The Educational Process

Pre-Primary Education | Primary Education | Secondary Education

The National Curriculum is developed centrally and within the Ministry of Education. Three main departments are responsible for the design and development of the school curriculum: the Curriculum Development Centre, responsible for the design of the school curriculum from preschool to upper secondary; the Department of Technical and Vocational Education; and the Department of Religious and Moral Education.

All matters regarding policies need to have the approval of the Central Curriculum Committee, which consists of the directors of the main agencies at the Ministry level. For example, a new subject syllabus needs to be discussed and approved by this Committee before it can be implemented. Curricular programmes that have been approved are then discussed by the Curriculum Implementation Committee, comprising the Directors of Education of the fourteen states of Malaysia and representatives of the agencies of the Ministry.

The current process of curriculum development is based on a cyclical model beginning with a needs analysis, followed by planning, development, piloting, dissemination and implementation, evaluation and then back to the identification of needs. The time taken between planning and implementation is usually about thirty months to allow sufficient time for textbooks to be ready and distributed and examinations to be prepared.

For the 1999 curriculum revision, the strengths and weaknesses of the curriculum were identified, as were the issues associated with the content, skills, values and attitudes, teaching and learning processes, as well evaluation and assessment. Through the mapping of these aspects, adjustments to the curriculum were made whether the matter in question should be retained, removed, reduced, added on or re-allotted. The mapping exercise involved both vertical and lateral consolidation. An example of a vertical consolidation is looking at a topic and examining it across all levels of secondary schooling. A lateral consolidation would entail looking at a topic and ensuring the topic is infused in other subjects where relevant.

The curricular revisions have resulted in a content- and outcome-based school curriculum. The content-based approach lists the topics or themes of the subject area that students are expected to acquire, while the outcome-based approach lists abilities and skills they are expected to master.

Coherence and integration between and across subject areas are emphasized as basic features of the curriculum. Indeed, specific aspects of education such as moral values, patriotism, science and technology, language, environmental education, and study skills are infused across the subject disciplines, with the purpose of consolidating these aspects which need further emphasis. Furthermore, the use of activity-based and student-centered pedagogical approaches is encouraged to reinforce and facilitate the development of critical and creative thinking skills. These include problem solving, analytical decision-making, high level questions, inquiry and discovery, and self-paced and self-directed learning.

Difficulties in curriculum development have involved deciding on the scope of the curriculum, finding people who have sufficiently specialized skills and experience in curriculum development, and overcoming the gap between planning and implementation. Furthermore, differing school environments can present a challenge to fulfilling the aspirations of a centralized curriculum, teachers tend to resist change, and very often the style and format of the examination papers and tasks, rather than curricular objectives, drive the classroom. Finally, the cascade model of dissemination has weaknesses, resulting in the dilution of the message, and thus in misconceptions and confusion.

Several factors have facilitated the implementation of curricular reform Initiatives, including research findings, public opinions, world trends, social and economic needs and political pressures. Curricular reform initiatives were further facilitated with factors such as the government's continued efforts to expand and improve education and training by increasing the budget for education, the availability of basic infrastructure and training, and public awareness and support to carry out educational reforms to fulfil the needs of cultural, social, and economic development.

It is known that curriculum implementation cannot be ideally executed as a number of constraints operate in between. These constraints may include teachers' qualifications, motivation, attitudes, skills, content, and clarity in communication; they might also include pupils' attitudes and motivation to learn; other obstacles can be school-related such as class size, management, facilities, and the school complex. The language of instruction, and insufficient learning materials and teaching aids can also present impediments to curriculum implementation.