Essay

“The role and duties of a teacher is a catalyst for national development because teachers can
shape future generations. Implementation of the Malaysian Education Development Plan 2013-
2025 (PPPM) is a challenge to teachers in ensuring the transformation of national education is
realised,”

(Deputy Prime Minister of Human Resources, Datuk Seri Ismali Abd Mutalib, 2014)

In recent years, the Malaysian education system has come under increased public debate, as
globalization needs increases; parents’ expectations rise; NGO’s involvements, feedback from
PTA and employers voice their concern regarding the system’s ability to adequately prepare
young Malaysians for the challenges of the 21st century. A research by S. Chinnammai (2005)
also supported that the effects of globalization on education bring rapid developments in
technology and communications are foreseeing changes within learning systems across the
world as ideas, values and knowledge, changing the roles of students and teachers, and
producing a shift in society from industrialization towards an information-based society. So, it
cause the reformation of the Malaysian curriculum that meets the globalization needs where
Malaysian Education Blueprint (2013) agreed that high aspirations is significant in order to
properly address the needs of all Malaysians. Moreover, the changes made to prepare the
nation to perform at an international level. As suggested by Paweł Strawiński (2011) the
educational aspirations and expectations are closely linked to respondents’ level of education.
In relation to Malaysian education curriculum reforms, an educational aspiration is the hope and
ambition of Malaysian in achieving a higher level of education and thus preparing the future for
a better workforce. Therefore, the advent of globalization democratizes the transformation of
Malaysian education through the educational aspirations reforms.

In September, PEMANDU designed a simple anonymous online survey to gauge public opinion
on the importance of English proficiency among school students. In just one week, more than
90% of the 190,000 respondents came back to say they were in favor of upping English
standards in schools. The survey went viral in a way I never imagined it would. Everywhere I
went, people said they had replied and commended the Government’s efforts to find a solution.
Regardless, the Government also acknowledged real concerns amongst this group on whether
children would be able to cope if there were blanket rules on teaching crucial subjects in
English. Stakeholder engagements and results from the survey provided a basis for the Ministry
of Education to build a compelling pitch from its English lab to the Economic Council chaired by
the Prime Minister. Conducted in July, the lab facilitated by PADU and PEMANDU introduced
two new programmes under the existing Upholding Bahasa Malaysia and Strengthening the
English Language (MBMMBI) policy known as Highly Immersive Programme (HIP) and Dual
Language Programme (DLP).

HIP enrichment activities are not entirely new, since the programme is a reinforcement of the
1999 Ministry circular. What is new is the implementation approach is empowering schools, by
the schools and for the schools. Tool kits for purposeful activity planning featuring best practice
examples from urban and rural schools would be provided based on their local contexts and
capabilities. Support mechanisms at the district and state levels will be ramped up and by the
end of 2016, about 1,000 schools are expected to implement the HIP. Meanwhile, the DLP
involves teaching in English subjects such as Mathematics, Science, Design Technology and
ICT. Its pilot phase will involve 300 schools that meet certain criteria. To make this work, we
need school leaders who agree to implement, capable teachers to teach in English and parents
wanting this programme for their children. At the same time, schools must meet the BM mastery
levels set by the Ministry. Other schools wanting to be part of DLP can convey their interest to
district education offices so the necessary processes can kick in to assess the school’s
readiness.

The English lab recommendations on HIP and DLP were fully supported by top Government
leadership -the Prime Minister, previous Minister of Education Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, current
Minister of Education, Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid, the Economic Council, Cabinet and senior
Ministry officials. Given diverse views about teaching other subjects in English, the Government
settled on middle ground. We believe the right way in managing polarities is to trigger a bottom-
up approach by introducing the element of “choice” for schools and parents. They are now
empowered to decide what they want for their children’s future without compromising Bahasa
Malaysia proficiency. In taking into account concerns that BM proficiency is not compromised at
schools, the Ministry, with both PADU and PEMANDU will be planning a lab in 2016 to study
this area. There are 70,000 English teachers in our national schools. To date, close to 12,000
teachers from three cohorts have been up skilled over a period of one year. The first two
cohorts have been retested with approximately 60% improving at least one band under the
Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) English proficiency benchmark. With the
HIP and DLP in place, the Ministry has created an environment to activate the aligning of these
constellations.

