OVERLOADED CURRICULUM AND ITS EFFECTS TO THE TEACHER

In every country, curriculum is a prime part and plays vital roles in

education. According to Levin (2008) curriculum is defined as an official
statement of what students are expected to know and be able to do. It shows
that the curriculum was designed especially for students to learn in school or to
have the desired or needed knowledge that have been decided by the Ministry of
Education to face the current world. For a teacher, the curriculum defines the
skills that students should learn established by the state or developed by a
committee (Mc Ginn and Borden, 1995). On the other hand, Kerr defines
curriculum as, 'All the learning which is planned and guided by the school,
whether it is carried on in groups or individually, inside or outside the school.
(Kelly, 1983 and 1999). Hence, it can be summarized that curriculum is
something which is taught in school in a set of subjects where it has specific
content and objectives to achieve by the students and it is also including
activities,

guidance

and

interpersonal

relationships.

Therefore,

generally

curriculum also can be defined as the whole plan which is desired by a school or
academic institution to achieve the aims of education [Cabinet Report Book
(1979) in Abdullah Sani, (2005)]
Curriculum in Malaysia is primary guided by the National Philosophy of
Education (NPE). Referring to the Malaysian Ministry of Education, the national
curriculum is an educational programme that includes curriculum and cocurricular activities which encompasses all the knowledge, skills norms, values,
cultural elements and beliefs to help develop a pupil fully with respect to the
physical, spiritual, mental and emotional aspects as well as to inculcate and
develop desirable moral values and to transmit knowledge [Education Act (1996)
in Abdullah Sani, 2005]. However, there is a problem that occurred in the

education system in Malaysia which relates to the curriculum that is the overload
curriculum. Consequently, this problem had caused some effects to several
parties such as students, teachers, parents and the policy makers themselves.
Hence, I will elaborate more about the overload curriculum which is focusing on
the effects it brings to the teachers.
In Malaysia, the Integrated Curriculum for Primary School (ICPS or KBSR) is
divided into 2 phases that is Phase I (Year 1-3) and Phase II (Year 4-6). The ICPS
emphasizes the mastery, reinforcement and application of the 3Rs (reading,
writing

and

arithmetic)

acquisition

of

complex

skills

and

knowledge,

prevocational skill, and the development of personality, attitudes and values

(Ministry of Education, 2002). As stated by Apple (2004), it recognizes that
education is also a site of conflict about the kind of knowledge that is and should
be taught, about whose knowledge is official, and about who has the right to
decide what is to be taught, how it is organized and how teaching and learning
are to be evaluated. In Malaysian primary schools, there are 13 subjects taught
in the National School while 14 subjects in National-Type School namely the
Malay language, Chinese/Tamil language, English language, Mathematics, Islamic
Education, Moral Education, Art Education, Music, Health Education, Physical
Education, Science, Local Studies, Living Skills and Assembly. From the subjects
above, it has already proven the compactness of the curriculum in school though
it still not including the syllabus or the topics in each subjects. This is not a good
sign as too many education policies and a good deal of contemporary research
has lost sight of [the] important insight that education policy [and curriculum
studies] need to be informed by a sensitivity to the nature of the wider society
(Whitty, 2002)
According to a research made by the Cabinet Committee towards the
National Education Fundamental in 1979, they had identified several weaknesses

caused by the overload curriculum as follows: 1)Lesson content sometimes

repeated and unrelated between subjects or standard. 2) The subject syllabus
contains too many items. This makes the pupils burdened and bored. 3) Teachers
and pupils are always forced to finish the syllabus especially during examination
period. 4) Teaching and learning depends too much on textbooks. This will
restrict the use of other teaching techniques and resources which are more
interesting and effective (Abd Rahim b. Abd Rashid, 2005)
Particularly, on teachers side, there are several effects that happen in
their education life which caused by this overload curriculum problem. For
instance, time management, subject or topic itself, the teachers roles in
teaching and school, teaching styles, teachers dilemma or emotion and lastly
the effects for the future. Firstly, as stated before, the overload curriculum has
caused some impact in teachers time management where the teachers are
rushing for content coverage in order to finish the subject syllabus before the
examination season started. It has, for example, altered the number of periods
taught and has led to the introduction of cross-curricular areas. Consequently,
the time consumed in a week is not enough for certain subjects and teachers
need to make extra classes in the weekends or after school just to finish the
syllabus. Because of the rush, teachers also need to teach the subject seriously,
hence there is no time for the teacher and pupils to have fun in teaching and
learning.
Furthermore, from my observations during practicum, internship and
school based experiences, I found that overload curriculum has the effects on the
subjects, topics or syllabus themselves. In addition, teachers always tend to
neglect minor subject such as Physical Education, Living Skills, and Moral
Education in order to focus more on the examination subjects such as the Malay
language, English language, Science and Mathematics. These subjects are

