Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Malaysia: Accreditation & Renewal of kindergarten/tadika licence procedures.

This entry is per the discussion with a registered tadika (kindergarten) operator in Malaysia recently, and I will include in my blog here. As a disclaimer, this is only a skeleton draft, but it will give you a general idea on how the accreditation & licence renewal procedures in Malaysia takes place.

The Ministry of Eduation (MOE) is responsible in implementing the Education Act 1996 in which pre-school to post secondary (Lower/Upper Form Six) education fall. The other government agencies that offer preschool education are the Ministry of Rural Development, the Ministry of National Unity & Social Development, and the Ministry of Women, Family & Community Development.

As said, tadikas or kindergartens are centres licensed to enrol children in the age group of 3.5/4 - 6 years of age. A centre which does not have the title "tadika" is questionable in its status of being a licensed centre under the Ministry of Education in Malaysia. So it is important for prospective parents, or trained teachers to do their research before settling at a centre to work at, or enrolling their children.

The tadika which I was working at is a private kindergarten, and hence by law, they are required to follow the National Preschool Curriculum set out by the MOE. This comes to mean that the private tadika is allowed to implement their own curriculum on provision that it is implemented on top of the National Preschool Curriculum.

Only International Pre-Schools are exempt from the jurisdiction of the Education Act 1996, and from abiding by the National Preschool Curriculum. The operators normally provide services for children from expatriate families and the learning program normally takes places in a foreign language (or fully in English, for the British & American International Pre-Schools).

The logistics & steps as per the accreditation & licence renewal procedure in Malaysia are as follows, that to renew the yearly kindergarten licence, the Ministry of Education (MOE) Malaysia requires tadikas to submit the set of forms that includes the processes of:

1) The Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur (DBKL) or your respective city's planning department approval. This depending on the discretion of the deptartment - may require renewal every 1-3 years). This includes having to check for fire emergency exits, structure of the building and passing the examination of the Fire Department's check. However, due to lack of work personnel, the authorities may or may not come to check.

2) Teachers' permit being required to renew on an annual basis. A renewal fee of RM2 is charged per application. This includes any new teachers that is being employed by the centre.

3) Filling in of relevant documents and statistics which includes information in each respective category of:
the enrolled children- number. of children in each age group, ethnic groups, gender,
the teaching staff- number of teachers, their gender, their qualifications,
the managing/administration staff- the Board of the centre: i.e, chairman, manager, princiipal, treasurer, secretary, etc. their occupations, their experience, their qualification.
the facilities of the centre- building size, equipment, building plan.
the hours taken per week for each subjectm, the medium of teaching, subjects taught in the centre.

According to the principal of a registered tadika (kindergarten), so far there has been no officer that comes to check the school over the last 12 years that the school has been in operation. It seems that there are not adequate enforcement officers in the MOE as they have to look into the public schools, the primary & secondary schools. The privately run centres also comes under the administration of the MOE. This includes private colleges, institutes, tuition centres and private tadikas.

The tadikas are zoned into different areas. The zone leaders will inform the schools for meetings and training workshops. They may have plans to award stars for outstanding kindergartens, but it is only a plan as there is always short of manpower in the MOE to implement ideas and quality control.

Tadika operators are facing decrease in enrollment each year as many unregistered preschools have sprouted up without any licences. Many operate in shoplots & dilute the business of those licenced & registered tadika operators.

Related Links:
Study Malaysia: Malaysia Education System.
ERIC: Promoting & Investing in EC Dev. Projects.
ERIC: Teacher Preparation & Professional Dev. in APEC: A Comparative Study.
ERIC: Experiences with the Situation Approach in Asia.

28 comments:

kai said...

Hi there,

I was looking for information on running a kindergarten in Malaysia and I stumbled to your site.

Would you be able to clarify for me, what is the qualification I will need to run my own kindergarten?

Thanks in advance :)

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Ana said...

Hi,

I'm a mother of 2 kindergarten going children. I had a bitter experience with the Kindergarten management that I stopped my children after August. The owner asked me to pay the fees for November in installments from (May-Sept). So far I have paid RM176, but now they refuse to pay any money saying it is the policy of all the kindergarten (Malaysia) not to return the money. Is this true and can they claim the money when I was not told the money is not refundable. What action can I take against this type of Kindergarten operators?

Thanks :)

CheaYee said...

Hi. You might want to try this site for more information.
http://tribunal.kpdnhep.gov.my/

Read here for some more information that I took from their pamplets.

http://thebeautyregime.blogspot.com/2009/06/consumer-protection-ttpm-tribunal.html

http://thebeautyregime.blogspot.com/2009/06/consumer-protection-cases-of.html

Jingy said...

Hi, I'm a student studying in the UK. I have a dissertation to do right now and am focusing on early years settings in malaysia, the downside is i couldnt get much information from the web like the national preschool curriculum or sort of the policies as it's not stated clearly on MOE. can u give me any guides?

CheaYee said...

Hi Ron Ron..

been busy and all..

Life is difficult as a.... single chinese female who has no choice but to live with her parents in a typical asian family prototype.

Anyways, as for the guidelines, its quite difficult to get any information from the websites..(from my experience).

You may have to get someone to get the guidelines for you (meaning- buy the books). and then send it to you by air or sea-mail (whichever is preferably cheaper, and faster) ^^.

If you were asking about Australian Queensland education setting and guidelines, i could show the way... but our malaysian website are somehow ill equipped for such strenuous demands on their online servers.

^^

Putri Gayatri Pertiwi said...

