Tech triumph
Principal undertakes changes through ICT

TECHNOLOGY can make a different as principal Tiong Ting Ming has shown at Sekolah Menegah Jenis Kebangsaan Dindings.Tiong took charge of school in Pundut, a small town in Perak1992 when it occupied a 30-years-old rundown building infested with termites.

More alarming to him was the high dropout rate among students, as many opted to work rather than continuing with their studies. The challenge to him was clear-cut: to keep students motivated and be interested in education.

While many in his shoes might have thrown the towel, Tiong was optimistic. He felt that if there was one thing that could bring improvement to the school, it must information and communications technology (ICT).

To get students to embrace the ICT culture, Tiong started by getting some PCs for the school. He organized some fundraising activities and made bus trips to Singapore to buy computer parts to repair old PCs. A computer club was also the aim of attracting students.

When the Internet became popular about five years ago, Tiong noticed that many students were flocking to the cybercafes. So, he decided to set up Internet facilities to entice students to stay in school.

Perseverance. To get sponsorship, Tiong would unabashedly knocked on office doors, and occasionally take the bus and travel all the way to Kuala Lumpur to meet some of the heads of well-known technology outfits.

His perseverance paid off when Mimos agreed to provide the school with 32 fixed Internet protocol (IP) addresses, together with a leased line, for use by the students and teachers.

Networking vendor 3Com sponsored a wireless Ethernet networking system worth RM20,000 allowing notebook computer users to surf the Net anywhere in the school without hooking up to a telephone line.

It has been 10 years since Tiong took charge of the school and many things have changed. The number of students, which was 320 in 1992, has increased to 852 and the dropout rate has been reduced significantly.Many of the student have developed a keen interest in their studies as well as ICT.

Tiong says the students are now able to design their own Web sites, burn CDs, download MP3 files and take picture using digital cameras with the facilities provided.The schools web site(www.smjkdgs.edu.my)is maintained by the students themselves.

For the teachers,Power-Point applications are often used in the classroom in place of blackboard and chalks.

Confidence. Tiong says the changes he introduced were initially met with some resistance met with some resistance from the teaching staff and parents. But he remained committed to his efforts. Both the teachers and parents soon have a change of heart when they saw the students staying back in school to use the computers and improvement in the enrolment rate.

“The students are more confident of themselves now. They’re acquiring the Internet culture and becoming more independent,” Tiong says. He says to adopt the ICT culture and reap its benefits school must work towards changing the mindset. “Not willing to unlearn and relearn, excuses like no time to spare, and unwilling to take risks are some of the stumbling blocks,” he adds.

Seeing what ICT has done, Tiong is now more ambitious and intends to transform the school into a hi-tech learning centre with the aim of producing tech-savvy students able to meet the challenges of the Information Age.