(From second left, seated) Sudarsono, Manyin and others give their thumbs-up to the conference during a photo call. — Photo by Chimon Upon

 

KUCHING: A total of 508 headmasters from the southern region of Sarawak are attending the Sarawak Headmasters Conference (Southern Zone) 2018 at Imperial Hotel here.

In addition, 10 district education offices and 10 school improvement partners are also taking part in the conference, said permanent secretary to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Research.

“This conference is the last of its series held to improve the leadership and management qualities among headmasters to achieve education excellence,” he said before Minister of Education, Science and Technological Research Dato Sri Michael Manyin Jawong launched the three-day conference yesterday.

Sudarsono said the first two conferences were held in Miri last November and Sibu in January.

“We have adjusted the programme based on the feedback gathered from the first two conferences. We hope that the third one will be the most effective for all of you today,” he said.

He regretted that Sarawak “is consistently at the bottom two of the national rankings” in public examinations and that prompted the ministry to initiate the conference, he added.

“Even though our UPSR (Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah) performance has gone up by one place (from 14th to 13th), this improvement is not enough. The minister (Manyin) has been directed by the (State) Cabinet to see how we can improve it,” pointed out Sudarsono.

He believed that if headmasters performed their roles well, Sarawak would be able to uplift its performance in public examinations.

The conference, which aims at sharing best leadership and successful school management practices, offers headmasters a platform to discuss and exchange views so as to expose them to new approaches of 21st century teaching and learning.