MALAYSIA’S ACHIEVEMENT IN THE EDUCATION GLOBAL COMPETITIVE INDEX

Bahasa Malaysia

The World Economic Forum’s Centre for Global Competitiveness and Performance through its Global Competitiveness Report 2011-2012, had recognized Malaysia as one of the more competitive nation out of 142 economies in the world, whereby Malaysia gains five ranks to reach 21^st position, compared to the year 2010, where it was ranked 26th.

Based on the Global Competitive Report 2011/2012, Malaysia improved its ranking as a result of its push to become a developed country by the year 2020, propelling the country from a middle income economy to a high income nation.

The quality of the educational system in Malaysia was rank 14, value at 5.1, second place behind Singapore among South East Asia nations. On the quality of primary education, Malaysia is ranked 21^st, at a score of 5.0 from a scale of 7. Our rate of enrollment in primary education is 94.1%, which places Malaysia at number 61 of 142 economies surveyed. Malaysia’s rate of enrollment in primary education is an impressive 5.0, which is much higher than the average score of 3.8.

The performance reflects the government’s effort in ensuring every citizen receives a better quality of education, and that no students are left behind in their pursuit of school education.

In addition, the Government’s initiative through its National Key Result Area (NKRA) has successfully increased the number of student access to education.  Since NKRA’s launch, the enrollment of children below 4 years old entering pre-school has increased to 732,902 children or 77.23%. Also, a total of 3,089 pre-school classes have begun operation, twice the number compared to the year of 2010.

The NKRA initiative at primary school indicates that the LINUS (Literacy and Numeracy) programme for standard 2 students shows an improvement at 97.5% for literacy and 98.6% for numeracy.  For children from standard 1 the rate for literacy is 91%, and 95.4% for numeracy. The measurement of literacy and numeracy help to track students who are facing learning difficulties in the early stage, whereby in the year 2011, 3,916 students who were weak in standard 2 were identified and had their needs attended to effectively.

These measures have successfully position Malaysia as a nation who is undergoing effective transformation in education, and enabling it to compete globally. To further strengthen the competitiveness level, especially at primary and secondary education, Malaysia will always provide opportunities for all and any parties to introduce ideas and improvement towards the nation educational system. Towards this effort, the Ministry of Education will begin it series of National Education Dialogues throughout the country from April 2012 onwards whereby various parties ranging from professionals, educators, community leaders and parents can contribute ideas and inputs for the formation of the education blueprint which will shape the direction of the education system for the future.



Corporate Communications Unit
Ministry of Education Malaysia