In order to develop a successful transformation of the Malaysian curriculum, teacher plays an

important role as agents of change. According to Fullan, (2011) “change is in essence, learning
to do something differently, involving adjustments too many elements of classroom practice and
everybody is a change agent in quality education”. It reflects the change in teachers’ role
towards the new directions in Malaysian curriculum as outlined in Master Plan of Development
Blueprint (2013-2025). Role of teachers as agents of change are vital for successful
transformation of the Malaysian school curriculum in meeting the five aspirations outlined in
PPPM. Among the six aspirations are; quality, equity, access, unity and efficiency.

There are four types of change that can be done by teacher namely shift towards increase,
changes in the organization’s strategic , proactive changes and lastly changes resulting from
outreach. As agents of change, teacher should improve their skills by changes in the
performance of duties. In relation to the Eleven Shifts of Malaysian Education Blueprint (2013),
the curriculum develops aims to focus teachers on their core function of teaching from 2013 by
reducing administration burdens. Based on the fourth shift, teachers have the opportunity to
improve their skills because the workload of administrating will be lessened. Furthermore, the
teacher can focus more on their core business which is teaching and thus they can perform well
in their duties. This s supported by Weingarten (2012) where if educational reform is to work,
teachers should believe that the proposed changes in education will actually help them be
successful with students. The above statement indicates that teacher as agents of change
should agree with the shifts proposed by the Malaysian Educational Blueprint to ensure the
system aspirations for Malaysian Education can be achieved. One of the five systems
aspirations related to the shift of performance duties by the teacher is closely related to the
aspirations of equity in which Malaysian education aims for top-performing school systems that
deliver the best education for every child, and teachers are responsible in improving their
performance in duties to uphold this aspiration.
Teacher as agents of change should have changes in the organizations strategic which means
a strategic plan should be developed to meet the goals of the curriculum reforms by taking into
considerations many factors related to the teacher’s role in school. First and foremost, teachers
should think of possible strategies to empower the national aspirations of the school curriculum.
For instance, teacher should change their teaching methods from teacher-centered to students-
centered. This change is important in order to mould the nation citizens into creative and
innovative citizens that well-equipped with ability to acquiring knowledge as well as developed
the citizens that can apply knowledge learned critically and innovatively. This is also reinforced
by Malaysian Education Blueprint (2013) in the second aspirations of students which is
aspirations of thinking skills stated that every child will learn how to continue acquiring
knowledge throughout their lives (instilling a love for inquiry and lifelong learning), to be able to
connect different pieces of knowledge, and, most importantly in a knowledge-based economy,
to create new knowledge. So, by changing the teaching method, teachers should ensure that
the teaching materials should mirror the globalisation of the world where the use of ICT should
be emphasizing more during school hours. Apart from that, teacher as agents of change should
well equipped with the ICT skills where teaching and learning activities could be maximising
beyond the Malaysia context. For example, the activity such as video conferencing can take
place between the primary school Malaysian students with the New Zealand students. Such
activity will eventually help our students to practice their knowledge skills in ICT as well as gain
confidence in speaking skills.

Teacher involvement leads to a curricular transformation where teacher as agent of changes

should be proactive in their work. In order to meet the aspiration of quality, teacher should be
able to be proactive, which means, teacher should be able to create and control a situation in
classroom and school rather than responding to the situation after it has happened. Henly, M.
(2009) agreed with this statement where proactive teachers do not avoid problems in learning or
problems with behaviour. However, these teachers accept responsibility for their students’
successes and their students’ failures. A proactive teacher should be able to create a proactive
classroom through the positive learning environment. Therefore, other than emphasizing on the
academic, some changes should be made within the teacher and the classroom such as
inculcating the social skills in daily lessons and routines. By inducing social skills in the lesson,
students will be interested in the lesson in classroom. This is supported by the Malaysian
Education Blueprint (2013) whereby teacher as agent changes should ensure that the students
aspirations in ethics and spirituality is being highlighted in which the education system will
inculcate strong ethics and spirituality in every child to prepare them to rise to the challenges
they will inevitably face in adult life, to resolve conflicts peacefully, to employ sound judgement
and principles during critical moments, and to have the courage to do what is right. Thus, the
above statement has specified that to empower the citizens with good ethics and spirituality, it
falls back on the teacher’s role as agents of change in implementing the curriculum
transformation in school.

