School calendar year to revert to January from 2026

BY: Patrick Beech

The academic calendar for all schools in the country will revert to January from 2026 onwards.

Officers from the Education Ministry have 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.

Education Minister Fadhlina Sidek said 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 start of the school calendar was previously changed from January to March 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.

"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," added the minister.