KUALA LUMPUR: The start of the academic calendar will revert to January starting 2026.
Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek said her ministry has started working on reverting the school session to the January starting point by bringing forward the start of the Academic Calendar 2024/ 2025 to February.
"The request to revert the start of the school session to January will be fulfilled in 2026," she said in the Dewan Rakyat today.
Fadhlina (PH - Nibong Tebal) was responding to a question by Aminolhuda Hassan (PH - Seri Gading) who asked the government when the start of the academic calendar would return to January instead of the current March date.
The start of the school calendar was previously changed from January to March in 2022, after the government announced that the 2021 school session would be extended to February the next year due to disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdown measures.
Fadhlina expressed hope that following the announcement, all stakeholders would do the necessary planning and arrangement to prepare for the change in the start of the school session for the upcoming academic calendar.
"The ministry hopes the announcement will enable parties involved to do the proper planning with regards to financial and economic aspects," she said, adding that the move is in line with the ministry's goal to ensure the well-being of all parties in the education sector.
She added that the ministry had looked into and studied several factors to implement changes involving the start of the school session.
"The change in the school academic calendar needs to take into account several factors including the local economy and other external factors such as floods, which usually occur during the end of the year.
"We also need to ensure that the changes will not disrupt the examination calendar for the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM), Sijil Tinggi Pelajaran Malaysia (STPM) and Sijil Tinggi Agama Malaysia (STAM) exams.
"The ministry also needs to ensure that changes will ensure that teaching and learning process remain at the optimum level, where between 32 and 36 weeks learning period is needed to complete the entire co-curriculum throughout the year," she said.