In 2012 at The Edge Billion Ringgit Club gala dinner, The Edge Education Foundation (TEEF) launched the Programme for After Class Enrichment (PACE).

PACE, a tuition-cum-mentoring programme, was implemented in 2013 at two schools in Sentul. It benefited about 40 Form 1 students by providing tuition in three subjects (English, Bahasa Malaysia and Mathematics)and mentoring by volunteers from the private sector. Students were also exposed to learning opportunities outside the classroom through field trips.

The programme was sponsored by BRC member Kuala Lumpur Kepong Bhd.

Last week, TEEF held a simple ceremony at Taylor’s University Lakeside Campus to mark the “graduation” of the 40 students from the programme, which officially ended at the end of 2015 when these students had completed Form 3. The students were from SMK Convent Sentul and SMK (L) Methodist Sentul or MBS Sentul.

According to ‘The State of Households’ report by Khazanah Research Institute, statistics show that in Malaysia, one in six children does not make it to Form 4 and of those who do, a large majority do not continue to post-secondary education. Students who drop out of school before completing secondary education will struggle to find living-wage jobs. So seeing all but one of these students continue into Form 4 was a gratifying experience for TEEF and its PACE partners — EY, KLK Oleo and Taylor’s University.

Keeping these students in school was one of the aims of PACE when we launched the programme three years ago. Another was to ensure that the students did better in school by the end of the programme. As low income often correlates with low academic performance for a host of reasons, this proved to be a tougher challenge. Pentaksiran Tingkatan 3 (PT3) results showed their struggles, especially with Mathematics. And while 90% of the Convent Sentul students obtained A’s and B’s in several subjects, unfortunately, these were not the three core subjects.

Still, considering where these students started from when they were in Form 1, the foundation and our partners as well as the school principals believe PACE has helped them academically. At both schools, a fifth of the PACE students have moved up to a better class in Form 4.

Where PACE seems to have done best is in the area of socio-emotional competency. Over the three years, we saw improvements in two areas: confidence in relating to adults and ability to articulate. One of the biggest challenges when we first started working with PACE students in Form 1 was getting the students, especially those from Chinese vernacular primary schools, to speak, much less to speak in Bahasa Malaysia or English because of lack of confidence and low proficiency in the two languages.

But the constant interaction with Taylor’s students at both schools and mentors from EY (at Convent Sentul) and KLK Oleo (at MBS Sentul), plus exercises where PACE students had to do class presentations and “market” products as part of learning how to do a small business project, seem to have paid off. I was thrilled when several months ago, Ms Chew-Cheah Yee Choo, principal of MBS Sentul, sent me a photograph of two of the Chinese PACE students acting out a Bahasa Malaysia skit on stage! A PACE student at MBS came in second in his class and eighth out of some 80 students in the entire form in the first-term examination, making him the best-performing ex-PACE student so far this year.

It is stories like these that keep us going. We wish, however, that we could help more students. And that is why we are looking at approaches to education improvement that would have wider impact on students and schools. The foundation is currently exploring a potential project with some members of the Faculty of Education at the University of Malaya.

As a small foundation, collaboration is a necessity. But it is also an integral part of our philosophy and practice. For three years, we worked with Taylor’s University, EY and KLK Oleo to implement PACE in the two Sentul schools. In March this year, we launched the “Money & Me: Youth Financial Empowerment Programme” in partnership with Citibank, EY, GE, PwC and Methodist College Kuala Lumpur at five schools in Kuala Lumpur. “Money & Me” is a free financial literacy-cum-basic entrepreneurship skills programme for Form 4 students from low to lower-middle income homes that was designed by The Edge Education Foundation. The programme is funded by Citi Foundation.

The challenges facing our education system and schools are immense. They are way too big for any one company or foundation to tackle. And results take time to achieve. There are no quick fixes for our schools today — the problems have been too many years in the making.

Our schools need help, and who better to provide that help than members of The Edge Billion Ringgit Club? BRC members are in a unique position to bring about change because of their size, clout and resources. Many BRC members are already involved in schools and in supporting education. As a judge for the Corporate Responsibility component of the BRC awards, I know that BRC companies pour a huge amount of money into scholarships, infrastructure, school improvement and meal programmes, among others. There is no shortage of programmes. But the fragmented CR landscape when it comes to education can lead to duplication and working in silos, something that collaboration addresses.

As the philanthropic arm of The Edge Media Group, the foundation welcomes enquiries from BRC members that would be interested in working together to improve the state of our schools.