SSI 3013

INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION

TECHNOLOGY IN SCIENCE
Department of Biology
Faculty of Science & Mathematics
Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris

Tittle : Challenges in Implementing Smart School in

Malaysia

Lecturer’s Name : En. Azmi bin Ibrahim

Group : A

Group’s Members:
No. Name ID Number

1. Nur Maz Edayu Binti Adnir D20171078267

2. Nor Izziyanti Afida Binti Azmi D20171078277

3. Nur Syairah Binti Nazaruzzaman D20171078281

4. Noor Aliana Binti Mohd Zuki D20171078283

5. Siti Robiatul Adawieyah Binti Jazaiman D20171078291

IINTRODUCTION

Technology or Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has impacted in almost

every aspect of our life today and this has made it easy to do business in all areas such as
administration, management, broadcasting and media, telecommunications, communications
and including in education system during teaching and learning process. The use of ICT in
education continues to grow day by day when we can see massive amounts of information such
as books, audio, images, videos are now available at one’s fingertips through the internet that
need no more travelling to the centers of learning like school to get an education. Back in 1996,
Malaysia’s Ministry of Education has created laws of Smart School which its concept aligns
with the country's aspiration to achieve the vision goal of 2020, that requires productive growth
achieved through technological expertise, a workforce that is capable of critically and creatively
thinking and willing to participate in the world economy. Technology is an important
component in Smart School concept, making the Smart School project exist as one of
application that are part of Malaysian Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) and Malaysia is ready
to transform curriculum for the 21st century. “We are examining our education system to create
a curriculum where people learn how to learn so they can continue their education throughout
the rest of their lives. The measure of success in 2020 will be the number and quality of our
people who can add value to information” (Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, 1996). Smart school
is a learning institution that has been systemically reinvented in terms of teaching-learning
practices and school management in order to prepare children for the Information Age. This
project gives some changes in education system such as from teacher-centered learning to
student-centered learning. In this report we will discuss some issues about smart schools,
especially in the problems faced in integrating information and communication technology.
CONTENT

The main strategy in Smart School project is to use technology in teaching and learning. In
terms of pedagogy, to deliver teaching and learning based on computer, hands-on material,
simulation learning, multimedia room and multimedia library (Smart School Project Team
1997). Teaching and learning materials also are network based. Smart schools are connected to
Local Area Network (LAN) and Wide Area Network (WAN). In short, smart school whole
based on technology which require computer, software and network as the teaching and learning
medium. The teaching and learning environment are comprised of four areas which are
curriculum, pedagogy, assessment and teaching-learning materials. Curriculum is designed to
help students achieve overall and balanced development in line with elements in the philosophy
of national education. Pedagogy allows for appropriate mix of learning strategies to ensure
mastery of basic competencies and promotion of holistic development. Assessments are
designed to give accurate feedback of student’s readiness progress, achievement and aptitude.
Lastly, the teaching-learning materials is cognitively challenging and motivating by combining
the best of network-based teacher-based, and courseware materials. There are main components
that are required in Smart School project which are management and administration, skills,
processes, technology and policies.
HISTORY

The Malaysian Smart School can be defined as a learning institution that has been
systematically reinvented in terms of teaching-learning practices and school management in
order to prepare children for the modern future (Information Age). The history of the Smart
School Project is rooted in the two pronged objectives of the flagship, which are to jumpstart
the MSC towards to build a knowledge based economy, contributing to the growth of the ICT
industry and creating a pool of talent resulting in high value job creation It is also to prepare
the citizens for the information age through an innovation education delivery process. The
Smart School Project is not just about ICT intervention in teaching and learning. The Smart
School Project initiative is one of the seven flagship application that are part of Malaysia’s
Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) project. The Government of Malaysia aims to capitalize on
the presence of leading-edge technologies and the rapid development of MSC’s infrastructure
to jump-start deployment of enabling technology to schools. This will be done by creating a
group of 90 pilot Smart Schools by 1999 that will serve as the nucleus for the eventual nation-
wide rollout of Smart School teaching concepts and materials, skills and technologies. By 2010,
all 10,000 of Malaysia’s primary and secondary schools will be Smart Schools.

