GEORGE TOWN: Twelve underprivileged children from Kuala Lumpur aged 4 to 6 got their first taste of early education recently, thanks to a project called Learnatics.
Learnatics is a youth-led effort to find solutions to problems. The social enterprise project is endorsed by the Youth Leadership Academy (YLA), a national leadership development course to train future leaders of Malaysia.
Learnatics has worked closely with preschool education experts to develop the Learnatics Learning Kit, a holistic learning experience for children aged 4 to 6 that incorporates English comprehension and Mathematics.
Revenue from sales of the learning kit is channelled to the ChildLearn Workshop, an educational session for underprivileged children run in partnership with non-governmental organisation Buku Jalanan Chow Kit (BJCK).
Learnatics team spokesman Anban Raj, who is the 2022 Diana Award recipient, said three pilot workshops for children had been conducted with BJCK.
He said the pilot run of the ChildLearn Workshop had benefited 12 children who could not attend preschool, mostly due to poverty.
He said the main aim of the ChildLearn Workshop was to help children who could not receive preschool education develop a passion for learning when they enter primary school and to improve their English comprehension.
"We just concluded the pilot workshop after three weeks. As advised by our mentor, Azura Abrasid, who is head of preschool education at Veritas, the children's progress was assessed based on verbal communication as we wanted to get them excited about primary school.
"We focused on English comprehension and overall motivation. When our team assessed them through fun discussions, the children were able to understand us to a certain extent and were very excited throughout.
"As for the before and after, there was a visible increase in motivation," he told the New Straits Times.
Anban said following the success of the pilot project, his team hoped to relaunch the project on a bigger scale with university partnerships.
He said his team was in discussion with several non-governmental organisations to realise this.
Learnatics was the first runner-up in the YLA 2022 mid-point pitch last month, securing the project RM1,250 in seed funding.
Learnatics' approach to solve issues is based on two key principles.
The first is incorporating the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4 on quality education into the Malaysian context, specifically preschool education.
The second is encouraging hands-on learning that is centred around parent-child bonding.
Six Malaysian undergraduates were involved in rolling out Learnatics as they were passionate about education and aimed to redefine how equality and equity is practised in the Malaysian preschool education system by instilling a passion for lifelong learning.
The co-founders of Learnatics are Tan Sheau Yi, Nik Zarif Iskandar, Mathavan Krishnan, Wong Jia Yee, Tan Xin Wei and Anban.
In a 2017 survey by the United Nations Children's Fund, it was found that 51 per cent of children from the B40 community in Kuala Lumpur were not enrolled in preschool. Post-pandemic, the figures are worse. Learnatics was created to address this.
In July, Anban, who is from Penang, made the country proud when he received the 2022 Diana Award.
Anban, who is a Monash Ng Kong Lin scholar studying data science at Monash University Malaysia, is the only Malaysian among the 180 youths from around the world who were presented with the accolade for social action or humanitarian efforts.
The virtual award ceremony was held on July 1, which was the 61st birth anniversary of Diana, the former Princess of Wales. Established in her memory, the awards are given out with the support of her sons, Princes William and Harry.
The award honours youths aged 9 to 25 who go above and beyond in their lives to create and sustain positive change and for their social actions or humanitarian work.
The Diana Award website said when Anban was 16, he came up with a special set of notes for the Additional Mathematics subject that he shared with his classmates who were struggling with the subject. This was the start of his lifelong journey in education.
KW: education, early education, preschool, Learnatics, Anban Raj, Diana Award, B40, underprivileged, children, social work