1.

0 Introduction

Every child is unique and special in their own ways. Naturally, the children will grow and
develop according to the time from childhood to adolescence until adulthood. Each individual
experiences variety kinds of changes in all aspects either physically, emotionally and others
based on the flow from one stage to another stage.

2.0 Basic concepts of child development

According to Mosby’s Medical Dictionary, child development is defined as the stages of

physical, biological and psychosocial growth from young to adulthood. An individual also
develops from dependency to autonomy. Growth and development have different meanings.
Growth refers to the physical changes that occurred within an individual and it is focusing more
on quantitative aspect. Example, increase in height, weight, size of body parts and others that
measurable. Meanwhile, development refers to continuous process of growth and changes
that occurred in an individual throughout the life cycle such as the cognitive, social ability and
others. These abilities are qualitative because these are unmeasurable. Table below will show
further differences between growth and development.

Table 1: Comparisons between growth and development

3.0 Principles of child development

Firstly, the development of a domain either physical, social or others influences and is
influenced by the development of other domains. In another word, the development of the
domains is interrelated to each other. For instance, the development of language skills within
a child impacts the development of social skills. Secondly, development occurs in an orderly
sequence where later skills, knowledge and abilities enhancing previously acquired. Example,
the child initially learns crawling, as the child’s muscles and bones develop along with the
motor skills, child will be able to pull to stand with continuous progresses to steps and finally
walk. Thirdly, development of each child varies from each other. Different areas of child’s
development also differ according to growth and environment. That is why some children are
able to walk earlier than others, some are able to learn concepts at faster pace. Furthermore,
early experiences have cumulative effects on child’s development. For example, a child with
early literacy experiences. Child was exposed to literacies since birth with the guidance from
parents. The child develops language skills faster than other children when participating in
kindergarten schools. Correspond to the development of language skills, the child also
develops social skills.

Moreover, child development progresses with increasing complexity, organisation and

internalisation. For example, first year of child education in kindergarten exposes to children
regarding the numbers and alphabets, when the children proceed to primary school, they will
be taught a more complex syllabus such as addition, subtraction, multiplication from 1-digit
number to 2 digits’ number and continuously. Children are active learners and they learn in
variety of ways. Child is always curious about their environments. One of the ways children
learn new concepts is through sense of touch and self-talk. Children love to play games and
toys where these activities develop their spatial basic concepts. Children also love to question
their parents regarding their environments to expand their vocabularies. Children develop best
when they have secure, consistent and positive relationships parents and peers. Parents who
always support their children in learning example when children ask them a lot of questions,
instead of feeling irritated and blaming them, the parents patiently answer the questions will
foster a deeper relationship with each other at the same time children feel psychologically
secured. This also aids children concentrating in learning activities. Development and
advances when children are given opportunities to practice newly acquired skills as well as
experiencing challenges to achieve level beyond their current mastery. Teachers can put
mastered puzzles in the classroom so that students can challenge their mind and develop
critical thinking in solving the mastered puzzles.
4.0 Factors influencing child development

Factors that influenced the child development can be categorised into two categories
which are nature and nurture. Nature refers to biological which is something that is natural
such as genes, chromosomes and hormones. Nurture refers to all the environmental variables
including family background, school, society and others. In terms of genes, genotype
determines one’s physical, non-physical traits and maturation. A normal person is born with
46 chromosomes however some unfortunate children experienced genetic abnormalities. One
of the common examples is Down’s Syndrome or known as trisomy 21. The child as three
chromosomes instead of two at the site of 21st of chromosomes. Characteristics of people who
have Down’s Syndromes are round face, slanted eyes and a thick tongue. This kind of children
also facing intellectual disability.

In the context of environmental factors mainly family background, parents who invest
energy, time and love on the child will impact child’s development positively. Examples,
parents who spend more time together with their children, educating them and giving them
love and affection will produce children who develop in positive manner holistically. Oppose
to parents who always neglect and abuse their children. Children who are educated negatively
will impair children’s development. Parents who always educate their children such as read
storybooks together with the children will enhance children’s cognitive ability as well as social
skills and language skills as teaching children reading storybooks involving active interaction
between parents and the children. School authorities specifically teachers have to educate
children using the correct method such as teaching based on children’s learning capability and
maturation. Teachers who are demanding and forcing children to learn syllabuses that are
above the children’s learning capability will reversely affect their cognitive ability.

4.1 Stages of Environmental systems

According to Urie Bronfenbrenner (1979), he formed Human Ecology Theory which

stated that human development is influenced by different environmental systems. Ecology
system can be classified into 5 types of environmental systems which are microsystem,
mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem and chronosystem.
 System Explanations Examples
Microsystem Direct contact (direct social Family, school
interactions with the social
agents
Mesosystem Relationships between two Relationships between
or more microsystems family and school teachers
Exosystem Indirect contact and impact Parent’s workplace
(contains micro and meso)
Macrosystem Cultural contexts Socioeconomic status of the
family
Chronosystem Socio-historical contexts Parent’s divorce
Table 2: Environmental systems

5.0 Stages of Child Development

According to Santrock (2008), there are 5 stages of child development involving

cognitive and socio-emotional aspects.

