Kasuma Satria Bin Mat Jadi – Former president of Parents-Teachers Association (Special Education), SMK Bandar Sunway, Selangor from 2016 to 2020
The school culture was very teacher centric in the beginning and it became student centric after. Teachers trained with new competencies aimed at maximising student’s potential. This was the main impact I could see within 3 years of the TSP implementation in SMK Bandar Sunway. Teachers focused on students and brought more discussions in the classroom, education in the classroom becomes a two-way street and more engaging. Who could ever imagine 21st century education can be brought into classrooms of an average Malaysian public school. School practices open culture. Students programme, parent’s partnership and community engagement becomes active and genuine, no longer activities just to ‘tick the box’. School’s management trained to be more open, professional, structured and hands-on. Parents and community engagement intensified and started to partner the school management in chartering the school programme to be more meaningful for the students. Changes were done bottom up intensively and with the introduction of middle leaders’ network, the programme continues to grow even further and more importantly it stays. Slowly and surely changes took place and the results were phenomenal. Students’ confidence, overall academic results and disciplines improved, police no longer stationed at the school’s entrance. Not just that, teachers that were resistant in the beginning are now strong advocates for the programme and started to share their experiences and train other teachers in neighbouring schools.
