Ripe for a digital future

Are teachers in Malaysia ready to take on 21st century education?

THE world of education is constantly transforming and it is not always easy to keep up with the latest advancements.

At the recently concluded twodays BETT Asia Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Microsoft’s Vice-President, Worldwide Education, Anthony Salcito said: “In our fast-paced technology-driven world, digital transformation is disrupting most industries, economies, and the way we live.

“With the rise of the fourth industrial revolution, it is critical for the next generation of students to be equipped for future jobs, where they will need to adapt to new ways of creating, collaborating and connecting.

“This is where educators, optimising the use of technology, can transform teaching and learning to create immersive and inclusive experiences which inspire lifelong learning, and help stimulate the development of essential life skills.”

In his speech on Bridging the Next Digital Divide, Salcito, who has been with Microsoft since 1992, said that the transformation of technology will be tremendous by 2025 but unfortunately, education is not changing in tandem with the transformation.

To equip students with the necessary skill sets for the 21st century workforce, in particular critical and creative thinking, collaboration, communication, and computational thinking, teachers are encouraged to fuse their new teaching method with technology.

Salcito pointed out that there is a focus on training teachers in many schools already, readying them for the use of technology. However, all these are done without setting a groundwork for the long-term vision of how it can impact students’ learning outcomes.

“Creating a strong foundation and casting a vision for how schools can truly improve their students’ learning outcomes, graduation rates and success for the future is the most successful starting point. Technology naturally becomes in service to bringing the vision to fruition,” he said.

Supported by the Ministry of Education and officiated by the Education Minister Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid, this is the first time BETT has brought the event to Malaysia since establishing the annual series in 2014. BETT is a global technology exhibition and congress series for teaching and learning related data and management tools. Covering the breadth of lifelong learning, the series brings together industry leaders, practitioners, professionals and inspirational figures to share ideas on how to support learning together through technology.

Themed “Educating for Global Citizenship”, educators at this year’s summit had mainly focused on preparing students for a technologydriven workforce. They ranked the most important skills required for students as problem solving (71 per cent), skilled communication (68 per cent), collaboration with others (61 per cent), digital media literacy (57 per cent) and data analytics and visualisation (56 per cent).

A survey by Microsoft this year also showed that 91 per cent of the respondents believed that the students who are not equipped for the changing workforce requirements and skills will not be able to adapt to the future workplace with low digital literacy.

Sharing his thoughts at a media roundtable, Don Carlson, Education Lead for Microsoft Asia Pacific, said: “The transition from education to employment continues to be one of the main obstacles facing youth especially in the Asia Pacific region.”

Carlson stresses the importance of equipping educators with the right tools, giving them access to training and bridging technological challenges they are facing to enable transformation that would lead to efficient and impactful learning outcomes.

“Technology cannot replace great teaching but it can make greater teachers even better. We are inspired to work with educators, with students, with school leaders, on their journey to redefine learning in and out of the classroom,” he added.

As shared by respondents in Microsoft’s Driving Transformation in Education survey, the challenges in optimising technology for the classroom cannot be overcome without the support of school leaders and decision makers. The findings also showed that as teachers are the ones executing strategies and policies in the classroom, they would like to be involved in the planning stage itself.

Salcito, whose foray into education began when he taught a group of students some visual-basic programming skills to help them complete their school project, said that: “Technology can be a conduit for educators to reach out to their students.”

He said that many teachers are reluctant to embrace the use of technology because they fear that their students are more tech-savvy than they are. So they feel that they cannot do the job of teaching their students.

Salcito said that instead of subscribing to conventional chalk-andtalk teaching method where the teachers need to have sufficient knowledge in order to disseminate content, these teachers should recognise that they need only facilitate learning in the classroom or lesson.

In the facilitation process, teachers need to ask the right questions such as: “How do you think we can do this?” or “What is the best way to do this?”. These are questions that would typically empower students to learn on their own. Teachers who are open to this concept are more likely to be able to drive transformation of learning in their classrooms.

Both Salcito and Carlson conceded that judging by the atmosphere for change that is becoming more dynamic, the Malaysian education system is heading in the right direction. There are already a dozen Microsoft showcase schools in the country that can provide examples of best practises for other schools to learn from. Although Malaysia is all set to create tremendous changes in the education system, the most important part, its execution, has to be handled with a lot of thought.