Stages Age Developments

Infancy 0-2 There is a rapid growth in
terms of language
development, physical and
capability to build emotional
relationships
Early childhood 3-8 Rapid development of
language, social skills and
ability to use small muscles
Childhood 9-11 Able to understand rules and
regulations as well as
building relationships with
peer group
Early adolescence 12-15 Aware of physical changes
and better logical thinking
Adolescence 15-20 Ability to build better
relationship with peer groups
and be independent
Table 3: Stages of Child Development
 In terms of cognitive, based on Jean Piaget’s (1936) stated that there are four stages of
cognitive development. The first stage is known as sensorimotor stage which is between 0 to
2 years old. In this stage, children learn about the world through sensations and movements.
They learn through basic actions such as looking, listening and others which involved the five
senses. They learnt that things exist although cannot be seen (object permanence). Example,
they touched a cat and the cat hides under behind the wall. The child questions parents
regarding the animal. The parents explain to the child. The child finally understands “cat” as
animal with four tails and sharp claw through looking, listening and touching. The child found
out that although the cat hides somewhere else, it still exists. The next stage is preoperational
stage between 2 to 7 years old. The cognitive development enables children to think things
symbolically. The children see a dog and they tell their teachers that it is a dog.

Besides that, concrete operational stage which is between 7 to 11 years old enables
children to think logically and operationally in their brain. They are able to solve addition,
subtraction, multiplication and division questions. The last stage which is 11 years old above
and that is formal operational stage. The children develop the ability to think abstractly and
hypothetically. The children are weighing the rock on a weighing scale. The weighing scale
shows reading and they conclude that matter has mass.

In language context, there are 3 stages of language development. The first stage is
known as infancy. This is referring to babies who produce sounds since birth. The main
purpose of the communication is to attract the attention of parents and caregivers. Example,
baby cries to give sign of hunger or pain. At the age of 8-12 months, babies usually start to
understand of certain words such as papa and mama. At the age of 10-15 months, the babies
will speak out their first word. At the age of 18 months-24 months, babies will utter out two
words sentence such as where mama?

Childhood which is the 2nd stage. Children between 2 to 6 year-old are able to question
properly. Example, is this milk mama? During 6 to 10 year-old, the children develop grammar,
vocabulary and reading skills. Their language skills develop rapidly where they are able to
progress from construction of simple sentences to paragraphs.
 The 3rd is adolescence stage. They can manipulate language to understand metaphors
such as poems. They also able to organise ideas in a more systematic manner where they
organise essay into few parts which are the introduction, body parts and conclusion.

6.0 Education Issues in Malaysia

One of the education’s issues in Malaysia is teacher professionalism. According to

Oxford Dictionary, professionalism is defined as the competence or skill expected of a
professional. Hence, teacher professionalism means the competence of skill expected of a
professional teacher. One of the issues related to teacher professionalism is ICT competence.
According to Wan Mohamad (2009), the research showed three-quarter which is 78.2% of
teachers admitted that they are not competent enough or do not know how to conduct ICT-
Based teaching and learning session. According to Malaysian Education Blueprint (PPPM),
7th shift of transformation stated that leverage ICT to scale up learning quality across Malaysia.
The research result demonstrated that Malaysian teachers are incompetent in ICT. ICT is one
of the essential elements to improve the education quality by enhancing learning capabilities
and qualities. If there are over 70% of teachers who are incompetent in ICT, how are they
supposed to fulfil one of the shift transformations as well as advancing the education system?

Furthermore, another education issue is newly posted teachers. According to Veenman

(1984), beginner teachers’ state of mind having difficulty to deal with their first three years of
teaching known as “reality shock”. During practicum, they are expected to only enhancing
students’ academic performance. However, when they step up to the reality of teaching, they
are shocked by tasks they have to take part other than teaching. Newly posted teachers are
exposed to basics of education but lack of experiences and teaching techniques such as class
management. This is one of the reasons why beginner teachers are incompetent in teaching
and learning session. They are expected to have the similar teaching quality with the
experienced teachers. They are given challenging tasks to be handled accompanied with
unsupportive teachers. This scenario is not informed to beginner teachers to begin their career
as full-fledged teachers.

Moreover, PISA is another vital education issue. PISA is known as Programme for
International Student Assessment. This assessment measures 15-year-old-students’ reading,
mathematics and science literacy every three years. This assessment evaluates the country’s
education quality in reading as well two main subjects which are Science and Mathematics.
According to the 2015 PISA average scores, Malaysia is placed on 46th in Math, 58th in Science
and 50th in reading literacy. This reflects the quality and effectiveness of our education system
in competing with other countries’ education system based on PISA ranking.