Dear CHea-Yee,

I am an anthropologist student of the master 'children's rights' at the university of amsterdam.

Next week (feb 2, 2010) i will fly to kuala lumpur to conduct a qualitative research on child's play in the kindergartens.

It would be a privilege if i can see you and discuss my research topic in detail.

I appreciate your reply to my email: putrigayatri@gmail.com.

Thank you!

Putri Gayatri

Unknown said...

Dear CHea-Yee

I am thinking of opening a Private Nursery in Sarawak but heard that need License and I have none whatsoever relevant qualification, it would be great if you could advice what type of qualification required i.e. degree course? Cheers and Happy Chinese New Year!

John

CheaYee said...

Hi there.....

yes, to open a kindergarten, you'd need to get certification. During my time it was about 2 years Diploma.. but they may have changed the rules.

You really need to check with the local department.

Now, there are many early childhood colleges, and they include accounts and finance management of the school.

You can take the local govt institute or the private one. the private one will cost a bit more though.

Unknown said...

Hi i am a master student for early childhood education in University Malaya. Currently i am doing a quantitative research regarding parents' belief toward children play. I am looking for parents who have children between the age of 4 to 6 years old to answer my questionnaire. Can anyone tell me how can i get Malaysian parents email to send my questionnaire to them? I believe that by sending email i will get the respond faster than going to kindergarten. Welcome for advice.

Unknown said...

Hi i am a master student of early childhood education from University Malaya. Currently i am doing a quantitative research regarding parents belief about children play. I am looking for parents who have children between the age of 4 to 6 years old to answer my questionnaire. Can anyone tell me how can i get parents email to send them my questionnaire? I believe that by sending email i can get respond faster than going to kindergarten. Welcome for any commnet or advice. Thank

kc2h said...

Can anyone tell me what is the qualification to be a kindergarten teacher? What I mean here is accredited by UK association. Thanks

Latisha Merican said...

Dear Chea-Yee,

Thanks for a most-informative blog. I do have a question though - my boss, who has 6 kindergartens in Singapore would like to expand to Malaysia and is looking to buy over an existing kindergarten would like to know if there are agents who can search for kindergartens for sale. Similar to property agents, they are called business brokers. I've tried to get in touch with a few, but I've not been replied to yet.

Thanks!

Kung Chin Chin said...

Hi, Where can i get a runner to help me to apply kindergarten licence?

Will appreciate if you can send me the answer to my email. chin2kung@gmail.com

Regards
chin

CheaYee said...

my dear Mr. Chin,

I really wouldn't know..

Perhaps you can google it, as I have not done any application for kindergarten licensing recently (and I don't have to do it yet!)

yo said...

i'd really want to open a daycare nursery in my area, but i hv no qualification or whatever that needed for starting this business. i'm only a primary teacher that hv so much passion in taking care of babies n kids. i love'em so much! basically i'll be starting from scratch..so where do i start? help me.

Gerald said...

Hi Chea-Yee, you have a pretty informative blog here, so my thanks for that. I'd like to discuss further on the requirements and prospects of starting a tadika in Malaysia, so if you could shoot me an email (gerryboyj@gmail.com) that'd be fantastic! Thanks!

Unknown said...

I'm doing a research to estimate the number of Private Preschools in Malaysia. The statistics from MOE only list out the registered preschools. From what I gather majority of private preschools are unregistered hence I'm trying to get an estimate on the number of unregistered preschools vs. registered ones.

Can anyone here volunteer an estimate or a guesstimate as to what's the ratio of registered vs. unregistered preschools in Malaysia? E.g. for 1 registered preschool, there are 3 unregistered ones. Any info will help even though it may be estimates based purely from your experience. Thank you!

Unknown said...

Hi,

I'm alvina, I'm think to open a tadika in Malaysia. What are the requirements and procedures?

Unknown said...

Hi, I want to run a taska. Do you know any agency that can help with getting me license and the procedure to go with it

Unknown said...

Hi, I want to run a taska. Do you know any agency that can help with getting me license and the procedure to go with it

Anonymous said...

Hai I am Mona here when i was form four i selected to study early childhood education.I done my early childhood education for 2 years when i were in school.after I done my SPM i get a special certificate for early childhood education.Now i am 23 can i start my own business to run a childcare center or any other children centers? is that need any special requirement?

CheaYee said...

Hi, there are many questions regarding opening centres in Malaysia. At this juncture, I am unable to answer your questions as I am now based in Melbourne. In order to open your own centre, I have been told that you'd have to have studied up to diploma.

Just Google the local department, or go to a local Malaysian institute that provides training for early childhood, and they should be able to provide you the relevant information you need.

Unknown said...

Hi Murni,

I would like to open a kindergarten/children centre in Malaysia I am currently living in the U.K. I have a Bachelors in Nursing, would this qualification be suitable for a kindergarten. I would be very grateful if you could get back to me with some advice and guidance.

Regards
Sara

CheaYee said...

Hi, i no longer can advise you on this. It is best if you ask someone who is currently living in malaysia, as I am now in Melbourne, Australia.

Unknown said...

Hi there,
I'm planing to open my own pre school. I have completed my PTM (persatuan tadika malaysia). I was wondering can I open a pre school with the above.

Anonymous said...

I'm looking forward to start a kindergarten with my friend. My friend has a degree in early childhood education while I have a degree in business administration. Could you introduce us a agency to help us with the application?

CheaYee said...

Hi, please refer to your local council. I am unable to help in this matter as I am based in Melbourne, Australia. Thanks.

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