The case for change
TASKED with guiding and inspiring the next generation of global citizens, as well as fuelling the employment market with talented recruits, educators have always faced stern and pressing challenges.
But, in the face of dwindling budgets, increasing populations and with global competition reaching unprecedented levels, the task has never been harder.
With a universal focus on price, accessibility and reach, education is now in real danger of becoming a mass-produced, unspecialised product - significantly diminishing in value.
As the country moves toward a high-income, developed nation, education has never been more pivotal to Malaysia’s ambitions. Initiatives like the Malaysia Education Blueprint and Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation’s (MDEC) for growing future talent, inspires creativity and fosters innovation; provides youth with the necessary skills to be able to compete in the modern labour market; and is a key driver of growth in the economy.
These bold aspirations dictate a necessity for investments – namely call for more budget.
Since the inception of the blueprint in 2013, the education budget allocation has swelled from RM38.7bil to RM52.4 bil in 2017, bringing the total education budget since 2013 to RM243bil.
Other important solutions include a focus on the core curriculum, a back to basics approach to delivery, and the need for more teachers.
Changing needs
Progressive technology organisations like Canvas believe that these conventional solutions aren’t enough to address the new issues faced by the global education industry.
Today’s education must provide skills capable of morphing to suit the changing workspace.
Rather than encouraging the development of narrow skillsets that can (and ultimately will) be commoditised, teachers need to be laying the groundwork that encourages the development of a polymath mindset.
So, rather than looking to conventional solutions to the education crisis, organisations like Unesco are promoting new approaches.
Recognising that traditional schooling is just one part of readying young people to work and live in a new and increasingly digital landscape, Unesco urges educators to look more holistically at the teaching and learning experience.
The organisation prioritises four pillars of learning; learning to know, learning to do, learning to be and learning to live together.
This more rounded approach to education moves beyond the classroom, developing skills and knowledge needed for a lifetime of learning.
Already we see this all-encompassing, progressive approach adopted by the Malaysian government through the blueprint, now in its second wave of implementation, with improvements in the 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) for three domains, namely Science, Mathematics and reading literacies.
According to the results released by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Malaysia scored 446 in Mathematics, 431 in Reading and 443 in Science, an improvement from 2012 when it was 421, 398 and 420 respectively.
A holistic approach to change
Led by the guiding principles of Unesco, we believe that educators across the globe must prioritise four key areas in order to deliver the best and most compelling education experience.
Firstly, by creating digital citizens as all levels of schooling have a key role in preparing young people to participate in an increasingly dense landscape of technology and media developments.
Just as traditional subjects provide young people with the knowledge and skills to make sense of their world including its history, geography, religions, languages and sciences - education should also supply the knowledge to make sense of the digital world.
Secondly, a focus on practical knowledge when prioritising the application of knowledge and critical thinking is a significant pedagogical shift from theoretical and rote learning.
But the ability to solve real-world problems is vital in developing the necessary skills to secure employment and to thrive in the workforce.
A skills-focused learning approach has a critical role in ensuring the success of the entire employment ecosystem from individuals’ careers to the prosperity of businesses, industries and economies. Thirdly, a community approach to education as when students work together their performance is enhanced.
But comprehensive collaboration, or connected learning, is more than just bringing teacher feedback online and offering pupils the right to reply.
It is the foundation of helping young people learn to live together, forming communication skills which will influence every aspect of their lives.
A 360 approach to connected learning combines peer to peer engagement, reciprocal teaching and parent/teacher collaboration.
Lastly, a new way to measure just as educators need to provide a rounded education, they must also embrace a rounded approach to measurement, which assesses much more than academic achievement. Mirroring the use of data in the commercial world, we now see more sophisticated adoption of ana- lytics in education.
Used in the correct way, data can help educators understand students’ learning behaviours, which courses are being consumed and where students are excelling or struggling.
Harnessing data allows teachers to personalise learning journeys and demonstrate added value.
The essential role of technology
Meeting these challenges will be no easy feat and the pressure to offer new education models means that new delivery methods are required.
Technology to assist the delivery of an engaging and motivating education experience is not a luxury.
It’s now an all-important necessity. Technologies like Canvas can help institutions change pedagogy and deliver a flexible, progressive and student-centred learning approach, which focuses on meeting these challenging demands.
But even more than this, these new challenges call for us all to work together.
Today more than ever, teachers, parents, governments, financiers, technologists and students must all come together to share experiences and collaboratively solve the biggest challenges the industry has ever had to face.