included in the centralized examination for the primary school known as the
Primary School Achievement Test or UPSR. Because of this, education in school
has become exam oriented learning where the minor subjects classes have been
neglected or sometimes replaced with the examination subjects.
Apart from that, the overloaded curriculum problem also gives some
impacts on the teachers roles in teaching as well as in school. If you are a
teacher, your importance to the curriculum-development process relates to more
than an obligation to implement adopted decisions (Armstrong, D. G, 2003). I
believe every teacher yearn to be an effective teacher in school and education
where they aimed to achieve the objectives in teaching and learning of the
curriculum. However, other than the responsibilities to teach and conduct the
curriculum, teachers also have lots of other duties and disruptions in school. For
instance, as stated by Abd Rahim b. Abd Rashid (2005) about teacher
professionalism

and

school

management,

the

teachers

task,

roles

and

development in school contexts are divided into two parts that is the curriculum
and teaching management and non-academic management. As for the
curriculum and teaching management, it involves teaching resources and
materials, aims of school and education, academic (curriculum objectives) and
innovation and creativity of teaching and as for the non academic management,
it involves the co-curriculum activity, school and society, planning and
administration and school leadership. On the other hand, the disruptions that
teachers need to confront during in school are meeting, sports day, school
events, holidays and seminars outside the school.
According to Magnusson, Krajcik, & Borko, (1999). Teaching is a complex
activity that requires teachers to understand content and pedagogy as they
come together to support students thinking and learning in the context of their
classroom. In this case, the overload curriculum has also affected the teaching

styles in teaching and learning. Lage, Platt and Treglia (2000) stated that,
students will gain more knowledge, retain more information, and perform far
better when teaching styles match learning styles. However, because of the time
constraint, teachers are not able to apply interesting and effective teaching
styles in the classroom. The teaching and learning session is focusing more on
teacher-centred and involved less meaningful activities for the students.
Teachers tend to teach more on theory and use traditional teaching styles
approach where there is no or less contextual and practical learning involved
among the students. A contextualized approach to instruction also stresses the
social nature of real world activities (Wenger, 1998; Lave & Wenger, 1991). In
some cases as Curzon (1985) points out, those who compile a syllabus tend to
follow the traditional textbook approach of an 'order of contents', or a pattern
prescribed by a 'logical' approach to the subject. To worsen the situation, some
teachers only teaching just following the provided text books as stated before
without applying other activities to enhance childrens understanding in learning
the lesson. Hence, this will make the pupils learning become boring and most
probably the learning objectives are not fully achieved by the pupils.
Furthermore, because of this overload curriculum problem, teachers
actually faced their own dilemma and it is sometimes affected their emotion in
carry out their duties. For instance, teacher will feel stressful because there is not
enough time to cover the subjects and in some circumstances, there are not
enough teachers in some school to deliver the curriculum to the pupils. As stated
by Armstrong (2005) when you find yourself engaged in curriculum task, you and
your associates will be forced to consider important context variables. For
instance, a teacher needs to know the social setting within which the materials
he or she is preparing will be taught. Furthermore, a teacher certainly wants to
develop interesting materials that are appropriate to the age and sophistication

levels of the learners who will use them. The variety of teaching sites, students,
community expectations, parent and guardian priorities, and available support
resources militate against that proposition (Armstrong, D. G, 2003). Teacher also
must consider findings which are related to the learners cognitive and
psychological development. As enactors of the curriculum, teachers interpret,
modify, augment and chose selectively from any materials that are available to
them (Ben Peretz, 1990). Nevertheless, due to rushing to finish the topic,
teachers are not able to focus on their particular students needs, for instance,
the difference of student individual level in learning where not all pupils in that
particular classroom are able to achieve the curriculum goals and the learning
objectives especially the pupils from the low level class. This is true as Armstrong
(2003) says that curricular that are developed without the participation of
thoughtful teachers often lack essential gravitas
As a result, this overload curriculum problem is also the causes why there
are still many primary students are not able to master the basic 3Rs skills
namely reading, writing and arithmetic. Teachers also will be in dilemma because
they are only able to teach the children on the surface and they are not able to
educate the pupils such as inculcating the values of the lesson. This dilemma
phenomenon has shown that teachers are not able to fulfil the teaching
philosophy which is designed to expand a creative, innovative and interesting
teaching and learning concept. As explained by Abd Rahim b. Abd Rashid (2005)
teaching and learning that had been implemented by the teacher will never be
effective if the teacher did not understand the teaching philosophy in order to
construct the strength and understand the effects of learning in establish and
develop a students potential and ability. Issues like teaching and learning styles,
teaching objectives and aims are the principles that designed the teaching
philosophy. As the consequence from this problem, the National Education

