LeapEd: Transforming schools with innovative educational programs

Enjoying the fruits of its labour, as the saying goes –well sums up a moment of pride for award-winning social enterprise LeapEd in its latest achievement. As Malaysia’s first homegrown education service provider, LeapEd’s years of invested efforts and commitment in supporting government schools with transformational and high-quality education programs and projects have unleashed desired results.

Thanks to LeapEd’s progressive mentorship and coaching of schools, one of its school mentees, SK Putrajaya Precinct 11 (1), recently won the AIA Healthiest School Regional Awards of the primary school category, beating a pool of stiff contenders made up of private and government schools from around the Asia-Pacific region! The school’s win is just the latest in LeapEd’s string of international accolades that were amassed by several other Malaysian schools that the enterprise has coached and guided over the years. 

For the AIA Healthiest School Regional Awards, the competition was the pinnacle showcase of the AIA Healthiest Schools Program, which empowers teachers and students from these schools to learn more about healthy habits and lifestyle choices through the supply of educational resources.

Promoting health and wellbeing

This one-of-its-kind program was launched for its inaugural year to help school communities inculcate changes across four pillars namely healthy eating, active lifestyles, mental wellbeing, and health and sustainability, ultimately supporting them to lead healthier and happier lives. This program is accessible to all primary and secondary schools not just in Malaysia but across the Asia-Pacific region, which includes Australia, Hong Kong (only primary), Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

LeapEd was appointed as AIA’s education partner for the program’s launch while coordinating competition logistics that included coaching and guiding schools to submit their entries. For SK Putrajaya Precinct 11 (1), the school had designed an innovative ‘HELPIE’ app to promote stress management and emotional well-being of students, leading it to being crowned overall champion in the regional competition and earning them a USD$100,000 to further boost their school’s plans for more health and well-being initiatives.

LeapEd’s ongoing mission for educational transformation

Founded by Khazanah Nasional Berhad back in 2010 to recognise the critical role of education towards nation-building, LeapEd underwent a management buyout in 2020 by four of its former directors. Today, it is independently-owned and led, continuing with its driven mission and vision of creating a better Malaysia through improved access to transformational and quality educational programs with an emphasis on student-centred learning.

Anchored in research-based and data-driven design, development, and delivery of its programs, LeapEd is further backed by over 140 years of educational experience of its leadership team combined. As pioneers of a public-private partnership model, LeapEd’s clear focus on sustainability and scalability proved critical in navigating unprecedented challenges and crisis posed by the global pandemic back in 2020, as well as other socio-economic and political hurdles along the way. 

“Since day one, LeapEd was birthed from the mission statement of bridging the gap between potential and opportunity in education. We are proud to have made significant strides in this area even after taking over the baton, to continue creating positive impacts to more schools through our guided ethos that is ‘Theory of Change’,” says LeapEd’s Chairperson, Shahnaz Al-Sadat Bt Abdul Mohsein

“The Theory of Change aims to foster a culture of innovation in schools and to develop holistic and well-rounded students by coaching them with high-quality leadership and management development skills. To date, we are pleased to have reached out to nearly 1,300 schools, profoundly impacting over 257,200 students and more than 12,700 teachers nationwide. It’s a huge feat for us, among various other accomplishments such as our Trust Schools Programme, which is our flagship school transformation solution in its entirety,” adds Shahnaz.

A diverse and inclusive initiative

Currently, there are 94 Trust Schools established in 13 states, representing the diverse communities from urban and rural, B40 and Middle-Income groups, Chinese and Tamil schools, Orang Asli communities, Islamic religious schools, and high-performing residential schools.

With the aim of revitalising school cultures that would produce holistic student outcomes, the program has seen significant results in its target metric areas such as enhanced school leadership, improved teaching and learning methodologies, and greater involvement by the parents and immediate community. Two of its Trust Schools were even shortlisted as finalists for the World’s Best School Prizes in 2022. 

“As a social enterprise working across a diverse education ecosystem, we ensure that every investment goes towards the betterment of people and society. There is no school too small, no community unworthy. We want to be the catalyst that improves life opportunities for every single child we work with, because each one of them deserves a great future,” says Shahnaz.

According to LeapEd’s post-Covid Recovery Research Study, findings had shown the emergence of deeply-rooted, multi-faceted issues that are beleaguering Malaysia’s education sector. While it notes that perceptions may vary, the Covid timeframe has brought about learning losses and reversed a decade of learning improvement.

The disappointing 2023 PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) results further reinforced the urgency for a swifter and more strategic response to close the digital divide, evident by how the pandemic had accelerated the shift to digital learning. But with the encouraging announcement last October for a special budget allocation to address the effects of pandemic learning disruptions, a coalition of educational civil society organisations was formed as a result to deploy efforts in achieving a common goal. 

Transforming education across Malaysia

LeapEd, meanwhile, is resolved to supporting such efforts with two key, ground-breaking initiatives that will be carried out this year – which are the Sekolah Anak Malaysia (SAM) inaugural launch as Malaysia’s first digital school to be run as a social enterprise, and the Coalition for Recovery in Education (CoRE), which will involve families, educators, civil society, business community, and other ministries with a potential outreach impact to another 210,000 students all over Malaysia.

“Looking ahead, we will keep pushing forward to scale our impact, explore new models, enhance sustainability and strengthen our strategic partnerships. We are thankful for our passionate education specialists who collaborate with global and local experts in curating innovative programs as we seek to transform one school at a time. By creating supportive teams, they will be looking at every aspect of school operations before designing, developing, and implementing tailored programs with measurable and sustainable impact,” explains Shahnaz.

LeapEd’s transformational strategies and activities are closely aligned to the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013 – 2025 and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Its strategic partners include Yayasan AMIR and the Ministry of Education Malaysia.

For its instrumental contributions to nation-building, LeapEd has received multiple awards over the years, such as the Sustainability and CSR Leadership Award (for a social enterprise) in 2020, the Sustainability & CSR Malaysia Awards (for a social enterprise) in 2021, and the Malaysian Education Excellence Award for Asia Pacific (KSI Strategic Institute) in 2024.

To learn more, visit https://www.leapedservices.com