Education off the beaten track

Lim Su Lin

All parents want a better life for their children. Aside from ensuring that their physical needs are met, most would go to great lengths to ensure their children are given a head start for the challenges in our modern indus­trial society.

One way to that goal is through qual­ity education. Secondary level learning is particularly crucial as it is during this stage that the child is exposed to contextualised learning that shapes his world view and philosophy, alongside developing essential lifelong skills such as creative thinking and problem-solving abilities.

Nowadays, many Malaysian parents seem to be in a fix about this thorny issue. Many have lost confidence in the public education system and are comb­ing the ground for alternative solutions. Private and international schools pro­vide a narrow gateway for those whose monthly payrolls are able to cover the steep expenses, but for the majority of beleaguered parents in the middle class, where do they turn to for a sustainable yet quality education?

Going by various monikers – from ‘learning centre’ and ‘resource centre’ to the rather grandiose-sounding ‘acad­emy’ – independent learning centres (ILCs) are increasingly filling the gaps between mainstream schools, tuition centres and private homeschooling centres.

What attracts many parents to ILCs is the fact that they offer an affordable option to a secondary level education delivered in the English medium.

These centres tutor children and prepare them for popular examination options like the International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) and A Levels of the United Kingdom, Singapore syllabus or even the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SATs). Gener­ally, they emulate international schools in abiding by the curriculum set by the respective examination boards, though a handful may also extend their scope to introduce cross-curricular perspectives.

The growing number of ILCs cater primarily to students in and around the Klang Valley. While there are many centres of repute, they are up against a plethora of public and private learning institutions.

Apart from international schools, which attract a wide range of students, there are also state-funded Mara pre­paratory colleges, which also offer the Cambridge IGCSE programme. Bumiputra students who are academically strong can avail themselves to a quality English education there.

Clearly, the merits of learning Maths and Science in English are recognised by all and sundry.

Most ILCs keep a low profile, drawing their clientele through testimonials of satisfied parents who share their experi­ences through word of mouth.

A man in his late fifties, who wishes to be known only as Tan, runs an independ­ent learning centre in Puchong Prima to provide a broad-based education to family members and friends. “I started (this centre) to home-school my own children,” he tells The Heat. Tan wanted his children to follow the British curric­ulum – what he calls “the Cambridge diet” – which he had been weaned on in his youth and which, he proudly attests, is “a thoroughly tried-and-tested system” which enjoys international recognition and acceptance at all tertiary institutions.

However, when his daughter reached secondary schooling age in 2000, the syllabus was taught only in international schools, and local students were not allowed to register for the Cambridge exams with the British Council unless they had lived overseas for a minimum of three years.

Tan subsequently pulled his daughter out of the national curriculum to start homeschooling, before sending her to Singapore to sit for the exams.

Emma Furze echoes similar senti­ments when asked about the reasons for setting up her learning centre, Hons­bridge Academy, in Kota Damansara. She currently leads the centre together with her siblings, Dominic and Alice Hon.

As children, their parents had shipped all three siblings to Singapore to learn under an English medium curriculum, which was then unavailable in Malaysia.

In 2000, just before graduating with a Bachelor of Science from the National University of Singapore, Emma toyed with the idea of giving Malaysian stu­dents a chance to experience learning not just in English, but through a curriculum which encouraged more lateral thinking and a higher level of learning.

“Having done the GCE O Levels (in Singapore), we believed it was well recog­nised (so) we decided to start the centre at an affordable rate,” she explains.

Dominic Hon, vice-principal at Hons­bridge, says that the centre caters to the middle-income and higher-income groups “who know we offer high quality education”.

At Honsbridge, the fees per term (three terms a year) are RM5,900 for Years 7 to 9, and RM6,900 for Years 10 and 11 (IGCSE level).

While affordability is a draw factor, some parents might have qualms about ILCs. In a fussy, status-driven society, some may be concerned that ILCs are mostly grassroots institutions, with less of a reputation than the established SMK and private schools.

Moreover, the fact that ILCs operate in smaller premises and generally have fewer facilities than established schools may also raise eyebrows. For example, some occupy shoplot premises, while others are based in church and mosque premises. Some bigger centres, like Campus Rangers in Bukit Jalil, have made affiliations with private colleges to access their facilities, but these are the excep­tions rather than the norm.

Hon says there is no compromise on quality despite the centre’s small size and limited facilities.

“Attitude is important. Results follow from students who are willing to learn and staff who are dedicated to teaching,” he stresses.

The academy behaves in many re­spects just like a typical school which sets high benchmarks for its students. Potential candidates are asked to sit for a rigorous entrance test before being allowed to join the centre. Based on this and a follow-up interview, students are then streamed into separate classes so that they can proceed at their own pace. The students’ capabilities are taken into consideration when tailoring lessons to ensure that all syllabus material is cov­ered throughout the programme.

