Yayasan Amir, a foundation under Khazanah Nasional Berhad (“Khazanah”) has selected 10 Government schools from Johor and Sarawak to be placed under its Pilot Project for the Trust School Programme. As part of its mission to further enhance human capital development in creating future leaders, Khazanah and Yayasan Amir will be implementing the Trust School model in academic year 2011 that will focus on social equitability along social grids, replicability for other corporate entities to emulate and autonomous in nature.

The 10 schools were announced by YAB Tan Sri Muhyiddin Mohd Yassin, the Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister, at the launching of the Trust School programme and Yayasan Amir at Putrajaya today. The Trust School Programme is a response to the Government’s call for greater Public-Private-Partnerships (“PPP”) in the education sector towards improving student outcomes and school performance. This collaboration partially fulfils the requirement to participate in the Trust School Framework announced by the Ministry of Education on 7 October 2010.

The 10 selected schools are:

1. SK Bandar Uda 2 (Johor)

2. SJK(T) Kangkar Pulai (Johor)

3. SK Kampong Layau (Johor)

4. SMK Semenchu (Johor)

5. SMK Gelang Patah (Johor)

6. SM Sains Kuching (Sarawak)

7. SMK Bandar Kuching 2 (Sarawak)

8. SK Tabuan (Sarawak)

9. SK Empila (Sarawak

10. SK Combine (Sarawak)

Chairman of Yayasan Amir, Raja Tan Sri Arshad Raja Tun Uda said: “Quality education is cornerstone for a country’s development and forms the pillar of any nation’s prosperity. An effective implementation of the Trust School Programme would not only make quality education more accessible, but it will also allows the school system to tap into the best of public and private delivery models in creating a sustainable and high quality school.”

According to Shahnaz Al-Sadat, Executive Director of Strategic Human Capital Management, Khazanah: “Yayasan Amir and the pilot project for Trust School is a commitment from Khazanah to support the Government in their efforts of transforming our Education system. We believe that together with the principals, teachers, students, parents and community at large of the schools selected, we will strive for this program to be successful.”

School selection was based on several criteria such as geographical locations, dimension of the schools and school types. Khazanah and Yayasan Amir take into consideration additional factors such as the schools with greatest transformational potential, a combination of rural and urban areas, a combination of high and low performing schools and also on balance social equity. These criteria are important to achieve the mission of Trust School which is to demonstrate sustainable step changes in all types of schools.

The Trust School concept is beyond Corporate Social Responsibility (“CSR”). It entails the commitment of the private sector to partake in the formation of future quality human capital that surmounts across the board of Malaysian pluralistic society. It does not act overboard the mainstream education system but operate in tandem and with liberty to strategize and execute curricular activities that are pro-development and niche in nature to equip students and school administrators with prowess that result to excellence.

Yayasan Amir has been mandated to drive the Trust School Programme which is envisioned to run for a duration of a 5-year period after which will be reviewed for a certain extended period in the future. The main idea of the programme is to drive accessibility of quality education to all public schools via a PPP in the country. It envisions to attain sustainable public school transformation for better student outcomes and ultimately, realizing improvements in education delivery and standards.

Whilst Khazanah and Yayasan Amir will play a major role in the implementation of the pilot project, the Ministry of Education will continue to act as the regulator of the framework, accept and assess sponsor applications, monitoring of the agreed outcomes in the Public Private Sector Operating and Management Agreement (“PPSOMA”) and general coordination of the framework at state and district level education offices.

A Trust School is managed jointly by qualified private partners/sponsors and civil service principals under the umbrella of the Ministry of Education to improve student outcomes and school management capabilities. Principals will maintain day-to-day operations of the school and the private partner/sponsor will provide operational, management and educational expertise, as well as additional funds whenever required.

The Ministry of Education provides a Trust School with greater decision-making freedom and in return requires greater accountability in the form of improved student outcomes. The outcome indicators for Trust Schools are dependent on the starting point (baseline) of each school. This includes school and student academic performance and improvement, stakeholder satisfaction survey – including parents, teachers and students – and non-academic elements such as attendance rate and disciplinary improvements.

Khazanah partakes in the development of Trust School with the utmost intention of inculcating a close rapport between the private and public sectors of Malaysia. Via its non-profit arm, Yayasan Amir, that will be instrumental in the implementation, management and supervision of the Trust School Programme, Khazanah looks forward to share this noble idea with other corporate entities and the common public at large.

End