The Role of Teacher

The Role of Teachers as Agent of Curriculum Changes Malaysian education system was built in other to uphold the education aspirations where the main aim is to empower the nation’s citizens to compete in today’s era globalisation. According to Dr. Nayef R.F. Al-Rodhan (2006), globalization involves economic integration; the transfer of policies across borders; the transmission of knowledge; cultural stability; the reproduction, relations, and discourses of power; it is a global process, a concept, a revolution, and an establishment of the global market free from socio-political control. A research by S. Chinnammai (2005) also supported that the effects of globalisation on education bring rapid developments in technology and communications are foreseeing changes within learning systems across the world as ideas, values and knowledge, changing the roles of students and teachers, and producing a shift in society from industrialisation towards an information-based society. So, Malaysian curricularist has reform the Malaysian curriculum that meets the globalisation needs where Malaysian Education Blueprint (2013) agreed that high aspirations is significant in order to properly address the needs of all Malaysians, and to prepare the nation to perform at an international level, it is important to first envision what a highly-successful education system must accomplish, particularly in the Malaysian context. As suggested by Paweł Strawiński (2011) the educational aspirations and expectations are closely linked to respondents’ level of education. In relation to Malaysian education curriculum reforms, an educational aspiration is the hope and ambition of Malaysian in achieving a higher level of education and thus preparing the future for a better workforce. Therefore, the advent of globalisation democratises the transformation of Malaysian education through the educational aspirations reforms. Thus, in order to develop a successful transformation of the Malaysian curriculum, teacher plays an important role as agents of change. There are four types of change that can be done by teacher namely shift towards increase, changes in the organization’s strategic , proactive changes and lastly changes resulting from outreach. As agents of change, teacher should improve their skills by changes

in the performance of duties. In relation to the Eleven Shifts of Malaysian Education Blueprint (2013), the curriculum develops aims to focus teachers on their core function of teaching from 2013 by reducing administration burdens. Based on the fourth shift, teachers have the opportunity to improve their skills because the workload of administrating will be lessened. Furthermore, the teacher can focus more on their core business which is teaching and thus they can perform well in their duties. This s supported by Weingarten (2012) where if educational reform is to work, teachers should believe that the proposed changes in education will actually help them be successful with students. The above statement indicates that teacher as agents of change should agree with the shifts proposed by the Malaysian Educational Blueprint to ensure the system aspirations for Malaysian Education can be achieved. One of the five systems aspirations related to the shift of performance duties by the teacher is closely related to the aspirations of equity in which Malaysian education aims for top-performing school systems that deliver the best education for every child, and teachers are responsible in improving their performance in duties to uphold this aspiration. Teacher as agents of change should have changes in the organizations strategic which means a strategic plan should be developed to meet the goals of the curriculum reforms by taking into considerations many factors related to the teacher’s role in school. First and foremost, teachers should think of possible strategies to empower the national aspirations of the school curriculum. For instance, teacher should change their teaching methods from teacher-centred to students-centred. This change is important in order to mould the nation citizens into creative and innovative citizens that well-equipped with ability to acquiring knowledge as well as developed the citizens that can apply knowledge learned critically and innovatively. This is also reinforced by Malaysian Education Blueprint (2013) in the second aspirations of students which is aspirations of thinking skills stated that every child will learn how to continue acquiring knowledge throughout their lives (instilling a love for inquiry and lifelong learning), to be able to connect different pieces of knowledge, and, most importantly in a knowledge-based economy, to create new knowledge. So, by changing the

