Higher salaries and qualifications are expected to attract highly-trained individuals to the profession.

THE Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025, which outlined 11 shifts, will be implemented in three "waves", with the results to be assessed in 2015, 2020 and 2025, said Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

He said an annual report on the progress of the reforms would be published.

Wave 1 (2012-2015) will focus on efforts to turn around the system by supporting teachers and focusing on core skills, Wave 2 (2016-2020) on accelerating system improvements and Wave 3 (2021-2025) on moving towards excellence with increased operational flexibility.

Muhyiddin, who is also deputy prime minister, said every ministry official, especially those at the top levels of management, would have their own Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to gauge their performance.

"These KPIs will be extended all the way down to the school level to ensure the goals are reached consistently at every point.

"The ministry will also create an education delivery unit to drive the plan forward, monitor results, liaise with stakeholders and compile continuous feedback."

The blueprint was launched by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre yesterday.

"The unit staff will be talented and experienced individuals from the public and private sectors," said Muhyiddin.

The reforms, he said, were aimed at achieving five system aspirations:

ACCESS: Ensuring universal access and full enrolment of all children, from preschool right through to upper secondary school level (Form 5), by 2020;

QUALITY: The aspiration is for Malaysia to be in the top third of countries in terms of performance in international assessments as measured in Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA);

EQUITY: Halving the current urban-rural, socio-economic and gender achievement gaps by 2020;

UNITY: An education system that gives children shared values and experiences by embracing diversity; and,

EFFICIENCY: A system which maximises student outcomes within the current budget.

The transformation will also focus on six student attributes: knowledge, thinking skills, leadership, bilingual proficiency, ethics and national identity.

Key initiatives include expanding the Linus (literacy and numeracy screening) programme to include English language literacy and introducing a common Bahasa Malaysia curriculum at the primary level with the aim of abolishing remove classes by 2017.

Both the primary and secondary school curricula will be extensively reworked to ensure students will learn not only to memorise knowledge but also to apply it to new and unfamiliar contexts.

Vocational education will be given a greater focus while new evaluation frameworks will be put in place to weed out under-performing teachers and reward those who produce excellent results.

Higher salaries and qualifications are expected to attract highly-trained individuals to the profession.

The blueprint also includes structural reforms which will drastically reduce the burden on the Education Ministry's central watchdogs in favour of district level officers, who will take on a greater role in overseeing the performance of schools within their jurisdiction.

It also calls for greater engagement with parents and the private sector to foster a broader learning environment.

The blueprint was prepared following feedback from a total of 12,000 participants nationwide.

The ministry also received 156 recommendations from various organisations as well as input from studies conducted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, the World Bank and public higher learning institutions.

Malaysia devotes 16 per cent of its gross domestic product to education development annually, one of the highest in the world.