In an effort to make meaningful contributions and bring education to the less fortunate, UTAR collaborated with ECM Libra to organise an eight-month comprehensive English and IT Tuition Programme for primary school students from SJK (C) Thung Hon and SJK (C) Jeram in Kampar. The two schools were identified from the UTAR New Village Community Project.
Conducted since March 2015 by UTAR Department of Soft Skills Competency (DSSC), and ending with a closing ceremony at UTAR Kampar Campus on 21 November 2015, the programme was aimed to boost the school students’ English Language and IT proficiency and intensify their understanding of the subjects.
Invited to grace the closing ceremony were UTAR Vice President for Student Development and Alumni Relations Dr Teh Chee Seng, UTAR Faculty of Information and Communication Technology lecturer Dr Lau Phooi Yee, DSSC Head Hee Chwen Yee, Headmaster of SJK (C) Thung Hon Sam Chee Chong, representative of SJK (C) Jeram Hoi Jung Yhee, UTAR student volunteers, staff, school students, and parents.
Speaking at the ceremony, Dr Teh thanked ECM Libra for its generous contribution towards promoting education and mastery of languages, especially amongst the young. Meanwhile, the headmaster of SJK (C) Thung Hon concurred, “I would like to sincerely thank UTAR and ECM Libra for giving us such an ideal opportunity for our school students to learn the right basic knowledge of English and IT.”
The English Tuition programme focused primarily on the teaching of listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills to the school students. Apart from indoor learning, the students also engaged in interactive activities such as storytelling, grammar lessons, English language-related games, reading aloud, and singing action songs to motivate students’ interest in English. Meanwhile, the components of the IT Tuition programme were the indoor class training on some basic programming and animation skills. Both English and IT classes were conceptualised as an educational yet enjoyable platform to encourage students’ to be dynamic, creative, and innovative. Guided by the instructors and UTAR student volunteers from various faculties, the school students had a whale of a time with exciting language and IT classes.
The closing ceremony ended with Dr Teh presenting prizes to school students who had performed well in the final assessment as well as those who had shown great improvement in the programme.
