Back to School March/April 2021. Are you ready?

 The Ministry of Education Malaysia today announced back to school dates for kindergartens, primary and secondary schools, private schools, international schools, colleges and more. 

For the purpose of this post, we will only touch on preschool, primary and secondary, leaving higher education out. 

 Kindergarden and primary 1 and 2 will be the first batch to return to school on 1st March 2021. According to the ministry this is to allow this batch of students to return to school first to get used to the school SOP. It's true that this batch of students have had very little time in school last year or not at all this year so they will need some time to orientate to real school environment. Are parents and students ready? There are mixed feelings, furthermore some just received new timetables for longer hours of online learning just one or two days ago.

Following this batch, students from standard 3,4,5 and 6 will return to school on 8th March 2021.

Private school students will follow the same schedule as the above whilst International school students will start on 8th March 2021.

Tuition centres are allowed to operate with effect from 8th March 2021 as well.

As for Secondary school students, all secondary students will return to school on 4th or 5th April, 2021. (depending on which state they are in). 4th April for Group A schools and 5th April for Group B schools.

Group A schools are schools in  Kedah, Johor, Kelantan and Terengganu
Group B schools are schools in Perlis, Pulau Pinang, Perak, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, Melaka, Pahang, Sabah, Sarawak, Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur, Labuan & Putrajaya

The reason why secondary school will be starting later is because of SPM 2020 which will be starting on 22 February 2021 till 25 March 2021. It is to allow the students to sit for the exams without interruption or disruption. They will also need to use the classrooms.

So why not start after 25 March 2021? According to the Malaysian school calendar, the first term holidays starts on 26/27 March and ends on 3/4 April 2021. Hence secondary school students will only return to school after the completion of the first term school holidays. 

These dates will apply to the whole nation irrespective of whether the state is currently under MCO/CMCO/RMCO.

So, are you ready for back to school in March/April 2021?