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Teacher Education in Malaysia PDF
Teacher Education in Malaysia PDF
Introduction
National Board of Professional Teaching Standards and National
Commission on Teaching and Americas Future (NCTAF) call for greater
professionalization of the teaching profession through defining the
kinds of knowledge and skills teachers should have in order to teach
effectively; the use of program accreditation to ensure that programs
are indeed transmitting these skills and knowledge; and testing and
certification to ensure that teachers do possess these skills and
knowledge (Kirby et al, 2006). This seems to be, yet another call,
about a long-standing, but still relevant, issue by the stake-holders of
teacher education.
Teacher education programs have been under attack for
decades. They have been decried as impractical and irrelevant by
practitioners, and cited as the root cause of bad teaching and
inadequate learning (Labaree, 2004; Cochran-Smith and Zeichner,
2005). There have been similar criticisms about teacher education in
Malaysia as well. Teacher education in Malaysia has undergone
scrutiny from time to time. It is important that such a process is
carried out to ensure that teacher education remains relevant and
accountable to the demands of the society and nation. It seems to be
even more important now when there are new demands on teacher
education to produce teachers who would be able to meet the
challenges of globalization.
In this context, this study attempted to identify major
contemporary issues and challenges in teacher education in Malaysia.
It is an on-going attempt to identify the major issues and also figuring
out ways to address those issues to further enhance the quality of
teacher education in Malaysia. Among other things, this studys focus
was the teacher education curriculum, prospective teachers
knowledge, skills and attitude, clients perceptions about the
prospective teachers in terms or their knowledge, skills and attitude,
and the appropriate teacher education model for Malaysia.
This paper will address some of the major issues and challenges
which emerged from analysis of the data collected. Discussion in this
paper will be limited to issues concerning prospective teachers
knowledge, skills, attitude and teacher education curriculum.
Background
The importance of preparing teachers to exercise trustworthy
judgment based on a strong base of knowledge is increasingly
important in contemporary society (Darling-Hammond & Bransford,
Table 1:
Survey Questionnaires Distributed and Received.
Quetionnaire
2000
Total Received
(Numbers)
1028
Total Received
(Percentage)
51.40
800
427
53.37
60
40
66.67
60
30
50.00
2920
1525
55.23
Students
Prospective
Teachers
Mentor Teachers
School
Administrators
Total
Item
Prospective
Teachers
Mean
SD
Mentor
Teachers
Mean
SD
Sig
4.23
.63
4.10
.67
.22
4.02
.76
4.22
.53
.10
4.26
.65
4.20
.60
.61
4.16
.71
4.20
.60
.76
Table 3
Prospective Teachers Perceptions of Their Acquisition of Skills
Item
Teacher education provides :
Ability to construct teaching
scheme and plan to teach in the
classrooms
Ability to teach the subject matter
content effectively to students in
classrooms
Ability to maintain classroom
control effectively
Ability to evaluate and keep
records of students acquisition of
subject matter content
Ability to reflect on teacher actions
and students feedback to further
enhance the quality of teaching in
the classroom
Ability administer co-curriculum
activities effectively.
Ability to teach students from
multiple background and abilities
Ability to make good decisions
about teaching to further improve
my student learning.
Ability to prepare tests which are
in line with the expectations of
syllabus.
Prospective
Teachers
Mean
SD
Mentor
Teachers
Mean
SD
Sig
4.06
.52
4.02
.52
.65
4.04
.51
4.05
.58
.91
4.08
.53
.06
3.90
.55
3.81
.57
3.87
.58
.51
4.15
.55
4.01
.49
.13
3.85
.84
4.08
.69
.10
4.06
.74
3.88
.72
.13
4.04
.62
4.00
.59
.72
3.82
.74
3.88
.68
.68
c. Teachers Attitude
As shown in Table 4 below, prospective teachers in this study have
rated high their perceptions of their changes in their attitude and
certain beliefs as outcomes of their teacher education programs.
Perceptions of these prospective teachers seem to be high for all
items, improving leadership skills (4.16), confidence to participate in
social activities (4.26), fostering cordial relationships with all (4.27),
being more caring towards students (4.36), and being prepared to
accept other peoples views (4.37).
Table 4
Prospective Teachers Attitude and Beliefs
Item
Prospective
Teachers
Mean
SD
Mentor
Teachers
Mean
SD
Sig
4.16
.70
4.00
.75
.18
4.26
.68
4.10
.74
.15
4.27
.66
4.20
.68
.54
4.36
.57
4.15
.73
.03
4.37
.57
4.26
.59
.23
Teacher education
programme:
Improved my leadership skills
Improved my confidence to
participate in social activities
Enables me to foster cordial
relationships with all
Enables me to be more caring
towards my students
Enables me to be prepared to
accept other peoples views
10
CI02
Researcher
CI02
Researcher
CI02
Conclusion
Teacher education is in Malaysia has its own share of issues and
challenges. New initiatives that are introduced by the Ministry of
Education, and growing expectations from parents and other stakeholders bring new demands on teachers. Teachers are expected to
perform myriad of tasks when they are sent to schools. Very often
these demands are unreasonable because, as other professionals who
begin their careers, they have to be seen as beginning teachers who
have yet to learn and experience many new duties in schools. Instead,
very often, they are looked at as finished-products.
Also, some of the demands society holds on teachers are
inconsistent and unreasonable. As suggested by Kennedy (2006),
Society holds many lofty aims for education in general and for
teaching in particular, but these aims are inconsistent with one
another. There is a tension between the societal desire to
accommodate individual needs and the societal desire to treat all
students equally (pp. 206).
Teacher education is under-going interesting and important
changes in Malaysia today. What used to be teacher education
colleges, which traditionally produced teachers for primary schools
with certificate and later diploma level qualifications are now being
raised to teacher education institutions which are allowed to award
bachelor degrees in education. However, they focus on producing
teachers for primary schools. Besides this, there is now a university of
education, that is Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris which has been
entrusted to produce the bulk of the teachers needed for secondary
schools in the country. Various other universities with their faculties of
education, also produce teachers. There are also a couple of private
institutions in the country which have been approved recently which
are also involved in the business of training teachers.
All these developments bring more issues and challenges to
teacher education in general. Whatever the model or route maybe, the
various stake-holders have high expectations of teachers and teacher
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education. As has been discussed earlier, they finally talk about the
quality of teachers and teaching. The obvious connection they all make
is to the quality of teacher education.
What seems interesting and also puzzling is that, prospective
teachers and mentor teachers seem to agree that the various models
of teacher education through which these prospective teachers are
being trained are effective in providing the necessary knowledge, skills
and attitude. They seem to suggest that the teacher education models
are good and are effective and responding to the changing societal and
national demands.
However, critical informants seem to raise a number of pertinent
issues on teacher education. They are concerned about the curriculum
model of teacher education, the practicum component, gender issue in
teacher education, and preparedness of teachers. They, being
important stake-holders, have specific concerns and also suggestions.
There is certainly a cognitive dissonance between perceptions of
prospective teachers, and mentor teachers, and critical informants
involved in this study. There is obviously a need to address this
dissonance, to identify why such dissonance does indeed exist, and
also to identify the various factors which make up such a situation.
Since this papers focus is only based on some of the challenges
and prospects drawn from the study, the hope is that a comprehensive
analysis of the data collected and efforts to make meaningful
conjectures made may shed light on this and various other issues on
teacher education in Malaysia.
References
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