Other than that, our education system is exam-oriented. Students are often burdening
with exams every year. They are trained to memorise knowledge that they learnt rather than
fully understanding it and applying it to solve daily life problems. Their purpose of learning is
to pass up exams in school to meet up the expectations of parents. Parents have
misconceptions towards the intelligence of the children by evaluating the academic
performances of the children specifically the amount of the A’s the children get. The teachers
are not able to fully focus on educating students according to student’s ZPD (Zone of Proximal
Development). Teachers are rushing to finish off the syllabuses due to exam. The students
who are not able to understand previous topics are having difficulty to understand deeper
topics. This causes students to feel overwhelmed with stress and pressure. Thus, students
committed suicide because they are unable to cope up with the stress and fail to achieve the
expectations of their parents. According to the National Health and Morbidity Survey’s
statistics, there is an increase of 18% from 11.2 to 29.2% of suicide rates for the specific age
of 16 and above.

Last but not least, students’ multiple potential is also issue related to education. Every
student is unique in their own ways. According to Howard Gardner (1993). There few types of
intelligences which are Verbal-Linguistic Intelligence, Logical-mathematical Intelligence,
Spatial-visual Intelligence and others. Teachers are having difficulty to teach these multiple
intelligences students in the classroom as they do not have the knowledge about the correct
teaching methods and pedagogies for the multiple intelligences students. Each type of
intelligences required specified of teaching style for the student to be able to learn optimally.
For instance, students who possess Spatial-Visual Intelligence have lower capability to write
stories using the listening skills method. Teachers have to provide graphic presentations so
that this kind of student is able to write stories effectively.
7.0 Ways to overcome the Malaysia’s education issues to produce holistic students
(7-15 years old)

It is crucial for the students to be able to develop holistically and optimally. The optimum
development aids students in achieving well-being and excellent academic performances.
There are ways to overcome the Malaysia’s current education issues in order to produce
students who are between 7 to 15 years old to develop efficiently in holistic manners as stated
in the National Philosophy of Education.

One of the ways to overcome the issues is by applying lifelong learning. Teachers who
are incompetent in ICT can attend ICT courses to increase their knowledge regarding ICT at
the same time increases their competencies in ICT. Teachers have to apply ICT in teaching
and learning. Examples, teaching of the concepts of mosquito’s life cycle using i-Think maps
through PowerPoint presentations. This is able to attract students’ interest due to the colourful
presentations as well as i-Think maps that show sequences of ideas which maximises
students’ learning capability. Teacher have to apply different modes which involve 5 senses
and suitable to multiple intelligences students. According to Lev Vygotsky (1930), he
emphasises on the development of cognitive ability based on social skills. Basically teachers
have to apply group discussion method in teaching and learning. Group discussion enables
students to share their thoughts and opinions as well as expand their horizons. In the process
of sharing, they are also learning new knowledge. This is to allows development encompasses
social skills, language skills as well as cognitive ability. This teaching method also beneficial
for students who possess Verbal-linguistic Intelligence. Based on Jean Piaget (1936), he
focuses on cognitive development through hands-on practices. For instance, teacher wants to
teach the primary school students from digit 50-100. Teachers can distribute papers and
scissors to the students so they can cut out the numbers given. This facilitates hands-on
practices to the development of the students’ cognitive ability. Students who are between 13
to 15-year-old which is Form 1 to Form 3 are taught that carbon dioxide causes the lime water
to turn cloudy. Given a bottle filled with lime water along with straw, ask the students to blow
through the straw and observes the changes on the lime water. This kind of experiment is
actually hands-on practice so that students will be able to experience and clarify the truth of
the theories and hypothesis. This is vital to improve students’ Science quality so that they are
able to score excellently in the PISA and rank up at the top of the PISA’s ranking.
 Next, teachers should firstly assess students’ ZPD afterwards educate them according
their ZPD. Do not rush to finish off the syllabus rather, finish it slowly by making sure the
students understand every topic they learnt. Example, if the students want to learn
multiplication of three digits, firstly teach students multiplication of two digits’ number through
scaffolding assisted by MKO (More Knowledgeable Others) which is the teachers. Teachers
provide homework that are really suitable to assess students’ knowledge and understanding
precisely. Overwhelming homework cause students to feel stressed which adversely affect
students’ cognitive and emotional development. Parents should encourage children to learn
by supporting them in the learning process such as guiding them in doing the homework.

8.0 Conclusion

In conclusion, teachers have to apply creative teaching methods to produce future

generations that are developing holistically and further polishing the potentials of an individual
so that they are able to contribute to the society and country.