SHIFT 4: TRANSFORM TEACHING INTO THE PROFESSION OF CHOICE

Initiative focus: Revamp the IPG to world class standards by 2020.

The Ministry aims to transform the IPG into a world-class teacher training university by 2020. To
do so, the Ministry will review the current pre-service training curriculum to ensure that teachers
are adequately prepared to teach the higher-order thinking skills desired of Malaysias students.
This will include increasing the percentage of time spent on practicum training to 40% across all
programmes. The IPG will also offer different programmes (diplomas, undergraduate and
postgraduate degrees) to cater to candidates with varying experience levels (fresh graduates
and mid-career leavers). The selection criteria for new lecturers will be enhanced, and existing
lecturers will be upskilled.
Progress
As of 2013, the Education Ministry began implementing several initiatives to cultivate the
existing pool of teachers in developing their professional skills, including language proficiency.
The first cohort of 5,000 teachers underwent the Professional Upskilling of English Language
Teachers (Pro-ELT) programme, which resulted in 76% of teachers improving by at least 1 band
of language proficiency. In January 2014, the ministry announced that 20,000 Malaysian English
language teachers would undergo extensive training from February 2014 to refine their
proficiency in the English language.
Teachers have also been increasingly exposed to higher-order thinking skills (HOTS) concept
techniques that would aid students creative development and thinking process, better known as
the i-THINK Programme. To increase teachers commitment in their core performance,
teachers administrative duties will, in stages, be fully lifted and appointed to a dedicated
administrative unit at individual schools. Benefits for preschool teachers will also improve;
teaching recruits will obtain aids to pursue part-time diplomas and receive tuition/training fee
assistance in support of their professional development.
To elevate teaching as a career of choice in Malaysia, the government has also introduced the
Teacher Charter Initiative, which comprises: 1) the development of a Unified Instrument (UI)
whereby education officers competency and performance will be assessed based on
established standards; 2) the development of the Continuous Professional Development Master
Plan (Pelan Induk Pembangunan Profesional Berterusan, PIPPB) which empowers teachers to

undertake continuous professional self-development, and; 3) streamlining of career pathways

that enable teachers to gain better career development opportunities. As the ministry sets to
expand preschool to secondary school enrolment, the demand for skilled teachers will likewise
increase to facilitate this goal. By 2020, an estimated 30,000 new qualified teachers will be
required to manage additional classrooms. More youths are also expressing their interest in
teaching. In 2013, the Joint Teachers Unions Committee reported receiving 70,000 applications
for 5,000 available positions. As teaching continues to become a fast growing profession of
choice for school leavers and graduates in Malaysia, constant support will be provided to newly
recruited and existing teachers, including the latest teaching and learning techniques that aims
to boost students active learning.
Due to greater demands for high-skilled teachers, entry requirements for potential
candidates have been raised to strengthen the pipeline of teacher trainee recruits. As cited in
the National Blueprint, only the top 30% of graduates will be recruited to heighten the quality of
teaching in Malaysia to international standards. The ministry will also set out to restructure The
Institute of Teacher Education (Institut Pendidikan Guru, IPG) into a world-class teacher training
institute by raising entry requirements for prospective trainees, enhancing the IPG curriculum,
improving pre-service training, and placing further focus on research, innovation, and
infrastructure.
Prediction in future progress and impact on pupils at large
More opportunities lie ahead for teachers in Malaysia within the next decade. To transform
teaching into an elite career option, various strategies will continue to take place in improving
the quality of teaching in Malaysia, with further focus placed on enriching classroom techniques,
superior language proficiency, teachers professional growth, and the recruitment of highlyskilled, passionate individuals.
Malaysian teacher education programmes are moving towards student-centred
approaches. I also strongly believe that student-centred learning approaches facilitate learning
in the Malaysian teacher education programmes. The approaches promote active learning by
empowering students to take more responsibility for their learning and to increase their
involvement and participation in the learning process. The active learning approaches also
enhance the development of skills in critical and analytical thinking that seem to be better
developed than in the traditional setting. These learning approaches will promote teacher

education programme for a sustainable future with a similar goal on improving academic and
higher-order thinking skills to foster meaningful learning for life.
Teacher expertise is the most important factor in determining student achievement,
followed by the smaller but consistently positive influences of small schools and small class
sizes. That is, teachers who know alot about teaching and learning and who work in
environments that allow them to know students well are the critical elements of successful
learning. Teacher expertise or what teachers know and can do affects all the core tasks of
teaching. For example, what teachers understand, both about content and students, shapes
how judiciously they select from texts and other materials and how effectively they present
material in class. Their skill in assessing their students' progress depends also on how deeply
they themselves know the content, and how well they can understand and interpret students'
talk and written work. Nothing can fully compensate for the weakness of a teacher who lacks the
knowledge and skill needed to help students master the curriculum. Measures of teachers'
education, certification, knowledge, and experience have most often been the primary sources
of large scale data on teacher expertise.
Suggestions for improving
How do we integrate this knowledge into our classrooms? First, it starts with us. We
need to believe truly and honestly that if we do our job as teachers, our students will succeed.
We also need to communicate the belief that our students can succeed to our students. Without
that communication, then we just become the mean teacher who makes everything too hard
and we risk having our students shut down on us.
We also need to realize that having high expectations is more than just grading tough or
having challenging curriculum. Having high expectations is about students learning challenging
material and doing quality work, yes. But that can mean moving to a more project-based
curriculum rather than giving students more facts to memorize. It can also mean that instead of
giving students a F for poor quality work, you make them redo it until it meets the quality that
you expect.
Behavior is also essential to holding high expectations. We need to expect and enforce
behavior for our students. We shouldnt excuse things like talking in the hall (for elementary), or
showing up late for class (for secondary), because our students cant help it. The fact is that
they can control their behavior and their actions. More importantly, many think learning self-

control and responsibility may be more important to the future success of our students than
anything else.

