” he said.

Mohd Azam said the trend helped the Ministry of Education (MOE) design more targeted interventions to ensure that students not only recovered but were able to improve their Mathematics skills to a higher level high.

The SEA-PLM conducted in Malay, English, Chinese and Tamil is a regional assessment organised by the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organisation in collaboration with the United Nations Children's Fund, involving seven ASEAN countries including Timor-Leste.

SEA-PLM 2024 has assessed the achievements of 4,379 students from 158 Year 5 students in four main domains, but for the 2024 round, the findings only involve the Reading and Mathematics domains.

Reviewing the achievements according to the proficiency level band, he said that 69 per cent of students managed to achieve Band 5 and above for the Reading domain, which is considered a good achievement, and even a third of students from low Socioeconomic Status (SES) families managed to achieve Band 5 and above.

He said that for the Mathematics domain, 74 per cent of students achieved Band 5 and above, thus showing an increasing trend in basic numeracy proficiency which is encouraging.

“This shows that the initiatives implemented by the Ministry of Education, the State Education Department and the District Education Office as well as schools have shown positive implications,” he said.

Among the Ministry of Education initiatives are teacher capacity development, special remedial programmes, shared reading programmes and primary school literacy and numeracy programmes.

In terms of gender, he said the achievement of female students still outperformed that of male students in the Reading domain, but the achievement gap is narrowing from nine points in 2019 to seven points in 2024.

He said that for Mathematics, there is no longer an achievement gap between male and female students, and in fact, male students recorded a higher percentage in Bands 8 and 9 compared to female students.

He said the gap based on socio-economic status still remains a major challenge when significant differences are recorded between students from low- and high-income families, with a gap of 23 points for Reading and 26 points for Mathematics.

-- BERNAMA