Empower to Empower | Dzameer Dzulkifli | TEDxSungaiSegget

Assalamualaikum!
Good morning everyone!

Thanks for inviting me here today.

A lot of great speakers have spoken
before this as well.

My name is Dzameer Dzulkifli and I am

The co-founder and managing director
of Teach for Malaysia.

Today I'll be talking to you guys
about Teach for Malaysia,

and specifically, a program
we are doing, which is

Empower to Empower.

What is this actually?

What is actually an education?

For us in Teach for Malaysia,
we believe excellent education

in Malaysia is where all children

are empowered to be leaders
of their own learning,

their future,
and the nation's future.

This is what empowerment means:

the choice to do
whatever you want,

wherever you want,
and not being afraid

of being told that
you cannot do it.

Here are some stats for Malaysia:

44% of 14-year-olds in Malaysia
do not meet minimum

international literacy
proficiency levels.

60% do not meet
numeracy proficiency levels.

1 out of 5 of Malaysians
do not complete

their secondary school education.

This is the stats.

How does it look in real life?

How do you feel this and see this
in the classrooms in Malaysia?

I got a short video here that I
would like to share with you guys.

My name is Rakis

I...old...old...old

You try to read this.
Just try only

...

I...

I...wit...to be...

No.

Totally do not understand?

OK, never mind.
I'll ask you another question

Just give it a try.

One two three four five
six seven eight nine ten

eleven...twelve... I don't knoooow

After twelve you don't know?

My name is Jayalatumi.

I old is twenty...
twenty years old.

Twenty years old?

How do we pronounce 13
in English?

Twenteen years old.

Thirteen.

Thirteen years old.

OK, Jaya.
Can you please read this for me?

When.

When I...

You try?

When I...

These are some of the kids
in Malaysia

that have been going through
the education system

and so struggled.

Their background often limits
their opportunity.

It's not they lack the ability.

I personally was very shocked once,
when I visited the classroom.

I went into a Form 2
Geography classroom.

There was an excercise going on.

Most of the boys and girls
were active in the class,

except for one of the boys,
who was at the back,

sitting very quietly,
looking down.

And I asked him,
What's up? What's going on?

Kenapa berdiri di sini?
(Why do you stand here?)

Ada masalah tak?
(Are you ok?)

Boleh saya tolong?
(Do you need any help?)

And then he said:

Cikgu saya tak tahu baca
(Sir, I dont know how to read).

This was a Malay boy
who could not read

in Malay Geography class

and that really shocked me.

It wasn't the usual challenge, one
of a SJK (C) or SJK (T) challenges,

but this was in his own language,

his mother tongue language,

that he could not read.

And if you cannot read, you don't have
access to the information.

These are what the stats
don't tell us about

living in low-income
communities, right?

Kids at the age of...

Sometimes even at the age of eight

have to start working for
their families.

They don't have any role models
growing up...

The university or the creative arts
or starting up barbershops as well

they don't have the role model
and programs like JOHO are amazing.

They did not pass UPSR and this has
created self-defeated attitude.

No one has actually told them
"You can succeed!"

"You can progress!"
"You can be amazing!"

And that is what the kids really need:

the sense of hope and motivation.

So given all the challenges that we have
seen in the education stats,

what does the little organization
like Teach for Malaysia want to do?

We believe that talent is at the key
in any successful organization

and more importantly in the
education system.

If you attract top graduates and
young professionals

that have never been considered
the career of teaching

because they have been told
to be doctors, lawyers, engineers,

maybe startups founders
or now-a-days bankers and consultants,

who is going to pass down the
civilization to the next generation?

Teach for Malaysia is going out there
to recruit top graduates to teach

as full time teachers in underprivileged
schools for two years.

During that two years,

they all make an impact on the students,

but more importantly
they understand what challenges

faced by the students and how to
remove those barriers in a long run.

They can decide to stay in the
education system

or they can decide to leave,

but there will be always an alumni movement
dedicated towards systematic change.

Not only pushing the boundary of
one kid at a time,

but pushing all of Malaysia
forward, simultaneously.

Now I am going to show you a video
about one of our fellows

sharing a short reflection.

You met Jaya earlier on.
She's been talking about

how she worked with Jaya for
two years in her fellowship

on top of being a full time teacher,

she did after school classes
with Jaya as well.

In my first year of teaching,
I had a student named Jaya.

She was thirteen years old when
I first met her.

So she was at Form 1 and what
really strucked me with Jaya was

She could not write and read at all.

She knew the alphabet, but
she did not know how it sounded.

So I offered to give her extra
classes after school

and she took them up.

And she will come to my house
every day after school.

We will go through all
the books together.

So we started at Peter and Jane
this was at Level 1A.

