ALLISTER Tik Tony seldom ventured out of his home before he joined Maktab Rendah Sains Mara Kuching.
The eldest among his siblings, Allister — a Penan — scored 5As in the Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) in 2012 despite the challenging environment he was living in. Allister, 14, hopes to become a pilot and do his community proud.
Mohd Nazri Shafie is the fifth of 10 siblings and comes from a family with a monthly household income of RM800.He applied to attend a professional welder programme to help out his family and secure a better future for himself. He has since graduated and the 21-year-old now earns RM4,000 a month.
After graduating from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in the US, electrical engineering degree holder Nur Atikah Paimin worked at a renown energy and utilities company in the country. But the eldest of three siblings harbours another ambition — to become a certified accountant. She is now working at BDO International, the fifth largest international accounting and consulting organisation in the world. She has passed three of the 12 Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales professional certification papers that will enable her to become what she aspires to be.
Allister, Mohd Nazri and Nur Atikah would not be where they are today if not for Yayasan Peneraju Pendidikan Bumiputera, also known as PenerajuEdu.
Targeting to nurture 40,000 talents in six key sectors in line with the government’s efforts to make Malaysia a high income nation by 2020, PenerajuEdu envisions to help instil leadership qualities and competitiveness into local talents who are able to compete with the world’s best.
It will focus on developing programmes for six sectors — financial services, business services, communications content and infrastructure, electrical and electronics, healthcare, and oil and gas — due to strong existing demand for skilled and professional jobs in these fields. PenerajuEdu chief executive Raja Azura Raja Mahayuddin is aware that many players are focusing on students and enhancing their leadership skills and it hopes to complement these efforts.
"PenerajuEdu's charter is to provide access to quality secondary and tertiary education for mid-performing students from challenging and poor (monthly household incomes of less than RM3,000) environments. We offer ‘nurture and development’ elements to unlock their potential," she said.
With the recently unveiled Roadmap 2020 as a blueprint, PenerajuEdu will provide training and job placement opportunities to 30,000 candidates in the skilled workforce and 6,800 candidates in professional occupations.
It will also focus on family, community and educators as change agents to extend the reach of the programmes. Each group plays a different role and influences the student’s choices in different ways. Families play a significant role in instilling the value of education into children, while community expectations create a norm of success and educators help shape students into well-rounded individuals.
As the breadth of its programmes expands, Raja Azura said PenerajuEdu will increase collaboration with other agencies, non-governmental organisations and the private sector. This will include potentially assisting these entities to replicate successful PenerajuEdu programmes on a wider scale.
The Roadmap 2020 is expected to give a better understanding of the importance of educational opportunities especially for rural students to unlock their fullest potential in high-income sectors. It is also to convince more corporate companies to contribute and be a part of the pledgers.
“We cannot do this alone, therefore we will continue to work together with various groups to ensure PenerajuEdu executes niche programmes that complement rather than duplicate initiatives already implemented by others. We want to become the catalyst for the enhancement of capability and initiate a change in mindset towards the creation of a globally competitive community,” said Raja Azura.