The Malaysian Education Blueprint acts as the outreach of the teacher as agent of changes
because mainly this blueprint emphasizes on the significant roles of teachers and administrators
at school. Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin (2013) stated that the blueprint is indeed so committed to
preparing our children with skills in six student characters, and it would be better if it is to be
well-received with immense feelings of responsibility so that the programmes could be fully
implemented to achieve the desired results. From the above statements, we could say that the
goals of the blueprint is included in helping students to become productive members of the
workforce, knowledgeable consumers, savers and investors, and participants in the global
economy. The role of teacher is vital where teacher as the implementer is the person that is
responsible to mould our citizens by understanding the current challenges globally. Teacher
should focus on improving the education lesson into a classroom where students would be able
to think critically creatively by preparing a lesson with hands on learning, collaborative learning
as well as encouraging students to be more confidence in giving out their ideas and thoughts.
Therefore, the role of teacher here will be able to meet the objectives of Malaysian Education
Blueprint (2013) which allow the education to meet new demands and rising expectations, and
to ignite and support overall civil service transformations.

The development and reformation of educational curriculum in Malaysia requires teachers to

contribute as the architects of change, not just its implementers (Weingarten, 2012). Hence,
teacher should change their leadership from autocratic style into a democratic style. As leaders,
there were several ways that teachers can do as agents of change. First, teacher should
acquire openness whereby they should be ready to accept any changes especially in education
transformation. As agents of change, teacher as key players of curriculum should accept the
education reforming and then teachers should be creative to modify and fine-tune the design
work of the Malaysian Education Blueprint into a meaningful learning lesson. Ornstein and
Hunkins (2014) agreed to this statement that curriculum expectations emerge from teacher’s
capacities to enact curricular and pedagogic actions with discretions, judgments, and
proficiency. So, teacher should acts as the active participants in the curriculum transformations
rather than being passive recipients of the curriculum reformation. This is because, the
teacher’s perspectives as important as others stakeholders in reforming the curriculum in
Malaysia where teacher is the one that undergoing the strengths and weaknesses of the
curriculum implemented. Thus, they know better about the implementation of the curriculum
compare to other stakeholders. With regards to above statements, Handler, (2010) also claimed
that the longevity of the academic discourse on meaningful and sustained teacher involvement
in school-based decision-making suggests an underlying theoretical assumption that such
organizational structures would ultimately result in improved student outcomes. Therefore, we
could see that many researchers agreed that teacher should be an active implementer and
stakeholders in order to improve students’ knowledge and skills and thus preparing them for
skilful workers.

Malaysian Education Blueprint states in detail the five system aspirations and six student
characters to be ahieved in the next 13 years. It focuses on student outcomes encompassing all
levels of schooling, that is, from pre-school to post-secondary level where the main stress turns
on the teacher roles as agent of changes. From the above supports, teacher is seen as the
important key players in ensuring that the curriculum transformation is being implemented well
in the school. Thus, teachers should take the responsibilities to implement the curriculum of the
Malaysian Education for the better future that will be facing more challenging globalization.
 References
Article
Newspaper
Teachers Should Become Agent of Change”.( 2014, June 24). The Malaysian Times Sdn .Bhd

Other references
Chitravellu,N (2005). ELT Methodolgy of Principles and Practice (2nd ed). Selangor. Oxford
Fajar Sdn.Bhd

Fullan,M.(2011). The new meaning of educational change. (4th ed.). New York:TeachersCollege
Press

Hugh John Leong.( 2013,September 18). The Malaysia Education Blueprint : Balancing Policy
and Practice.Borneo Post Online. Retrieved from http://www.theborneopost.com

Ministry of Education.( 2013). Malaysia Education Blueprint (2013-2015). Retrieved from

http://www.moe.gov.my

Organization For Economic Co-operation and Development.( 2012). Statistics of Programme for
International Student Assessment (PISA). Retrieved from http://www.oecd.org/pisa/

Wong Chip Choo & Lee Yeng Ting (2013). Reforming National Education. Analyses and
Recommendations on Malaysia Education Blueprint (2013-2025) .1-96

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.(2014). ICT in Teachers’

Education 2010. Retrieved from unesdoc.unesco.org