Philosophy is not delivered perfectly and the aims of education are not achieved
among the children. Sharifah (1999) explained that NPE is developed to achieve
the nations vision to prepare children to become knowledgeable, trained and
skilled individuals to meet the growing needs of the millennium. The National
Education Philosophy has been the aims and the purpose of education in
Malaysia that need to be achieved by the students, and it is the responsibility of
the teachers to establish balanced human capitals harmony with the philosophy
that had been created by the Ministry of Education.
Education in Malaysia is on-going efforts towards further developing the
potential of individuals in a holistic and integrated manner, so as to produce
individuals who are intellectually, spiritually, emotionally and physically balanced
and harmonic, based on a firm belief in and devotion to God. Such an effort is
designed to produce Malaysian citizens who are knowledgeable and competent,
who possess high moral standards and who are responsible and capable of
achieving high level of personal well-being as well as being able to contribute to
the harmony and betterment of the family, the society and the nation at large
(Ministry of Education, 2002). However, due to the overloaded curriculum, the
goals and aims could not be achieved. Consequently, it will produce the
unbalanced generation and society whom does not have or learn the values from
education and as a result, in the end teacher will be blamed, not just by the
parents but also by the society. It sees what teacher do in the classroom as a
kind of interactive dialogue, which leads to action based on their perceptions of
curricular intent, your expectations of parents and guardians and the local
community, and your views of your students needs (Henderson, 1992)
After all, teachers still need to catch up with the curriculum in the
educational world as a professional. Moreover, a teacher must understand that
the curriculum work is never done because curriculum and education are always

moves and flows with the circulation of time. To avoid the calamitous results of
school program built on out-dated information, it is essential for curriculum to be
an ongoing activity (Armstrong, D. G, 2005). In order to overcome the effects of
the overloaded curriculum problem that arise, it is significant for teachers to
cooperate and unite among themselves to lighten the burden that they have to
faced and decrease the stressful atmosphere which caused by this problem. As
important as a teacher participation in curriculum development is, he cannot do
this work alone (Armstrong, D. G, 2003). Teacher need to act together with
others who bring special perspectives to bear. For example, some of these
individuals have their own expertise in academic subject areas while others will
be able to offer helpful comments about implementation issues that go beyond
the individual classroom. Though teacher and their colleagues may feel they are
simply implementing a curriculum that may have largely developed by others, in
fact, they make many adaptations as you work with it each day (Ben Peretz,
1990).
Furthermore, teachers should be wise in playing with time because as we
can see the major obstacle in the overload curriculum problem is the time
constraint. To overcome the obstacle, teachers should make a proper plan in
planning their lessons and activities in the classroom in order to teach the
subject and deliver the curriculum. Curriculum work is directed at developing
plans that define an arena of concern that can prompt teachers to make
stimulating, interesting, and appropriate adaptations to their own settings
(Armstrong, 2003) One of the steps in making a teaching plan is the long term
planning. According to Stephens and Crawley (1994), the key to long term
planning is to know what the students are expected to have covered during the
year. Hence, teacher can make a well-planned scheme of work or yearly plan
which include the lesson, activity and also considering possible interruption

during in school such as school events, holidays, meetings, examinations and so

on. Once teacher have identified the areas of their subject to be assessed, they
will need to relate them in a meaningful way to the subject as a whole (Stephens
and Crawley, 1994). Finally, as a responsible teacher, we need to adapt
ourselves with the curriculum in order to help the children to receive the
knowledge and at the same time to develop them to be a balance person
spiritually,

intellectually,

physically

and

emotionally. According

to Street

(1999), the classroom, the teacher, the culture of the school and the broader
community influence how people construct their definition of education and what
it can do for them. A teacher must remember that if the effects of overload
curriculum are difficult on them, then it is also tough on the children. Hence, it is
a teachers role to implement the task wisely in order to overcome the overload
curriculum problem and to help the children to develop their knowledge
according to the designed curriculum. Education in this sense is the process by
which these are transmitted or 'delivered' to students by the most effective
methods that can be devised (Blenkin et al, 1992).