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Liew Shan Thian

910119-13-5061
Discuss the roles of teachers as practitioners, analysts and researcher in meeting our
nation`s aspirations for Malaysian students as outlined in the Malaysian Education
Blueprint (2013 -2025).

Our country education ministry has introduced the Malaysian Education Blueprint 2013 2025 (MEB) by the Malaysian Ministry of Education (MoE) as an effort to better our education
system. In order to achieve it aspirations, it will require teachers to perform a variety of roles.
These roles include knowledge and skills practitioner, reflective practitioner, agents of
socialization, agent of change and researcher.
One of the teacher`s roles are as knowledge and skills practitioners. Brown (2007)
mentioned that teachers can play many roles in the course of teaching and this might facilitate
the learning. Their ability to carry these out effectively will depend on their own level of
knowledge and skills. Hence, teachers must first be effective knowledge and skills practitioners
to assume roles such as mentor, counsellor, and motivator, learning facilitators and knowledge
disseminators of effectively. They need have sound understanding of theoretical knowledge in
and skilled in pedagogy and content, basic education psychology, sociology, philosophy and
subject matter knowledge (Lourdusamy & et al., 2005). Teachers, as skilled practitioners are
able to solve immediate practical problems, reflect on their practices to develop quality learning
opportunity for their students (Sachs, 2000). Thus, teachers, to be knowledge and skilled
practitioners, have responsibility to practice lifelong learning all purposeful learning activity,
undertaken on an ongoing basis with the aim of improving knowledge, skills and competence
(European Commission, 2000; Borg & Mayo, 2004).
Hence, teachers, by being knowledge and skills practitioners, will be competent in
applying theoretical knowledge in various pedagogical contexts and subsequently will able to
provide quality education to every students. It is hoped that through quality education, as
emphasized in the MEB, teachers will focus on building students that are not just excelled at

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producing subject content but able to reason, extrapolate and creatively apply their knowledge
in novel, unfamiliar settings. Quality education will provide students with fundamental knowledge
and equipped them with attributes such as leadership, higher order thinking skills, emotional
intelligence and communication skills, so that they can competitive globally.
Besides that, teachers are required to produce students that are that not just intelligence
but also balanced socially and spiritually. So, teachers have the responsibility to be agents of
socialization by being students` social manager, role model and values inculcator. Firstly,
teachers manage of students` social interactions in the classroom by setting boundaries,
enforcing discipline, and setting expectations as what is desirable and undesirable behaviors in
a class. Every choice teachers make about how you organize and deliver the academic
curriculum carries with it implicit messages about the kind of place your classroom is (Pugarch,
2009). By setting rules and incorporating ethics and etiquettes in the lesson, classroom and
school, the teacher will be able to cultivate students with positives discipline, attitudes and
behaviours. Secondly, teachers are students` role model. One of the main roles a teacher plays
in socialization in a childs life is by direct examples set by the teacher in the classroom
(Mercer, 2007). Teachers that practice values such as kindness, care and patience in the
classroom by listening to the students, handle students` conflict wisely, and treat students fairly
and equally will have positive influences to students` moral, social and personal growth. All of
this will nurture students that are righteous, value peace, have sound judgement and strong life
principles" hence are prepared to face life challenges (MoE, 2012) and able to resist being
involved in social ills. Moreover, teachers can inculcate values in in their teaching to help
students socialization. They can do this not just through subjects such as Moral Education, Civil
Education and Islamic Education, instead they should instill values across the curriculum and all
subjects. According to Mercer (2007), teachers have the responsibility to weave acceptance and
care for one another within the curriculum. This can be done when teachers encourage students

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to learn, work and play together irrespective of ethnicity, religion and or socio-economic status.
This will teach students to embrace diversity and respect the rights of others hence promoting a
strong national identity and unity among the students. Thus, teachers need to be effective agent
of socialization to build individuals that, as point out by MEB, have strong ethics and spirituality,
unity and national identity, thus producing caring and values driven individuals who gainfully
contribute to the betterment of the community and nation (MoE, 2012).
Other than that, there is an increasing recognition that teachers are on the front lines of
educational reform, and therefore are change agents in their classrooms and schools (Fullan,
1993; Katzenmeyer & Moller, 2001; Ping Gao & et al, 2009). Teachers, as the executor of any
educational reformation are the key stakeholder to make transformation in the MEB possible.
Thus, teacher must first be willing to change in order to bring changes because Zariyawati & et
al. (2011) in her study proposed that teachers` beliefs, feelings and values are one of the major
barriers in education reform that is often neglected. They stated that it is apparent that any
successful reform will need take into account teacher`s belief about the intended, implemented
and attained curriculum. For instance, the MoE planned revamp the national examination and
school-based assessment to gradually increase percentage of questions that test higher order
thinking (MoE, 2012). Hence, teacher need to change by focus less on predicting what topics
and questions will come out and drilling for contents recall instead start to trained and teach
students to think critically and applied their knowledge. If teachers are lacked of flexibility and
openness to change, then the reformation will not be effective. Thus, teachers to be agents of
change, are required and encouraged to change by continuing learning and improving
themselves so that they can assume any new roles and responsibilities to improve the quality of
education and access to education by learners (Ranjan & Rahman, n.d.).
One of the new roles and responsibilities is to be competent in utilizing ICT to enhance
student learning because nowadays new and emerging technologies offer competitive

