Reading, writing, arithmetic are implicit in the

basic right to education.

In 2008, 54,000 Year One pupils identified
with low literary skills were enrolled in the
Early Intervention Reading and Writing
Class (KIA2M) while 117,000 Year Four
pupils without basic numeracy skills were on
the 3R Remedial Programme (Protim).
Under the Government Transformation
Programme, the Education National Key
Results Area (NKRA) aims to eradicate the
dropout problem caused by students
inability to cope with mainstream education.

LINUS Programme

The Literacy and

Numeracy Screening
(LINUS) programme is
aimed at ensuring that
all Malaysian children
acquire basic literacy and
numeracy skills after
three years of
mainstream primary
education.

The Education
NKRA has set a
100% literacy and
numeracy target
for all Year Three
pupils in
Malaysia.

By basic literacy skills, the children are

expected to have the ability to read, write
and understand words, simple and complex
sentences (using conjunctions) in Bahasa
Malaysia and apply such knowledge in
learning and everyday communication.

For basic numeracy, the

children must be able to
read, write, count and
arrange (in order) whole
numbers from one till
1,000 by Year Three.

They are also expected to

demonstrate the ability to
solve basic mathematical
operations, apply
mathematical skills and
knowledge in everyday
activities involving time,
currencies and
measurements.

Unlike previous efforts to

address the numeracy and
literacy problems, LINUS
focuses on early
intervention in the early
primary years before the
pupils enter Year Four.

Previous programmes
either only focused on
literacy skills (KIA2M) or
conducted much later
between Year Four to Six
(Protim).

 LINUS is different from special education in that it

is a remedial programme which conducts
screenings of Year One pupil in March every year
to identify pupils who are weak in literacy and
numeracy skills.
Literacy and numeracy screenings are conducted
by the school teachers in March, June and
September every year. The instruments with
12 constructs are prepared by the Malaysian
Examinations Syndicate and passed on to the
district education offices to be distributed to
schools.
There are two parts to the screening written
and oral.

 The screening can be conducted in

class by the teacher any time within
the stipulated timeframe.
As this is a screening as opposed to a
test, teachers are allowed to provide
guidance to the students by
rewording the questions and giving
examples.

 Pupils who fail the screening test will

be enrolled in remedial classes with
10 periods per week for literacy
remedial and seven periods per week
for numeracy remedial.
Pupils who do not pass the construct
1 and 2 are classified as LINUS Tegar
(hardcore) and required to attend
remedial classes.