SHAH ALAM: A total of 576 schools, including in rural areas throughout the country, will be involved in the pilot Reading Progress application to help improve English proficiency among students.

Senior Education Minister Datuk Dr Radzi Jidin said this initiative, which kicked off today, involved 1,088 teachers.

"This application will be used in the teaching and learning system, especially to help students have good pronunciation of words in English.

"Through this approach, students can record audio and video or both when they read in English. In addition, this system will help them see what the words are, hear how they are pronounced and so on.

"This will help students recognise new words and the sentence structures better," he told reporters after launching the Reading Progress initiative, here, today.


Radzi said the initiative was part of the concept and efforts to digitise education and provide space for students to learn in a fun atmosphere.

He said the application would also make the teachers' task of assessing students' performance levels easier.

"The ministry is expected to roll out the application to all schools nationwide by early next year, in addition to the Bahasa Melayu application that will follow.

"This is a start, God willing, after we implement the pilot programme, we will improve it if necessary.

"The ministry will also expand to Bahasa Melayu when the Microsoft application is available, which is expected next year. All this is an approach to facilitate learning and ensure that it is more efficient and effective," he added.

-- BERNAMA