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advantages to teaching (Ping Gao & et al, 2009). Teachers must keep up with the current trend
of new teaching pedagogical techniques and technologies. In the MEB, the education ministry
plan to leverage ICT to scale up quality learning across Malaysia (MoE, 2012). Hence, teachers
need to change and utilize and incorporate ICT to make their teaching more interesting and
interactive. They can use the Internet to search for teaching resources or build a database
online to share teaching materials and ideas among teachers to increase working efficiency.
Moreover, nowadays students are already well-versed in the world of technology so teachers`
job are not just teaching students how to use ICTs but rather to help children learn how to use
the facts and information they obtained through ICT to developing their abilities to think critically,
solve problems, make informed judgments, and create knowledge that benefits both the
students and society.
Teachers also have the responsibility to bring changes. They can do this leading by
example. Crookes & et al. (1994) discussed that change agent has the role to support, assist,
nurture, encourage, persuade or push people to change, to adopt an innovation and use it in an
appropriate context. For instance, the teacher can initiate by organizing innovative intervention
technique in the classroom that can help to increase students` academic achievement. When it
is effective, then it will slowly gain interest from the school and can be implemented at school
level. Schools can even collaborate with PPDs to spread the benefits of the innovative
intervention technique across the district or division by organizing cross-school activities or
campaigns. As in the MEB, MoE will empower JPNs, PDDs, and schools to customize solution
based on need as they believe a different sets of interventions are required to best serve
schools at different performance level (MoE, 2012). This is also applicable to other aspects that
are lacking in the school such as culture of hygiene or anti-truancy, thus bring improvements to
the school culture and promote changes. By being an agent of changes, teachers are the
catalyst for change in the education systemteachers can collaborate with each other and with

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other organizations to work on curriculum development to strengthen the school management
system and to advocate for policy reform. (Nyirenda, 2012). Thus, teachers need to be open,
flexible and responsive to the positive outcomes of change for the benefit of themselves,
students, the school and even the education system.
Moreover, teacher also need to be a reflective practitioner. Reflective practice in
education context is, a systematic inquiry into ones teaching practice and the deliberate
attention to ones experience (Van Manen, 1977; Haley, 2004). This will required teachers to be
analytical because teachers will need to assess different teaching contexts, classroom, students
and themselves. Teacher can benefits greatly from focused reflection and critical examination of
their own teaching experiences which then to improvement and further development (Brown,
2007) as teachers can identify their own strengths or weaknesses and have a better personal
understanding of their teaching practices. Reflective practice is closely related the teachers` role
as researchers where Brown (2001), suggested classroom research where it is also carried
out to improve teacher`s own understanding of the teaching-learning process in classroom to be
a better teacher. Through formal research, teachers can use the research findings to help them
in making better decisions regarding their instructional strategies, teaching methodology and
classroom managements. Feedback from research enabled teachers to reflect on their
practise in such way that help them plan it more effectively (Wikeley, 2000; Neil & Morgan,
2003). This will help teachers improve their own teaching practice and pursue to increase their
professional development to deliver better education to children of this nation.
Stenhouse (1975; 1979) in Elliot (2009) also stated that the notion of research-based
teaching forged an inextricable linkage between curriculum development and professional
development. Through research, teachers can provide practical examples of the needed
institutional reforms, bring in divergent views from new trends in the teaching profession,
introduces better and new educational technologies, skills and policies for institutional and

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student benefits (Karajagi, 2012; Mtetesha, n.d.). Plus, through the sharing and publication of
teachers` research, it will encourage innovations that will bring development and improvements
of our education system. Teachers, as researchers, are encourage to be collaborators in
improving their work environment, professionalizing teaching, revising curriculum and
developing policy. Teachers can collaborate with stakeholders such as policy makers, school
boards, parents-teacher associations, students and private sectors in conducting researches to
develop and make decisions wisely in order to improve the effectiveness of the education
system, planning and policy (Johnson, 1993). This is in line with the MEB aspiration on
providing quality and efficiency education, where it emphasized on giving excellent education to
every child and maximizing students outcomes to match the resources channelled into the
system.
As the conclusion, rapid transformation in the education system nowadays are
prompted by massive revolutions in knowledge, information technology, and public demand for
better learning (Lanier, 2007) and it had redefined the teacher profession. Teachers need to
realize that come together with those transformation, for example the MEB, are a variety roles
with new demands, expectations and responsibilities. Therefore, teachers must be brave to
assume various roles entrusted to them as knowledge and skills practitioners, agent of
socialization, agent of change, and researchers in achieving the MEB aspirations and forming a
better education for the nation.

Liew Shan Thian


910119-13-5061

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