Education for Underprivileged Primary and Secondary Students in Malaysia

Book excerpt: The best education system provides the best education to all children, irrespective of their ethnic group or socio-economic background. Malaysian education system aims to ensure that all children, irrespective of who their parents are and where they are schooling, will be equipped with the basic needs to succeed in their future educational endeavours and eventually in daily life and the workforce. Malaysian education system strives to narrow the socio-economic gap, between rural and urban as well as gender in student achievement by 2020. Reducing socioeconomic disparities between rural and urban are likely to have an impact on the achievement gap among students. The education system in Malaysia will actively support social mobility by providing additional supports to those who are less fortunate, and thus ensure socio-economic background of students is no longer a determinant factor of their success in life. However, in the effort to realize equity in education to all children in Malaysia, we are confronted with all sorts of problems and challenges. Empirical studies with scientific explanations will provide insights into how education for underprivileged primary and secondary students in Malaysia can be further improved to ensure equal accessibility to quality education. This book attempts to bring together prominent researchers and educators in the field of rural education to share their findings, experiences, reflection, and vision on the emerging trends in rural education in the country. The book will be of special interest to academics and researchers in the field of rural education, curriculum designers, policy makers, educators, teacher educators, trainee teachers, school principals, school inspectorates, undergraduate and postgraduate students in universities and colleges in the country.