MAIN GOAL

The Smart School Project initiates five main goals which focus on the need to develop a skilled
work force for the Information Age. The main goal is to produce a thinking and technology
literate workforce. Other than that, to provide all round development of the individual including
intellectual, physical, emotional and spiritual. Next, to provide opportunities to enhance
individual strength and abilities. Lastly, to increase participation of stakeholders and also as a
democratize education. The way of teaching and learning through ICT is including smart
partnerships locally and globally, a catering to the individuals student, creative approaches in
teaching and learning, combining the traditional and new technology in teaching and learning,
school access centers provide additional contact time with the internet, online learning for the
digital natives, use of courseware for the self-paced, self –accessed, self-directed learning and
also creativity and innovation in action.
CHALLENGES IN IMPLEMENTING SMART SCHOOL IN SCHOOL

Smart school can change a lot of things regarding teaching and learning process in school. There
are a lot of advantages that we can get through smart school program. However, there are also
challenges that the government and educators need to go through to implement the smart school
program.

Firstly, the challenge is lack of infrastructure in the school. Before the implementation,
most of the existing school have a limited amount of classroom and others room. Therefore,
during the implementation of this program the school needs to provide one or two room to be
made into computer laboratory for this program. Building a new infrastructure cost a lots of
money and required more energy to provide a new computer laboratory. Other than that, there
are limited number of computers that are provided in a school. Computers and projectors are
the main tools for the smart school program. Lack of computers and projectors cause disruption
to the program as the teachers need to fight for the limited amount of computers and projectors.
Furthermore, lack of infrastructure cause the students to share a computer during teaching and
learning process. Sharing the computers may distract the students from the learning process.
Students that are required to share mostly may not be able to focus as the friend beside them
may distract them by doing something else instead of learning. Lack of infrastructure is one of
the crucial challenges as the program need to be run by using technology which are lacking in
certain school especially rural area.

Secondly, most schools in Malaysia is lack of management for computer laboratory.

This challenge showed that the lack of management can disrupt the smart school program. How
this affect the implementation of smart school? During the implementation of smart school in
1999, the number of people with information and communication technology (ICT) knowledge
is so limited. Therefore, most of the school that are running smart school program lack of
technician. A technician is required as the computers need to be taken care by and to be serviced.
The lack amount of technicians caused the damage of the new computers. Most of the
computers are expensive during 1999 and the damage will cost a heap amount of money for the
government. Technician also important as they involve in repairing the computers’ parts.
Therefore, if there is no technician, the broken computer cannot be used for the teaching and
learning process. It will disturb the flow of smart school program as the number of usable
computers has decreased. Besides that, during the implementation of smart school, most of the
teachers lack the knowledge of information and communication technology (ICT). This
challenge affected the flow of smart school program as the teachers do not know how to use the
computers and projectors. The implementation was delayed and the teachers need to be send to
a special course to study about computers. The lack of professional in technology cause the
delay in implementation of smart school and one of the challenges that need to be handle.

The third challenge in implementing smart school program is the hardware, software
and courseware problem. Most of the software that are provided by the government are out of
date. The software used were out of date and need to be update as the current technology keeps
on blooming. The processor takes a lot of time processing and disturbing the process of teaching
and learning in the classroom. Moreover, the software that are used in the school and in the
Ministry of Education are different. The differences making the teachers have a hard time to
uniform their teaching and learning process with the ministry of education. Next, the
courseware that are provided for smart school program lack of proper guideline to use it. The
guideline did not help the teachers to use the courseware because it focused more toward design
and layout compare to the content. The content is the most important part for the teacher to use.
Lack of content will require the teacher to stop using the courseware as it does not follow the
study guides that are provided by the Ministry of Education. This cause for the program to not
running properly.

