TASK 2

1.0 Introduction

“The rapid move over recent decades to a global knowledge economy, driven
by constantly evolving information and communication technologies, has created
significant economic and social opportunities. Equally it is creating enormous
challenges, confronting countries with the need to rethink their educational and social
systems”,(Kozma 2005). In the face of these trends, countries are challenged to
ensure students leave school with an in depth understanding of school subjects,
especially science, mathematics, and technology, and with the skills essential to 21st
century- skills to use knowledge to think critically, to collaborate, to communicate, to
solve problems, to create and to continue to learn. This is inline with the statement
made by our Prime Minister, YAB Dato’ Seri Mohd Najib bin Tun Abdul Razak (2012)
in The Malaysian Education Blueprint 2013-2025 which concludes that Malaysia
requires a transformation of its entire education system in order to meet the country’s
aspirations among an increasingly competitive global environment in the 21st century.
Thus, to address this issue The Malaysian Government has developed a National
Education Blueprint 2013-2025 which encompasses a comprehensive plan for a brisk
and sustainable transformation of our education system. There are five outcomes
that the Blueprint aspires to for the Malaysian Education system as a whole; access,
quality, equity, unity and efficiency (Malaysia Education Blueprint, 2013-2025). These
aspirations need equal share of commitment and responsibilities from all the
stakeholders ranging from students to curriculum designers to be achieved by our
nation. However, the onus is more on teachers as they are the agents of change in
the society. Thus in my writing I would focus on teachers role as agent of change in
the successful transformation of the Malaysian school curriculum in 21st century with
regards to two aspirations out of five which are quality and unity.

2.0 Quality

Embarking Malaysia’s education system upon a path of improvement that will

move it rapidly towards achieving quality of a high international standard is one of the
five aspirations outlined in Blueprint 2013-2025. In other words, Malaysia aims to
improve national education’s quality to high international standard which provides all
students the opportunity to attain excellent education which is comparable to high-
performing education systems. Besides that, by 2025 Malaysian Government aspires
to improve students’ performance in disciplines such as Mathematics, Science and
English language as well as to up skill students’ higher order thinking skills such as
reasoning, applying and problem solving. This aspiration was developed after seeing
Malaysia’s dissatisfactory performance in two major international assessments
namely Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Trends in
International Mathematics and Science Studies (TIMSS). These assessments focus
on Mathematics, Science and Reading, and also provide participating countries
insight into the strength and weaknesses of their education system in assisting
students in attaining essential skills such as analytical reasoning, application and
capacity for continual learning (National Education Blueprint 2013-2025). Malaysia’s
performance in TIMSS 2011 indicated that Malaysia’s world ranking in Mathematics
and Science standards had both dropped during the 2003-2011 period, with the
former dropping from 10th to 26th place, while the latter slipping from 20th to 32nd
place (Tony & Ong as cited in Ida Lim, 2013). On the other hand, in PISA test
Malaysian students scored below average and ranked 52 out of 65 countries
(Sheridan, 2014).

Delving into the PISA and TIMSS results provide insight about the poor
performance of the education system in terms of literacy, numeracy and higher order
thinking skills. Now the question is how can we improve the quality of our education
in the disciplines mentioned above at par with Malaysia’s aspiration as stated in
Blueprint? Definitely it requires constructive and collaborative efforts from all
stakeholders from Ministry of education, teachers, parents, and even students.
However, regardless of how good the educational plan is, it will be of no use if
teachers do not implement it well (Che Noraini, Adlina, Nurhidayah, 2013). Thus,
teachers being the real national builders shoulder huge responsibilities especially in
this 21st century in departing quality education. One of the teaching methods that
should be known by a 21st century teacher is authentic learning (Kharbarch, 2013).
Authentic learning focuses on real life problems and their solutions, using role play
exercises, problem based activities and case studies. Teachers can use this teaching
method to enhance Malaysian pupils’ cognitive skills including problem solving,
reasoning, creative thinking and innovation. This is because, it has been identified
that our students are lacking in the ability to apply knowledge and think critically
outside familiar classroom contexts (Malaysia Education Blueprint, 2013-2025). For
an instance, a Year 4 English teacher can use authentic learning when teaching Unit
4: Be safe. Let’s say the focus of the lesson is about stranger danger. So she starts
the lesson by telling the story of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’. Then she poses questions
such as ‘How is the fox related to Little Red Riding Hood’, ‘Do you think it is right to
open doors for strangers?’ and other analytical thinking provoking questions. Teacher
also discusses generally the Do’s and Don’ts one should practice when facing
strangers. Later she groups the pupils into 4 groups and provides each group a
situation card depicting real life situation in which the characters in the situation
encounter strangers while they are engaged in their routine. Pupils are required to
role play the situation suggesting ways to escape from getting hurt by the stranger.
Thus, through these activities pupils not only will be able to understand and
internalize ways to face strangers if they encounter similar situation in real life later
besides they also develop communicative and social skills.