And I realized that she could not
read the first word in the book,

which was Peter.

We started from there and
it was the level she began with

and we moved from there to
few different levels as well.

So after four months,

she could finally finish
reading book 1A Peter and Jane

and she asked me if she could
bring her entire family along

to the reading session.

Erm, I said sure.

So she brought her family along
and I realized that

her entire family could not read.

So she has a brother
who is 16 years old at this point

and he could not read as well.

What was really shocked me
after seeing all that was

the moment when I saw her at book 3A.

She was at 3A at this point, but

she was confidently reading to
her sister and her brother.

And she was telling them
how to pronounce certain words.

And at that moment,

I realized that I was not just
teaching her,

but I empowered her to teach
her entire family as well.

So this is a ripple effect:

One teacher impacts one student
one bit in a time, and

it impacts the whole family.

That is what we are looking for

and so far, in the past 5 years

Teach for Malaysia has recruited
253 fellows to be part of this program.

31 of them are actually
based in Pasir Gudang, Johor.

In 22 schools not too far away
from Johor Bahru

and also Sungai Segget

which I just learn a lot about.

We are here... I mean...

we'll be placed in an underprivileged school,

low-income communities,
industrial communities,

and we want to be working with
all sorts of like players and stakeholders in Johor

to help these kids to see
a different future for themselves.

They need the exposure and

the most memorable line I had
that a fellow told me

they said,
Dzameer in the end of the day

we are just the routers.

We take the kids and
show them the outside world

and we get the outside world
and we show them to the kids.

Once the kids see that there
is already a natural spark in them

that continues to glow.

Now what happened after two years Dzameer?

What can you do in two years, right?

What can you do with 250 people?

So far, 150 fellows have completed
their two years

and this is where the real magic of
Teach for Malaysia happens.

What happens here is that
they decide what to do the next

and out of these 150
around 45 of them

are in the education sector

so they continue to be a full-time teachers

with MOE (Ministry of Education)
as a civil servants.

About another 40% are in the social sector
or education sector

and then another 30%
is in the private sector,

places like Shell, CIMB,
Bank Negara, McKinsey, etc.

But what they are going to
do as a group?

Here're a few examples.

5 of them that remains as teachers
demonstrated such great leadership

that they influenced their principals

to start up an Innovative
School Transformation Project,

the Trust School Program.

They are teaching and training
almost 80 to 120 other teachers

that impact another 1000 students.

This is only on the third or
fourth year of teaching.

Some of them decided then
that the classroom and

the school environment is not for them.

They wanted to start an after
school program.

And the after school program
is really pushing kids

because there is no curriculum

there is only problem
plus programming.

And when they did this,

they were so successful that they are
taking kids from low-income communities

they were even challenging
the Sekolah Berasrama Penuh

and the International School kids

and programming and
coding challenges

and they were winning awards.

And then spotted them
and telling them that

Hey we have been thinking about

rewriting the computer and
science curriculum

can you come help us do it?

You understand the system,
you understand the computer science,

let's do it together!

And so they appointed them to rewrite

the computer science curriculum

as well as train 22 other pilot
schools to run this program.

Another group of alumni said,

You know, I have been teaching in classroom

and the most things that I struggle
with is without resources.

I don't have exciting book,
I don't have exciting resources,

I can't take my kids for trip,

It is so difficult...

What we are going to do?

Let's start a crowd-funding platform
for teachers.

Not just for Teach for Malaysia fellows

but every teacher can sign up a program and fundraise.

And so far they have raised
more than 380000 MYR

for different projects around schools.

This is only with Alumni

with in the third fourth to fifth year
of the program experience.

In the next twenty or thirty years,

in fact Teach for America,

Teach for Malaysia is part of
the global network

called Teach for All

And Teach for America is one of
the oldest partners there

where you have even
the Minister of Education

as well as the Head of the IRS

was a Teach for America alumni or
is a Teach for America alumni.

In fact, I just heard about a story that

one of them was even a fireman,
and if there is a fire in the school

you know you will be getting there first.

So it takes everybody, it takes a village
to raise a child in that sense.

I am going to leave you again

talking about this thought how the empowerment
has such a strong ripple effect.

You heard about Suet Lee teaching Jaya

who then impacted her
16 years old brother.

I am going to leave you
with one video to thank the teachers,

but also to see how Suet Lee's little brother
Jason also became a fellow.

The amount of joy

satisfaction enjoyment

(Audiences clapped)

I also wish that I had a teacher
like Ms. D or Jason as well

and I know many of you do

And so as I leave today
I just want to ask you

Who was that teacher that
left a spark in you?

We should tell them and thank them
while they are still around.

And if you want to empower a kid
or kids in Malaysia

What would you say to them?

Empower to empower.

Thank you very much.