The fourth challenge is lack of skills and knowledge regarding information and
communication technology (ICT) field. The smart school program started during 1999 where
technology newly introduce. Most of the teachers prefer to teach in traditional way which is
chalk and talk. Teachers need to manage their time wisely if they want to start teaching using
computer or projector. This new teaching and learning method took quite of time and learning
session become shorter. It is because students need to go to computer laboratory which require
some time making the teaching time become shorter. Other than that, teachers without prior
knowledge about ICT may cause the computer to be broken. It is because there are a few steps
that need to be followed before opening and closing the computer. Some teachers did not give
a proper instruction on how to open and close the computer to the students. It may lead to
computer damage which will cost hundred Ringgit Malaysia. Lack of skills and knowledge
about computer become a challenge for smart school program as the teacher need to be send to
special course and hire new teachers with an ICT background so the smart school program will
run smoothly in the future.
The fifth challenge is the attitude of the teachers themselves in implementing the smart
school. The teachers’ attitude is important element to ensure that the implementation of smart
school in Malaysia is successful. However, the challenge in implementation of smart school in
Malaysia occur when teacher has a negative attitude towards this smart school program.
Summers (1988) stated that one of the most common reasons for teachers’ negative attitudes
toward technology is lack of knowledge and experience in this area. Successful use of
computers in the classroom is depending on the teachers’ attitude towards computers. This
problems mostly occur among the senior teachers that were used in using traditional method
and difficult to adapt to the instructional technology. They had been very comfortable in
applying traditional methods in teaching such as chalk and talk, memorization and recitation.
Senior teachers have more difficulty in using the technology compare to the new teacher. Senior
teachers had not been exposed to the utilizing of technology in teaching when they were trained
to be a teacher back then compare to the new teacher that had been exposed on the
implementation of technology in teaching. As the result, senior teachers continued to use the
traditional methods that they were comfortable with and push the implementation of smart
school to the new teachers. There are also concerns among the senior teachers in using the
technology while teaching especially a time-related concern. Some of teachers state that they
have to teach other subject as well and need to carry other responsibilities as a teacher, so they
did not have much time to prepare lesson that need to use a computer. As a senior teacher that
did not have a lot of experience in using a computer, this will need a lot of time to preparing a
lesson that is in need to the use of computer and there is insufficient time for them to learn and
master the computer. It is important for teachers to have a knowledge of computer in order for
the implementation of the smart school in Malaysia to show a positive result regardless of the
teacher that implement it, either a senior teacher or a new teacher. Students’ achievement,
learning process and attitude can be increased with the help of computers and technology. It
will also encourages teachers to use more computers and technology to improve students’
learning through the integration of technology, curriculum and instruction. Traditional methods
have its own advantage as well but it is not wrong to try a new method in teaching if it is for
the well-being of student education.

Next, according to Ertmer et al (2012) the most commonly cited reason for lack of
technology implementation in the classroom is to set up a series of training courses for teachers
in order to continuously upgrade and update the professional knowledge, capability and virtue
of teachers. The training programs are held at teacher training colleges and local universities
which themselves have become the center for professional developments in teacher education
(Ministry of Education 1999). However, not all the staffs are involve in training program. As
the result, there are teachers that cannot apply the lesson in class using the technology and it
became one of the challenges in implementation of smart school in Malaysia. These
professional development courses of 14 weeks duration (on-going) courses were designed to
focus on specialized areas in computing: namely Computers in Education; Computerization and
the Use of Computers in the Teaching and Learning of Bahasa Melayu (the Malay Language).
The courses are presently being geared towards the training of teachers for the Smart School
Project. The TED educators and officers themselves undergo continuous professional
development and attend short courses in IT both locally and overseas and share their knowledge
and expertise through the in-house training programs organized by the TED (Ministry of
Education 1999). Although there are teachers that had been attend the specific program of
implementation of technology in classroom, they still did not use the technology when Teaching
and Learning (T&L). There are teachers that still do not feel confidence in using the technology
while teaching and be unlikely to explore new possibilities that utilize technology when
designing their classes. Teachers usually want to finish all the topics in their subject within
fixed amount of time so they prefer teaching in traditional methods as they want to save time
from exploring the technology to use in their lessons. To solve the problem regarding this
challenge, the TED course adopt ‘training the trainers’ and cascade models, that are preparing
successful participants to pass on their learning to colleagues. The first cohort of trained
teachers will become so-called ‘master trainers’ and will be expected to device in-service
training in their schools in the integration of technologies into the teaching and learning process
so the other teacher that did not participate in the program also can have same amount of
knowledge regarding the technology application in classroom.

