Use of technology, competent teachers among efforts to address student dropout issues in ASEAN, says Fadhlina

LANGKAWI: ASEAN countries have identified three main interventions in their joint efforts to address the issue of dropouts and out-of-school children and youth (OOSCY), namely the expansion of preschool education, use of technology and competent teachers.
Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek said the issue was the main focus during the joint statement session held in conjunction with the two-day ASEAN Education and Higher Education Ministers' Roundtable 2025 (#EduRoundtables2025) which started here yesterday.
'Our focus in this meeting is on the issue of dropouts, out-of-school children and youth, which emphasises several important interventions for us to consider as an ASEAN community to address this issue.
'In the meeting just now, the leaders of these countries have already given their respective views on how ASEAN can move as one community to seriously address this issue together,' she said.
According to her, among the initial approaches discussed was the enforcement of compulsory preschool education policies as implemented in Brunei.
'Brunei has already pioneered that agenda, as mentioned in the speech by Brunei's Minister of Education earlier, that among the ways to ensure that children receive their rights is to start by enforcing laws for mandatory preschool education policies.
'We are also looking into that situation, and at the level of the Ministry of Education Malaysia (MOE), we hope to bring it to the next Parliament session. Hopefully, we will have time to present our amendments for the compulsory education policy, starting with secondary schools first,' she said during a press conference after #EduRoundtables2025 here today.
Commenting further, Fadhlina said the second focus is on the use of technology as an important tool in addressing the issue of dropouts.
'There are indeed several important approaches to see the need for this technology to become tools in addressing the issue of dropouts.
'I remember that at the MOE level, we have the DELIma (Digital Educational Learning Initiative Malaysia) platform... for teachers to fully utilise this platform to identify several issues of dropouts, memorisation, literacy, and to use all the applications in this DELIma platform for technology use in the classroom and addressing several dropout issues,' she said.
Fadhlina also emphasised that besides infrastructure, the need for competent teachers is equally important to support the expansion of early childhood education.
'So, among the concerns expressed and the views from UNESCO and ICESCO (Islamic World Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) is the need to provide competent teachers to ensure that these preschool children can have exposure to early education at the preschool level before starting their formal education at the mainstream level,' she said.
She also said that these efforts are in line with the education reforms being implemented by the MOE0, including drafting the new education development plan and the massive expansion of preschool education.
Meanwhile, the event began yesterday with a forum themed 'Accelerating Innovative Strategies: Mitigating Out-of-School Children and Youth (OOSCY) Challenges,' aimed at strengthening collective efforts through the sharing of information related to groups lacking access to education and at risk of dropping out, as well as other issues related to dropouts.
In addition to ASEAN members and Timor Leste as observers, the ASEAN Education Forum is also being attended by representatives from international organisations such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organisation (SEAMEO) and ICESCO.
This year marks the fifth time Malaysia has held the ASEAN Chairmanship, having previously held the position in 1977, 1997, 2005 and 2015.

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