SMK TENGKU IDRIS SHAH EXTRA CLASSES
SMK Tengku Idris Shah is located at Kapar, Selangor, about 20km north of Klang and about 45km away from KL Sentral. It takes about 1 hour to get to the school from KL Sentral. It is a large school, with approximately 2,300 students in the school.
Many students come from poor backgrounds – many are illiterate and innumerate. Basic literacy test for Bahasa Malaysia by the State Education Department of Selangor (JPS) administered last year revealed that 198 students out of approximately 1,050 students in the afternoon session of the school were illiterate. This means many students lack the ability and skills to function in a normal classroom. These students are being left further and further behind in school each year and many don’t pick up these basic skills even after they finish formal education, locking them into low income jobs, thus perpetuating the vicious cycle of poverty and illiteracy that our students.
The Problem
• Many students entering the school are 3 to 6 years behind; some begin their secondary school years unable to read and write.
• Students often get frustrated due to lack of comprehension, as teachers are teaching at a much higher level than they can cope with.
• The range of students’ abilities in each classroom is so wide that to individualize learning to each student’s current level would be an overwhelming task, given the limited amount of time we have in the classroom with the students.
Here are just a few examples of the students we teach in school:
• A 15-year-old girl struggles with the most basic English words like 'he', 'the' and 'sweet';
• Two Form 2 boys cannot say the days of the week nor the months of the year in English;
• A Form 1 boy cannot even add one and one.