Lastly, the challenge of implementation of smart school in Malaysia is regarding the

ethics and laws in ICT. In general, ethics is a moral philosophy where a person makes a specific
moral choices and sticks to it. On the other hand, ethics in computing means moral guidelines
to refer to when using the computer and computer networks, this includes the internet. Law is
a legal system comprising of rules and principles that govern the affairs of a community and
controlled by a political authority. Laws differ from one country to another. In the era of
technology, computer law is needed to make sure good or bad actions that fall under the
computer law. Computer law refers to all areas in law that requires an understanding of
computer technology such as hardware, software and internet. For instance, laws of computing
in Malaysia include the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Act, the Computer Crime
Act 1997 and Telemedicine Act 1997. The issue concerning the ethic and law in ICT can be
related to the implementation of smart school as any violation of the law can become the
problem in student discipline in the future. For example, use a pirate software. Many student
did not realize the use of pirated software is not harmful activity and they will giving them to
their friends too. Then the students who are not knowing to get licensed software are tends to
use more pirated software. When using the ICT, students are more exposed to inappropriate
content. Exposure to inappropriate information or images can effect the student’s ability to
process their understanding of the content. Most school boards have implemented blocking and
monitoring software, but it is necessary to teach the students what to do when they encounter
inappropriate sites. Students that are very interest and still new to the uses of technology might
use and explore the ICT infrastructure for self-interest instead of using the ICT for their study.
Challenge of implementation of smart school in Malaysia also can be overcome by ethics and
law in ICT. Teacher can teach student the responsibility and conscious behavior. Advise them
about privacy in cyberspace and potential risk and dangers. Simulate cases and discuss how to
face the challenges online. Explain possible consequences of inappropriate behavior and device
misuse. In school, teachers can guide and assist the student all the time when they are using the
ICT to avoid them from encounter any possible threat when using the ICT.
CONCLUSION

In conclusion, although the year is already 2020 where the vision that has been chanted from
the first it was announced on 1991 should already be able to apply in regard of education where
to establish a scientific and progressive society, the challenges that have been discussed show
that there are lot of aspects that need to be improve. From the lack of infrastructures to the
attitude of the teachers and staffs themselves shows that some actions need to be to taken to
mend these challenges to allow the Smart School easily achievable and accessible to all students
from all background which either from the city to the rural place. This is important as we are
moving towards an era that all things can be done at the end of the fingertips which can have
lot of benefits toward the students and teachers in education as these modernization allows
things to be access easily. Some of the plans that can be used to counter all these challenges are
that the government needs to supply more fund to buy the infrastructures that are lacking in
certain school. Other than that, the teachers and the staffs themselves need to be educated more
on improving themselves when using the technology. As for example, the teachers that are
chosen to attend seminar on using the new technology should be able to explain it better to other
teachers in their school by giving them easier info to digest. Next, the technology itself needs
to be user friendly as most of the teachers refuse to use it is because it is hard to understand and
too complicated. However, nowadays the gadgets and technology that in the old days are regard
as a “want” has been turned to a “need” in most of the modern society. This has made the Smart
School one step closer to be fully implemented in every school as the technology are easily
accessible to most of the teachers and students. The Smart School can be fully implemented
when all parties take part in making it achievable by doing their parts accordingly and with full
of commitment.
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