A rural Tamil school with only 25 students and eight teachers has emerged champion in the Frog World Championship 2020.

SJK(T) Ladang Elaeis in Kluang, Johor, emerged tops in the competition that had 3,000 participating schools across 13 countries completing more than 18 million quiz questions. The Frederick Gough School, and Yardleys School, both from the United Kingdom, placed second and third, respectively.

Inspired by the novel Around the World in 80 Days, the virtual learning championship challenged participants to take an educational voyage collectively with other Frog users around the world. The journey began in the UK and ended in Malaysia, with "pit stops" along the way, where students and teachers were given the opportunity to discover and connect with other countries around the world on how they use the Frog platform.

According to Eswaran Balakrishnan, a teacher from SJK(T) Ladang Elaeis, one of the challenges faced by his students in the contest were accessibility to e-learning devices.

"We started an E-learning programme in order for students to use the school facilities after lunch. I hosted classes in my home daily, and our PIBG (Parent-Teacher Association) chairman volunteered his house for students with transportation issues.

"We also arranged for school laptops to be loaned out to students during the Movement Control Order (MCO) period, to enable them to continue learning from home. We were beyond impressed to find out that the students were diligently using FrogPlay even during recess and after school hours, and continued to do so from home, during the MCO period," he said.

The mother of one of the students who formed part of the winning team also vouched for the effectiveness of the digital learning platform.

The said student, Year six pupil Suresh, used to despise doing his homework and revising, but with Frog, he is more than eafer to go online to do his revision and complete quizzes, among others, said Komala.

Such an impressive feat indeed! The teachers and students of SJK(T) Ladang Elaeis have proved that location and infrastructure are not real hurdles to showcasing one's true talents.

May they achieve more victories in various fields in the future!

To the uninitiated, the Frog World Championship has been held annually since 2018, with over 7,000 schools from 15 countries, participating.

Hosted by FrogAsia, in collaboration with Frog Education UK, the Frog World Championship showcases and celebrates how schools and students strive to be globally competitive through collaboration, perseverance and fun in learning. It centres around the use of the FrogPlay gamified-learning application offered within Frog VLE, where schools and students from around the globe compete for the world title and the chance to win a total of US$10,000 worth of prizes.

FrogAsia will be organising the Frog Championship: Arkedia from 3 August to 30 September 2020 for all national schools. For more information, please visit www.frogchampionships.com.


Source: Press release
Photo source: SJK (T) Ladang Elaeis Facebook page.