If you were born and raised in a traditional Asian family, you would most likely be tasked to go through endless face-to-face tuition classes and score as many ‘As’ as possible in all your school exams.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced students worldwide to adjust to the “new normal”, where they are compelled to learn and adapt to new ways of studying. Teachers are impacted as well, somewhat “forcing” them to devise new and creative ways of tutoring online classes. Among them are CK Khoo and Dino Goh, founders of HighSchool.my.
Being a former student himself, Dino clearly understood the wide ramifications school closures have on students’ learning and wellbeing, a fact supported by official data. According to a UNICEF report, more than 168 million students missed nearly a year’s worth of schooling during the pandemic.
Not wanting to see the same happen to Malaysian students, Dino, together with his friend and former video production manager CK Khoo, launched HighSchool.my as a platform to enable students to study online efficiently.
“When I first came into contact with Malaysia’s education platform, I found that most, if not all, education organisations were not adequately designed to meet the students’ needs.”
“The situation became more pressing when pandemic broke out,” said Dino in an exclusive interview with WeirdKaya.
With video production and event hosting grinding to a complete halt during MCO, the duo began brainstorming on what they could do to help students get through what was undeniably a turbulent and uncertain academic year. They both also agreed upon this: they would not operate as a tuition centre as there were plenty of such places in existence.
“2020 was a tough year for SPM candidates as the exams were postponed multiple times. Some even reached out to us and pleaded for help as they were desperate and lost,” said CK.
Following HighSchool.my‘s official launch in September, there were only two full-time employees – Dino Goh and CK Khoo.
Highschool.my: Riding the RED Wave (小红书)
Shortly after Highschool.my was established, Dino and CK noticed a Chinese social media and e-commerce platform called RED (小红书) was surging in popularity within the Malaysian market.
Upon closer observation, the duo also realised that many local brands shifted their focus towards accentuating their social media and digital marketing content to capture their target audience’s attention.
Believing that this would increase online traffic, Dino and CK applied the same strategy for HighSchool.my. It later proved to be the correct decision as they began to witness many viewers flocking to their platform.
Bigger and better
Highschool.my currently has a total of five members that are responsible for collaborating with different parties to produce engaging educational content for SPM students.
Although Dino and CK do not have any working experience in the educational field, they have gleaned invaluable skills in preparing classes that suit the students’ needs.
“We put ourselves into their [the students] shoes, and we want to let them know that learning is a fun and two-way process.”
The duo is also looking into establishing a broader user base for HighSchool.my and developing a mobile app that provides additional educational resources for students.
“Our team is already working on making this happen as they are currently in talks with several experts in the relevant field on how to turn these concepts into reality.”
Watch their start-up video here:
Read also:
Sources: (Fb/为成年HighSchool.my)
Editor: Raymond Chen
Proofreader: Sarah Yeoh