teaching method, teachers should ensure that the teaching materials should mirror the globalisation of the world where the use of ICT should be emphasizing more during school hours. Apart from that, teacher as agents of change should well equipped with the ICT skills where teaching and learning activities could be maximising beyond the Malaysia context. For example, the activity such as video conferencing can take place between the primary school Malaysian students with the New Zealand students. Such activity will eventually help our students to practice their knowledge skills in ICT as well as gain confidence in speaking skills. Teacher involvement leads to a curricular transformation where teacher as agent of changes should be proactive in their work. In order to meet the aspiration of quality, teacher should be able to be proactive, which means, teacher should be able to create and control a situation in classroom and school rather than responding to the situation after it has happened. Henly, M. (2009) agreed with this statement where proactive teachers do not avoid problems in learning or problems with behaviour. However, these teachers accept responsibility for their students’ successes and their students’ failures. A proactive teacher should be able to create a proactive classroom through the positive learning environment. Therefore, other than emphasizing on the academic, some changes should be made within the teacher and the classroom such as inculcating the social skills in daily lessons and routines. By inducing social skills in the lesson, students will be interested in the lesson in classroom. This is supported by the Malaysian Education Blueprint (2013) whereby teacher as agent changes should ensure that the students aspirations in ethics and spirituality is being highlighted in which the education system will inculcate strong ethics and spirituality in every child to prepare them to rise to the challenges they will inevitably face in adult life, to resolve conflicts peacefully, to employ sound judgement and principles during critical moments, and to have the courage to do what is right. Thus, the above statement has specified that to empower the citizens with good ethics and spirituality, it falls back on the teacher’s role as agents of change in implementing the curriculum transformation in school.

The Malaysian Education Blueprint acts as the outreach of the teacher as agent of changes because mainly this blueprint emphasizes on the significant roles of teachers and administrators at school. Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin (2013) stated that the blueprint is indeed so committed to preparing our children with skills in six student characters, and it would be better if it is to be well-received with immense feelings of responsibility so that the programmes could be fully implemented to achieve the desired results. From the above statements, we could say that the goals of the blueprint is included in helping students to become productive members of the workforce, knowledgeable consumers, savers and investors, and participants in the global economy. The role of teacher is vital where teacher as the implementer is the person that is responsible to mould our citizens by understanding the current challenges globally. Teacher should focus on improving the education lesson into a classroom where students would be able to think critically creatively by preparing a lesson with hands on learning, collaborative learning as well as encouraging students to be more confidence in giving out their ideas and thoughts. Therefore, the role of teacher here will be able to meet the objectives of Malaysian Education Blueprint (2013) which allow the education to meet new demands and rising expectations, and to ignite and support overall civil service transformations. The development and reformation of educational curriculum in Malaysia requires teachers to contribute as the architects of change, not just its implementers (Weingarten, 2012). Hence, teacher should change their leadership from autocratic style into a democratic style. As leaders, there were several ways that teachers can do as agents of change. First, teacher should acquire openness whereby they should be ready to accept any changes especially in education transformation. As agents of change, teacher as key players of curriculum should accept the education reforming and then teachers should be creative to modify and fine-tune the design work of the Malaysian Education Blueprint into a meaningful learning lesson. Ornstein and Hunkins (2014) agreed to this statement that curriculum expectations emerge from teacher’s capacities to enact curricular and pedagogic actions

with discretions, judgements, and proficiency. So, teacher should acts as the active participants in the curriculum transformations rather than being passive recipients of the curriculum reformation. This is because, the teacher’s perspectives as important as others stakeholders in reforming the curriculum in Malaysia where teacher is the one that undergoing the strengths and weaknesses of the curriculum implemented. Thus, they know better about the implementation of the curriculum compare to other stakeholders. With regards to above statements, Handler, (2010) also claimed that the longevity of the academic discourse on meaningful and sustained teacher involvement in school-based decision-making suggests an underlying theoretical assumption that such organizational structures would ultimately result in improved student outcomes. Therefore, we could see that many researchers agreed that teacher should be an active implementer and stakeholders in order to improve students’ knowledge and skills and thus preparing them for skilful workers. Malaysian Education Blueprint states in detail the five system aspirations and six student characters to be achieved in the next 13 years. It focuses on student outcomes encompassing all levels of schooling, that is, from pre-school to post-secondary level where the main stress turns on the teacher roles as agent of changes. From the above supports, teacher is seen as the important key players in ensuring that the curriculum transformation is being implemented well in the school. Thus, teachers should take the responsibilities to implement the curriculum of the Malaysian Education for the better future that will be facing more challenging globalisation.