‘Sabah candidates from rural schools did better’
KOTA KINABALU: Students in rural schools in Sabah made history when they outperformed their peers in urban schools in last year ’s Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) results.
Sabah Education Department director Mistirine Radin said rural schools recorded 88.18 per cent of candidates who passed all subjects, against 87.19 per cent of their urban peers.
She said this showed the quality of education in rural schools had improved.
She said the placement of interim teachers in rural schools beginning early last year contributed to this achievement.
“This is because all this while, the main problem faced by the Sabah education sector was the lack of teachers in rural areas. The appointment of interim teachers has helped districts which are in critical need of teachers,” she said after announcing SPM results for Sabah here yesterday.
She said the commitment and skills in teaching and learning displayed by interim teachers, who comprised Sabah-born educators, impacted the achievement of students in rural schools.
She said performance dialogues focusing on issues that involved collaboration with the academic management, schools and teachers contributed to the good results.
Mistirine said Sabah’s SPM results for last year recorded a better national average grade of 5.44, compared with 5.51 in 2017, while the percentage of students who passed all subjects recorded an increase of 2.33 per cent to 88.53 per cent, compared with 86.20 per cent in 2017.
“A total of 17,420 candidates passed all subjects compared with 17,217 in 2017, while 152 top scorers obtained A+, A, and A-.”
Twenty-two of the 53 subjects taken by candidates in Sabah recorded a 100 per cent pass rate, she added.