New portal helps school kids with science, maths

The ASTI STEM Academy is a new portal to help schoolchildren assess their progress in science and mathematics.

PETALING JAYA: With the pandemic causing multiple disruptions in education, the Association of Science, Technology and Innovation (ASTI) is helping students get back on track through its latest online portal which focuses on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) topics.

The portal, called the ASTI STEM Academy (ASA), is being launched today and is available in Malay, English and Tamil. Free Malaysia Today is its official media partner.

Schoolchildren in Standards One to Six will be able to gauge their learning progress through robust self-assessments on the portal, mainly through monthly science or mathematics quizzes.

The ASA is the first initiative under ASTI’s two-year recovery plan to help schoolchildren make up for lost time after frequent school closures in the past year.

ASTI president Mohamed Yunus Yasin said ASA was aimed to give students an indication of their level of understanding on a certain subject, which would allow them to take “necessary action to improve themselves,”.

“We understand some students and their parents may not have regular assessments readily available to them, and believe this to be one of the reasons why they seem to be lagging behind in a particular topic.

“We hope this issue can be immediately mitigated through the implementation of the ASA portal,” he said.

The results from the quizzes can also be used by the student, teacher or parent to strategise their learning approach, he added.

Yunus also said the self-assessment feature was included to allow communities to be honest and take responsibility for their own future.

“There is no cheating here,” he said. “Trust is pertinent in everything we do, and this includes the way in which standardised assessments are conducted.”

While there are immediate initiatives to cushion the pandemic’s impacts, FMT managing director Azeem Abu Bakar said it was time to start planning for the long term.

Malaysia’s mass media should get involved in the country’s recovery post-pandemic, especially in terms of education. He said FMT had a duty to use its reach to inform the masses of the ASA programme to benefit as many students as possible.

“Since schools are closed, local media need to step in to become the intermediary to connect affected students to the tools that are available, to get them back on track,” said Azeem.

The ASA portal is free throughout the year and new quizzes will be uploaded every month.

Registration is open at: www.astistemacademy.com while enquiries may be sent by e-mail to [email protected] or Whatsapp 014-7124217.