SHIFT 5: LEVERAGE ICT TO SCALE UP QUALITY LEARNING ACROSS MALAYSIA

Intiative focus
Provide internet access and virtual learning environment via 1BestariNet for all 10,000 schools.
In the very near future, every student will have access to a 4G network at their school through
1BestariNet. This network will serve as the basis for the creation of a virtual learning platform
that can be used by teachers, students and parents to share learning resources, run interactive
lessons, and communicate virtually. To maximise the impact from investment, the Ministry will
also invest in ICT-competency training for all teachers, and gradually improve the device-tostudent ratio from approximately 1:30 in 2011 to 1:10 by 2020. In order to remain cost-efficient,
the Ministry will invest in fit-for-purpose devices such as basic computers or low-cost laptops. It
will also experiment with utilising new, less resource-intensive alternatives for ICT facilities
compared to current computer labs, such as a lending library for notebooks and computers-onwheels.
Progress
Through the 1BestariNet project, FrogAsia is bringing the future of education to every student,
teacher and parent in Malaysia. Combining high-speed 4G internet access, a world class
learning platform and access to best-in-class resources and technology, Malaysia is the first
country in the world to bring its entire education community together on a single converged
network designed specifically to meet the needs of teaching and learning. 1BestariNet is a
project initiated by the Malaysian Ministry of Education in line with the governments vision of
providing quality, Internet-enabled education for all. The programme is a first-of-its-kind initiative
in Malaysia to provide a lightweight, cloud-based, Samsung 4G Chromebook to every single
student and teacher in a school, enabling collaborative learning and teaching to happen
anytime, anywhere, in classrooms and at home.
In December 2011, YTL Communications was contracted by the Ministry of Education to
equip 10,000 primary and secondary public schools in Malaysia with a virtual learning
infrastructure and provide high speed 4G Internet network access in just 12 months. Meeting

the aggressive timeline required an unconventional departure from the traditional approach of
deploying application servers in schools, to a cloud-based approach where 10,000 virtual
learning environments (VLEs) and schools are deployed into the 1BestariNet cloud. This
approach would enable all schools to access their individual schools VLE via 1BestariNet or
through any Internet connection.
YTL Communications based its search for a cloud solution based on criteria such as
reliability, support, performance, and scalability. After evaluating solutions from various vendors,
YTL Communications selected Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization, and
Red Hat Satellite Server, which met all of the above requirements. The 1BestariNet VLE system
currently runs on 60 Dell and Intel Xeon-based servers with 2,400 cores for virtualization
hypervisors to support the distribution of applications to the schools. Built on a flexible Red Hat
Enterprise Virtualization infrastructure, the VLEs can continue to scale and support additional
processing or storage capacity as and when needed. This can be achieved by scaling out
horizontally and through adding more physical processing and storage capacity to the
virtualization farms.
Adopting a cloud-based approach has enabled YTL Communications to standardize and
control its IT infrastructure, as well as roll out new applications, application modules, updates
and content to schools in an efficient manner all which contributes to meeting its deployment
and budget requirements. With Red Hats open source solutions, VLEs for 10,000 schools were
built and deployed within the first six months of the project. Today, 5.5 million students, 500,000
teachers, and 5 million parents have access to the cloud-based VLE in 1BestariNet.
Future prediction progress and impact on pupils at large
Educators and students of all ages were recently treated to a showcase of the latest
approaches, products and innovations for improving and enhancing learning in schools and
other educational institutions. School authorities must be able to tap their students potential,
nurture them and inculcate values that would enable them to move on and face the challenges
ahead. It is not unusual to still find classrooms that remind us of the black and white photos of
our grandparents days, where students sat in rows and the teacher engaged the pupils with
chalk and the blackboard. This is despite our technologies moving at warp speed.

Realising the gaps, many educators came to the event with hopes of searching for the right
products and solutions. This was to create a richer teaching and learning experience for their
school communities, and workplaces.
According to Intel, technology is an essential foundation of education transformation and
Malaysia has been progressing steadily in this area since the launch of the Malaysian Education
Blueprint 2013-2025.
The event should also serve as a wake-up call for those who are not sure about teaching and
learning with technology. For many educators, what is even more important on their agenda is
to create a conducive learning environment that will prepare their students for the future. The
journey of experimenting with technology and learning, however, is not always a rosy one,
because creating a conducive learning environment means more than just plugging in
expensive devices.
This will cultivate the next generation of innovators who can support Malaysias national
agenda of developing a knowledge-driven and high-income nation, Intel hopes that the
Government will continue to prioritize and channel allocations towards integrating technology
throughout the entire education process. I also strongly believes that one of the best methods to
ensure students are well equipped with technology tools that enable effective learning is to
equip them with best in class, purpose suited devices.
Further suggestion to improve initiative
For 2015 and onward years, we hope that the Government will allocate additional budget to
refresh aging devices to the latest specifications, implement e-Learning programs and equip
students with 21st century skills such as technology, media, computer and digital literacy,
effective communication, critical thinking, problem solving and collaboration in all schools
nationwide.
I also hope to see a strong commitment in Budget 2015 to support training in ICT-enabled
education modules for teachers nationwide and provide them with the right tools and strategies
to support a student-centric learning environment.

References
Preliminary report, Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025. September 2012. Ministry of
education.
PADU.Delivering the Roadmap. Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013 2025.
GOVERNMENT TRANSFORMATION PROGRAMME, 2013. Ministry of Education.