Hon stresses that the school values personal character. “We have many stu­dents coming here who didn’t perform well at their previous schools. Here, the parents are happier with their progress. (What’s important is that) they must want to improve and be better.”

His are not just empty words. One of their pioneer graduates, Lauren Tan, scored straight A’s on an express track O Levels programme. In 2010, she was awarded a full scholarship from KDU to undertake pre-university studies in the United States. According to Hon, she is now finishing her degree in Pittsburgh while still remaining in touch with her teachers.

Likewise, Tan from Puchong Prima says that his centre has been consist­ently producing students with straight A’s since its inception a decade ago. One of his students received the Top in the World award in Sociology besides scoring 13A’s in 2013.

Besides good grades, are ILCs able to give a child a holistic learning experience?

Being confined in terms of student intake numbers and space, some parents may be concerned that children may not enjoy the same sort of peer interaction and support network that they do in bigger schools.

Emma thinks smaller classes could actually be an advantage as it encourag­es different year groups to interact with each other.

“The students are better able to make connections with friends, with teachers, with their learning and their personal happiness, satisfaction. The kids are happy going to school and look forward to learning new things.”

The students also lead healthy social lives. Through hosting various inter-school activities like team sports events and debates, as well as going on field trips and excursions, the children are encouraged to expand their social circles beyond just socialising with their schoolmates.

Teachers are an important component of these centres as they are the ones responsible for imparting knowledge.

For Tan, there is little need to screen his teachers as they are his peers, professionally qualified with a sterling education and experience. Starting out as a homeschooling parent, this project was “unintended” as it grew when rela­tives and friends started requesting for their children to be taught as well. Over the years, he has recruited like-minded parents to share responsibilities in tu­toring and teach up to 16 subjects for the Cambridge IGCSE syllabus.

One could call his team of teachers an ‘organic’ selection. Most of them are handpicked, like-minded seniors with a passion for education. Most hold at least a Master’s degree or a professional qualification and have had longstanding experience working as pro­fessionals in the corporate sector, making them more than capable of under­standing and delivering the syllabus.

Though they may not hold teaching degrees, Tan is certain that each indi­vidual is deeply invested in their students.

“They teach for the passion of transmitting knowledge and experience to young lives,” he says.

In contrast, Honsbridge follows a conventional screening process similar to those practised in schools, where the teachers are required to sub­mit a CV, attend interviews and prepare mock lesson plans for close scrutiny be­fore being recruited as permanent staff.

There are clear benefits to the smaller numbers in these centres. With an aver­age tutor-student ratio of 1:16 per class, teachers are in a better position to devel­op trust with their students, something that schools with bigger classroom sizes may fall short of.

Besides working hand in hand, the children seem to be happier, perform better and learn more effectively, thanks to personalised attention and approaches from their teachers.

“You really get in depth with what you’re studying,” says Theo, 16.

The offspring of Brit­ish expatriate teachers who were formerly based in France, Theo had been coping poorly under the education system there, barely scraping by with E’s on his Maths exams and Science subjects.

But things took a turn for the better when the family moved to Malay­sia and enrolled him in Honsbridge. After just a year, he was able to score almost straight A’s in his exams.

For him, the centre has made a differ­ence in reigniting his desire to learn.

“I think learning in English did wonders for me… but also because of the way the school is. It works for me really well when the teachers know what they’re talking about and they just explain it verbally and they know how to communicate…. The point just comes across so much better, especially for Science. It’s a much more organic way of learning,” he shares.

How does one begin to describe the sounds of learning? One hears it in the rise and fall of excited chatter, like a mer­ry bubbling creek. The sudden, surprised gasp of delight as a child understands what she has been taught. The burst of giggles that accompany a well-timed punchline in the midst of a lesson.

It strikes me as soon as I enter the little whitewashed classroom on the first floor of Honsbridge Academy. There are no more than 15 students in the room, yet the air is filled with the hum and buzz of learning as they work away at their projects. A teacher goes round, stopping from time to time to check on each group.

Perhaps this is the salient point, the key takeaway. The students may make the music, but the symphony can only blossom into fruition under the hands of an able conductor.

Are ILCs capable of facilitating this learning?

Of course, it would be somewhat naïve to assume that all of these centres oper­ate on the same standards.

In particular, Tan warns against dubi­ous operators whom, although starting out with good intentions, fail to deliver quality education, perhaps because they are either not qualified or not properly trained to teach.

Yet, if parents are wise and do their homework, there is plenty to be said for enrolling a child in an ILC. Apart from an affordable English-medium education, ILCs seem to be effective in getting chil­dren motivated to learn. For most parents earning an average income, that makes them a viable alternative to public and international schools.

It may be jumping the gun to say that they are the perfect solution, but one thing is certain: these fledgling learning centres have earned their place and are here to stay.