Our State of Education
Every child deserves to create their own future and live a life they truly love. However, a child’s background and systemic injustices often determine his or her outcome in life. Children from less privileged communities do not receive the same education opportunities. The pandemic in 2020 has further exacerbated this gap.
58% of 15-year-old Malaysians are unable to meet minimum levels of proficiency in reading.
A large percentage from at the end of Grade 5.
Malaysia has one of the among Asian developing nations, potentially resulting in a lifetime income loss of 767.5 billion ringgit for the 5 million+ students in Malaysia.
By 2030, Teach For Malaysia will be a movement of 30,000 leaders working collectively to enable children from underserved communities in all parts of the country to realise their potential through quality education.
Who is Teach For Malaysia?
We are a non-profit organisation working towards a future where all children in Malaysia will have the opportunity to realise their potential through quality education. Founded in 2010, Teach For Malaysia (TFM) is a proud member of the Global Education Network Teach For All, a collective of education organisations in 63 countries worldwide.
Theory of Problem: What do we want to solve?
In Malaysia, education inequity is a wicked problem that is part of a vicious cycle, caused by deep-rooted factors; socio-economic, systemic, and prevailing ideology.
Student Learning Vision: What do we want our students to articulate?
“I know what I’ve learned so far and where I’m at now.
I know what I want to learn and I’m aware of how much I need to progress.
I know who can help me and what I can do to get to where I want to.”
Our Vision: What do we want to achieve?
One day, all children in Malaysia will have the opportunity to realise their potential through quality education.
Our Mission: How do we enable that?
To build a movement of leaders in the education ecosystem to empower all children in Malaysia to realise their potential.
Our Impact
Since 2012, Teach For Malaysia’s movement has grown to 2,872 leaders. In 2022, Teach For Malaysia was awarded the 2022 Merdeka Award under the Education and Community Category. The Merdeka Award is Malaysia’s premier award for excellence founded by PETRONAS, ExxonMobil and Shell in 2007.
503,035
students impacted
1,198
schools partnered and 95% are high-need schools, and Indigenous communities
I am a student from the Corak Corak Alam club, we focus on advocating for the environment and culture through the arts. Cikgu Shamin (2022 Fellow) understands and guides me patiently. We learned about navigation, animals, habitats and the environment, and we even visited Aquaria KLCC and the Petrosains Discovery Centre. Seeing Cikgu Shamin learn about the Orang Asli community was an extraordinary experience for me. I hope my experience with Cikgu Shamin will help me to follow in his footsteps.
Sakiani, a 13-year-old student of Amirul Shamin from Fellowship Cohort 2022
STEM facilitates me to answer difficult questions that require higher-order thinking skills, especially in the 21st century. At the same time, it also helps to improve my academic performance. In my school, teachers had always given students space to present a topic and encouraged us to think without relying on them.
Kareena, a 16-year-old student who participated in the student roundtable in Program Duta Guru National Symposium 2023
I joined the Student Leadership Camp (SLC) because it is a very useful camp and I learned a lot from the camp. I was always so silent. Even if I have a point, I don’t speak. So from then, I started to speak, and when I started to speak I was so confident. It built my confidence and I can be independent. After the SLC camp ended, I love to build friendships because I had a lot of friends over there. I also joined the Student Summit programme, I learned a lot of things, and I know how to lead a team. thank you to Teach For Malaysia for giving us a very big opportunity and I hope that next year I’ll also get this opportunity, and I can build more friendships over there.
Vassenthen, a 16-year-old student of the Student Leadership Camp and Committee of Student Summit Event
The TFM Fellowship Programme has been, and is, a life-changing experience because it has impacted who I am, what I talk about, my priorities and my motivations. It has shifted my perspective of a career from being money-driven to purpose-driven. It has taught me that if you can inspire a person to do good, then that person will create a ripple effect of goodness to those around them.
Mohamed Syakir, 2022 Alumna and a co-founder of DoodleCare Resources
Program Duta Guru has opened my eyes to always be student-centered. From the various activities that I’ve conducted in class based on the programme, I’ve observed that students enjoy the activities and it does not stress them out.
Florence Endy, PDG Participant Cohort 4 and currently teaching in Kapit, Sarawak
As the Teach For Malaysia Volunteer Tutor, I taught the students in PPR Hicom English Language. When I first met the students, there was a clear gap between the students. Some groups have a low command of English, but some are very fluent. I also enjoyed seeing the healthy competition between the students, where the low-proficiency students were excited to keep up with the high-proficiency students through a board game that I created, and the low-proficiency students ended up winning the game, which was amazing.
Karam Altabaa, Program Komuniti Perkasa Volunteer Tutor and a Lead Project Manager at Frog Asia
My approach to education goes beyond the conventional classroom setting, focusing on holistic development and active parental involvement in the student’s education. Teach For Malaysia Fellow helped me a lot in implementing activities related to culture, dance, music and sports to attract students to school.
Encik Johari Idris,
Host Teacher of Shawn Stanly, Alumni Cohort 2022
I fully support Program Duta Guru because teachers will be trained and learn about how to become great teachers through the collaboration of other teachers. I encourage all STEM teachers to seize this free and fully funded golden opportunity from the Yayasan PETRONAS and assisted by Teach For Malaysia. If not now, when? If it is not us, who else will do this?
Puan Emila Rohaiza, Sabah State STEM Coordinator
The programme I work on with Teach For Malaysia is called Program Komuniti Perkasa (PKP) for the students in the B40 community, in PPR Lembah Subang. For the students that I have been with, these students have shown improvement. Parents also inform us that their children are very interested and eager to attend, especially classes and any activities that we organise Furthermore, when these kids speak, I can see that they have goals, and leadership qualities, and they are confident in speaking about the criteria for being a leader and guiding their peers in their school. Leadership is also part of my mission or vision for youth in my area, I see the need to expose them to leadership because young people are our legacy for the future. So, we need to educate them from an early stage, as the saying goes, “Bend the bamboo while it is still a shoot.
Puan Noraishah binti Osman,
Community Leader of PPR Lembah Subang
Be Part Of The Solution
It takes a village to raise a child, our work is brought to life because we are joined by so many like-minded partners, supporters, volunteers, individual donors and fundraisers along the way.
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