MARA Junior Science College Langkawi
editThe MARA Junior Science College (Malay: Maktab Rendah Sains MARA),or MJSC, Langkawi is one of the branch MJSCs created by the People's Trust Council (Malay: Majlis Amanah Rakyat, MARA), a Malaysian government agency in Kedah, Malaysia. This institution serves as middle/high school for bright students from Form 1 to Form 5 (equivalent of Grade 7 to Grade 11), and provides available learning resources and facilities to promote study environment.
Background
editEstablished in 1999, this school was inspired by the former Fourth Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. Located on hillside, the thrilling environment serves as catalyst to induce students study environment. The hillside topography was fully utilized on the building construction enabling all the buildings to connect under one roof. Due to this, it was also known as "One-roof MJSC".[1]
The first students intake was during 1999, which divided into two groups, Form 1 intake and Form 4 intake. This trend continues annually until 2015. The next year until recent, the school only take Form 1 students after the implementation of Form 3 Assessment (Malay: Pentaksiran Tingkatan 3) replacing the previous public examination, Lower Secondary Examination (technically, public middle school examination), that only serves to sort students into upper secondary level (high school). All the Form 4 students (Junior-year students) will be from those who passed the Form 3 Assessment with flying colors.[1]
Education System
editMJSC Langkawi is listed as one of the MJSCs in Malaysia that offers IGCSE (Cambridge International General Certificate of Secondary Education) since 2013[2]. This system is introduced to allow the students to pursue their education according to Cambridge-level curriculum and allows them to further their tertiary education as early as age 16 to the U.K if they satisfied the requirements by Cambridge. However, this system brings a lot of drawbacks and one of them is the students will not take the Malaysia Education Certificate (MEC), public examination for Form 5 students (Senior-year) .required by the Ministry of Education, Malaysia if they were certified as IGCSE scholars. Thus, neglecting them from being able to work in any Malaysian government agency.
Starting 2014, the system was changed to dual certificates program which allow the students to be certified as both IGCSE and MEC recipients. By doing this, if the students were not able to strive in IGCSE, they are still able to take the MEC. This system covers the drawbacks of IGCSE, and expands the options for the students to further their study and still manage to be employed in the country. Other than that, MJSC Langkawi follows the rest of the education through the guidelines proposed by Ministry of Education, Malaysia and MARA. Every semester, there will be three internal tests, Midterm 1, Midterm 2, and Final Semester, to measure the students knowledge and understandings. This will accumulate as part of their CGPAs, besides course works, quizzes, attendance, and attitude. All the CGPA will count up until Form 5, and finishing all the requirements for attending the MJSC will be acknowledged as graduates. This graduates will be celebrated annually to show gratitude for the students for completing their study in MJSC Langkawi.
Notable Mentions
editBefore the implementation of dual certificates program, MJSC Langkawi was only based on striving the MEC examination. Known for only newly established school, MJSC Langkawi was able to rise to the top and nominated as one of the prestigious school in Malaysia. In year 2007, the school manage to grab the first ranking of MEC all-school results beating all the other prestigious that established long before MJSC Langkawi. Following the next year, the school manage to maintain their position, catching the attention of the higher ups of MARA officers.[3] Acknowledging their performances, the school has been named as one of the MJSCs that will carry out special programs to groom more intelligent students. In this program, the education is a little bit strict and received more attentions by the higher ups for the performances. This also makes MJSC Langkawi as one of role models for the other MJSCs to follow.
Related Issues
editIn 2014, a free writer from the MalayMail Online wrote that this MJSC was promoting militant influence. Based solely on pictures uploaded on Facebook, the writer was unaware of the event that took place on that day. The Director of MARA responded, after looking thoroughly the proposal sent by MJSC Langkawi and visiting the school, it was noted that the event took place was to promote humanity and equality. It is one of MARA programs that on a particular week every semester, there will be an Activity Week. During this week, the school will hold various activities for the students to relax from their study and enjoy their settlement at MJSC. In addition to this, there will be a slot for promoting peace and humanity which crucial for the students to learn about current issues. Adding to that, it was also a part of guidelines provided by MARA to ensure that the students are learning not only subjects in classes, but also the values and celebrates other cultures and traditions across the globe. The event that took place was in conjunction to the recent attack on Gaza which killed thousands of citizen. Thus, MJSC Langkawi was looking into this issue to evaluate the humanity aspect, and not to promote hatred or radical actions towards any particular country.[4]
References
edit- ^ a b "MRSM Langkawi". langkawi.mrsm.edu.my. Retrieved 2017-02-13.
- ^ "Sistem dwi-sijil SPM, IGCSE di MRSM 2016". www.sinarharian.com.my. Retrieved 2017-02-13.
- ^ "MRSM lulus 100% SPM". Utusan Online. Retrieved 2017-02-13.
- ^ "MARA inculcates universal peace and humanity among MRSM students — MARA". 2014-09-06. Retrieved 2017-02-13.