The present study investigated the relationship between urban poor students’ perceptions of government assistance and poverty and their level of academic optimism. A survey was administered to 500 urban poor students in two major Malaysian cities, Kuala Lumpur and Johor Bahru. The students were identified and randomly selected for the study with the help of their respective schools. AMOS version 24 was used to test the hypothesised model using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). The findings revealed a significant direct association between students’ perceptions of poverty and academic optimism. However, no significant indirect influence was found between students’ perceptions of poverty and their academic optimism through government assistance. These findings suggest that government assistance programmes are not necessarily a contributor to students’ academic optimism. The lack of any significant influence between students’ perceptions of poverty and academic optimism, through government assistance, may indicate a need to re-evaluate the existing assistance programmes rendered by the government to students in the urban poor category.

This study focuses on the practices of human resource management among headmasters in primary schools across Malaysia. It concentrates on how headmasters perceive the concept of human resource management and translate it into practice. The qualitative research design is applied on six headmasters, four males and two females who serve in selected national and private primary schools. The qualitative data from the interviews are organized into themes and sub-themes. The major findings of this study reveal that a majority of the headmasters perceive human resource management as a shared responsibility among teachers and school administrators while the headmaster is the key manager. It also reveals that headmasters in national schools believe that human resource management is important to reach the educational goal. In contrast, a majority of headmasters in private schools believe that it is important for sustainability. In addition, this study also reveals that the headmasters of national schools have less autonomy in decision-making process as compared to headmasters of private schools. The results have implications on two major aspects; the leadership in human resource management and the system. The leadership implication will help headmasters identify the best practices of human resource management including support and professional development for the teachers. System refers to teacher placement and other policy implementation. Finally, this study recommends more authority to be given to headmasters in managing human resource in schools, especially in the national schools.