Good Grade for Education Plan

HE local information and communications technology fraternity has given the newly launched National Education Blueprint the thumbs-up for recognising the role of ICT in delivering quality education. The consensus is that the blueprint continues to place strong emphasis on ICT use in the country’s education system.

According to the Association of the Computer and Multimedia Industry Malaysia (Pikom), the education blueprint is a boost to the local ICT industry based on several initiatives to enhance English proficiency among students such as the teaching of science and technology in English and increasing courseware in English.

Pikom’s chairman, education and training, special interest group Simon Seow pointed out that it is necessary for Malaysian students to be more proficient in the English language so as to be more competitive in the job market.

“Mastering the language is important as many of the ICT applications and content are still English-centric,” he said.

“While it is recognised that ICT’s influence will continue to affect more and more parts of education, what is less talked about is the reverse, that we need to ensure a fertile ground for a healthy ICT environment. In this respect, command of the English language is a major component.”

Seow added that proficiency in English allows students to use ICT to explore more of the world outside of the classroom.

“The importance of this must not be underestimated. Malaysia does not have the population or market size of some of our Asian neighbours, and creativity in ICT use as well as development may be the only differentiating factor for us to compete.”

As ICT will become one of the main components in lesson delivery, teachers’ ability to handle the related solutions to increasingly tech- savvy students will have to be addressed as well.

“While we need teachers to be computer literate and more resourceful with technology so that they will be able to develop tech-savvy students, here we are talking about teachers who are really comfortable with technology, not just those who can switch on the projector and turn the pages on a PowerPoint presentation,” Seow explained.

He said with multimedia, teachers and students should be in a position to choose what is effective for their needs.

“An important issue that we have not publicly talked about much is how to handle a situation where students are increasingly tech savvy, to the extent where they are far ahead of the teachers in the knowledge and use of ICT,” he added.

To get the best results in ICT implementation in schools, Seow said students must learn to use the computer as a basic tool for learning in and out of school as well as for other curricular activities. “That was a major reason why Pikom had programmes such as the One Home, One PC project and PC Fair to provide more opportunities for the population in general to own PCs as affordably as possible.”

Besides that, the infrastructure for Internet or broadband facilities in schools should be more widespread and not merely in focused areas.

“I will go as far as to say that broadband facilities should extend beyond the physical limits of the individual school. Students should grow up with the mindset that ICT is pervasive and ubiquitous,” Seow said.

“Students are already at the forefront of mobile phone usage. Give them the infrastructure and they will make use of it. This is perhaps one additional reason why the slowness of our national broadband penetration and quality improvement is much to be regretted.”

Meanwhile, Microsoft Malaysia’s general manager, public sector Azizah Ali said it is heartening to note the continuity and consistency of the Government’s plan to develop national schools as the mainstream of the education system, and the focus on three important aspects in this development – infrastructure, content and manpower.

The goal of further strengthening the primary and secondary national schools so they become schools of choice conveys the Government’s commitment to comprehensively improve the ICT facilities in schools and offer more ICT-based training for teachers, among others, she added.

“It is also heartening to note that the Ministry under the blueprint has placed significant emphasis on developing human capital through increased attention in developing value systems that help produce students who are competent in science and technology and who are innovative, creative and marketable.”

According to Azizah, Microsoft recognises the importance of accelerating Malaysia into the information economy and aims to drive this growth by banking on the experience and expertise of “smart” public-private sector partnerships to develop programmes that provide a platform for teacher collaboration, best practices sharing and further promote the use and value of ICT in schools.

For Intel Electronics Malaysia, the company finds the blueprint a comprehensive plan that covers key areas such as teacher development, human capital development and narrowing the education gap. Its country manager Debjani Ghosh said the Government’s focus on increasing students’ thinking and analytical skills is timely as this is critical for success in today’s workplace. It will also help increase the nation’s competitiveness at a global level.

“As it is crucial that this plan is successfully implemented, Intel will like to see more opportunities for public-private sector partnerships. The industry and the education system depend on each other for their future. These joint ventures are necessary to help make this plan a reality,” she pointed out.

According to Debjani, various researches have shown that ICT, if used well, can help drive learning and result in higher thinking and analysis.

“With the Internet and e-mail, students have the world at their fingertips, and with the right direction from teachers these tools can be used to improve their thinking ability and analytical skills. For the National Education Blueprint to be a success, teacher development is most critical,” she said.

“All the technology in a classroom will be of little use unless teachers know how to integrate it effectively in the day-to-day teaching and learning process. The teacher will need to be the agent of change in the education system. Intel is committed to working with the Education Ministry to support teacher development with programmes like Intel Teach.”

For Oracle Malaysia, the blueprint bodes well from the perspective of both ICT usage and ICT preparedness. Its head, e- governance, Centre of Excellence Hayati Harudin said the continued enrichment of the multi- pronged approach to deliver learning through ICT through SchoolNet broadband, school-run computer labs and TV Pendidikan will pique learning interest.

She highlighted that ICT literacy training for teachers and students with the introduction of new “ICT literacy” subjects certainly places the blueprint right at the forefront of pretertiary education comparable to other countries.

“Speaking purely from an ICT perspective, we would have liked a more specific statement of intent on learning related to ICT creation, augmenting that of ICT usage. For example, the high- demand professions in the software industry are software architects and project planners (as compared to developers, programmers and coders).”

Another ICT issue that needs to be addressed, according to Hayati, is the proliferation of Internet references such as Google Search and Wikipedia.

“Students will inevitably use these easy-access resources, but the Education Ministry can ensure learning facilitators guide students to use these research tools constructively as opposed to allowing them to `do the thinking’ for students. Also, teachers may require guidelines to moderate the usage of these content to promote originality.”

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