Week 3a: 21st Century Skills( Problems faced in enhancing 21st century skills in Malaysia)

*report on problems faced in enhancing 21st century skills in Malaysia.by Mohd Helmi Syazwan bin Mohd Zaki, Salina Sayang binti Kamal Arifin*

Problems Faced in Enhancing 21^st Century Skills in Malaysia.

     21^st century skills is not an unknown terminology to talk among people all around the world. It vibrates and propagates through all regions and makes it very important to acquire these skills. Community in the academic field, students and teachers especially, should master these skills. Classroom teachers need to be familiar with these skills and integrate them throughout the curriculum. What are 21^st century skills? Based on the U.S Secretary of Education Arne Duncan (2009) referred to 21^st century skills as "skills that increasingly demand creativity, perseverance, and problem solving combined with performing well as part of a team." As to wrap up, 21^st century skills means, how well students can do with knowledge and applying what they learn in authentic contexts. Their choicest or most essential , vital part of some idea or experience involves strong communication and collaboration skills, expertise in technology, innovative and creative thinking skills, and an ability to solve problems. 

 

In applying these skills to the youngsters, some difficulties are emerging and creating a barrier in achieving it. Especially in Malaysia, we are focusing more on the exam result rather than acquiring these skills. The problem arises by the critics, they argue by saying, “21^st century skills as a meaningless term and distraction from the more important work of teaching core context and these types of higher-order skills cannot be measured in reliable, cost-effective, or scalable ways”.  (Elena Silva, The Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 90, No. 9, May, 2009). Not to forget, Malaysian now live among the first class mentality people, so, they will see these problem as a global one and they tend to criticize it when these skills is implemented in Malaysia. How to solve this particular problem? In resolving this, government should convince and win the citizens hearts. We have to open our eyes widely as we are living among the first class mentality people and it is hard for them to accept anything or almost everything when it comes to something that is not reliable and ambiguous. They will not accept these skills easily when they are not seeing the result and consequences after these skills being implemented. Government should really convincing the citizens and disseminating the ‘21^st century skills’ ideas so that it can be accepted by our citizens. 

 

The implementation also can be really unmanageable when the teachers are not trained well by the professional in carrying these skills. Once these skills is running on track, it will be obstructed when the teachers could not deliver the teaching lessons and make the students master these skills and as the consequence, watering down the objective of the 21^st century skills. To make matters worse, students are leaving schools without mastering one of these skills neither communication skills nor expertise in technology. So, this problem has to be fixed. Teachers should be sent to some courses and trained well by the expertise and professional so that they will be running straight right on the track. This should be done before these 21^st century skills are implemented in schools. Students have to be trained well by the teachers because “skills for the future also were recommended long ago by John Dewey, who proposed an education "grounded in experience," in which students interact with the ever-changing world”(Gohnson and Reed 2008, 1 3).

Last but not least, another problem is the lacking of programs in 21^st skills is the lacking of programs of introducing and educating the students about 21^st century skills. As a result, students, especially in the rural area are not aware of these skills, and can not master them. For now, one program known for developing 21^st skills is the establishment of “Smart Schools”. Smart school is a learning institution that has been systematically reinvented in terms of teaching-learning practices and school management in order to prepare the children for the Information Age (Yassim, 2010). Basically, smart schools are introduced to prepare the students with enough knowledge and skills to confront with the Information Age, a time where nothing else is valuable except knowledge. There is a phase in the implementation of smart schools, known as “making all schools smart” phase. This phase is a continuous process to acculturate the use of technology in education to ensure quality teaching & learning, effectiveness of school administration and management and teachers’ ICT competency (Yassim, 2010). In this phase, all schools in Malaysia will gradually undergo revolutions and change is smart schools. There are four primary objectives of this phase. They are:

1. To produce a knowledge society that is critical, creative, and innovative.
2. To produce technology savvy individuals for the Information Age.
3. To bridge the digital divide.
4. To cultivate life-long learning based on ICT.

From all of the above objectives, we can conclude that all of them are more towards benefiting technology as 21^st century tools. Besides, there are no specific criteria for the students to enter those smart schools. There are no limitations on which students have the right to enroll in those schools. In my opinion, there should be continuity for such programs. If providing another program is quite costly, maybe Ministry of Education can provide a new curriculum which contains the same elements as the smart schools’ curriculum.

To conclude, all of the problems above should be solved by all parties which include government, students, teachers, and society as well. This is very important to produce a better generation with vast knowledge and critical thinking. In Vision 2020, it is stated that “The challenge of establishing a scientific and progressive society, a society that is innovative and forward looking, one that is not only a consumer of technology but also a contributor to the scientific and technological civilization.” This means that Malaysia also is very committed in producing knowledgeable citizens, those who can contribute more to the country.

References

Silva, E. (2009). Measuring Skills for 21st Century Learning. Phi Delta Kappan 90(9): 630-34.

Larson L. C. Larson. (2011). 21st Century Skills. Prepare Students for the Future. Retrieved 26 July 2011, from http://proquest.umi.com.www.ezplib.ukm.my/pqdweb?index=19&did=2310435251&SrchMode=1&sid=1&Fmt=3&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1311657535&clientId=39290

Salpeter. J. (2008). 21st Century Skills: Will Our Students Be Prepared? Retrieved 26 July 2011, from http://dca1to1.pbworks.com/f/21st+Century++will+our+students+be+prepared.pdf

Trilling.B., & Fadel.C. (2009). 21st Century Skills: Learning for Life in Our Times,San Francisco, Market Street: Jossey –Bass A Wiley Imprint

Yassim, M. Y. (2010). The Malaysian Smart Schools: Developing 21st Century Skills. Kuala Lumpur: Bahagian Teknologi Pendidikan Malaysia.