For the same topic, teacher can even use inquiry based learning in which
questioning is the heart of learning (“Intro to inquiry learning”, n.d.). Teacher might
propose a simple question such as ‘What are the ways to avoid stranger danger?’
after discussing the story and gets pupils to work in groups to find out the answers
with the help of computers. This is because, integration of technology in learning is
another crucial skill needed to be mastered by 21st century teachers to maximize
students learning across the content area (Collins, n.d.). Teacher can have the
students present their findings at the end of the lesson. Apart from that, teacher can
extend the learning under ‘Be Safe’ topic from learning ways to stay safe from
strangers to internet safety. Perhaps, during presentation stage of the lesson she can
bring the students to computer lab and have them to browse to ‘Glogster’ website
which contains interesting mind map on internet safety. This would definitely motivate
learners to actively construct their own learning as ICT has always been part of their
lives. (International Education Advisory Board, n.d.).
3.0 Unity

Besides aspiring to improve the quality of education to higher international

standard, the Ministry also strives to create an education system where students
have opportunities to learn to understand, accept and embrace differences of
individuals from a range of socio-economics, religious, and ethnic backgrounds that
form the foundation for unity (Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025). Malaysia is
unique because of its diversity of races, religions, cultures and languages. Despite of
the differences, Malaysia is relatively peaceful and stable. Unity is the key factor in
maintaining a society of balanced and harmonious individuals in Malaysia’s truly
unique social context as envisioned in the National Education Philosophy. As
students spend over a quarter of their time in school, schools have been indentified
as the best place to nurture strong bond of brotherhood among Malaysians despite of
their differences.

Realizing the importance of promoting unity among our younger generation,

Ministry of Education has included topics such as ‘Unity in Diversity’, in Year 4
English Syllabus and ‘Culture and Traditions’ in Year 5 English Syllabus to enable
teachers to explore the diverse cultures in our country. Apparently there are multiple
of ways on how a teacher can foster unity among multicultural students through
classroom activities. According to Bochner (1986), one of the most effective
techniques for enhancing intercultural relations is to teach members of diverse
cultural groups the social skills necessary to interact effectively with the members of
another culture. Besides, social skills being one of the components of soft skills are
also used in reference to the general forms of knowledge and skill commonly
associated with 21st century skills ( “21st century skills”, n.d.).This implies that, it’s
crucial for teachers to instill social skills among students which create the need to
learn how to perceive, understand, and respond to cultural differences. However,
when designing classroom activities to promote unity, teachers must bear in mind
that 21st century learners live digitally every day and so they expect a parallel level of
technology opportunity in their academic lives (Teaching in the 21st century, n.d. ).
Taking this into consideration, perhaps teachers can involve students in project-
based learning integrating Information Communication Technology (ICT). Project-
based learning is “an instructional approach built upon authentic learning activities
that engage students’ interest and motivation” (Med Kharbarch, 2013) . Teachers
shall group students into 5 to 6 groups and assign each group to interview their
friends or even other teachers in the school and video record the beliefs and taboos
of the ethnicity assigned to them. Later they can get their parents’ help to transfer the
videos into their pen drives to be presented in the class. As this activity integrates
ICT through video recording, students would be excited to carry them out. However it
can be quite challenging for Year 4 and 5 students, thus teachers should give them
ample time; may be a week to complete the task. Through this project, students will
get the chance to understand the beliefs and practices of different races in the
country and eventually would develop respect and tolerance to members of different
cultural background. Besides that, indirectly it also helps to enhance students’
communication skills as they need to be polite and choose words carefully when
interviewing especially teachers to obtain relevant information. Not only that, it also
up skill students’ analytical thinking as they need to explain what they have learned
about the ethnicity assigned to them through their videos to the class. Obviously,
such experiential learning would foster better understanding of diverse cultures in
Malaysia, building strong foundation for achieving unity as aspired by Malaysia. Apart
from that, teachers also can promote unity by conducting after-school activities such
as community service. Through Uniform Bodies in the school, teachers can organize
visit to orphanage consists of children from diverse ethnicity. By working together
with peers of different ethnicities to conduct simple activities such as games for the
orphans, students will learn collaborative skill which is very crucial to build
harmonious relationship among multicultural society. Hence, it all depends on
teachers’ efforts and creativity in conducting engaging activities to promote unity
among students.

4.0 Conclusion

As a conclusion, it is of no doubt that the teacher is the pivot of any

educational system of a country. On him rests the failure or success of the system.
Thus Malaysia’s aspirations to provide quality education at par with other developing
countries besides forming united nation by educating younger generations with good
values and attitudes by 2025 can be achieved if teachers are more mindful of their
role as agent of change in the society. However, due importance should be given by
teachers to achieve other three aspirations of the country as mentioned earlier. Last
but not least, teachers must use innovative approaches in teaching by integrating
technology to prepare students to face 21st century challenges. This is because “If we
teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow” (Dewey, 1944
as cited by West, 2011).
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