Teachers rise to the challenge

PUTRAJAYA: After more than a year of challenges brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, teachers continue to strive harder to achieve their mission to educate students.

“During the Covid-19 pandemic, we see the challenges faced by teachers. Face-to-face teaching has now been changed to online teaching, so teachers need to be more creative,” said Noorizan Mohammed, the recipient of the Tokoh Guru Kebangsaan 2021 award, Malaysia’s highest teaching award.

The former principal of SMK Jalan Empat in Bandar Baru Bangi, Selangor, said educators now need to be more sensitive to changes and educational transformation, to produce students who excel holistically in terms of academic, co-curriculum and personality.

Noorizan, who has served as a teacher for almost 35 years, said students now not only need to listen to what their teachers teach but also need to be actively involved in a two-way interaction, so that they can think well.

“This means that teachers need to increase the number of programmes to shape the future of students in schools, so that they will be more creative, innovative and independent,” she said in an interview with Bernama, RTM and DidikTV KPM recently.

However, she said due to the spread of Covid-19, the task of teachers is now more challenging as they can no longer teach students face-to-face, and have had to adapt to the PdPR method.

Apart from Noorizan, former Education director-general (January 2020 - April 2021), Datuk Dr Habibah Abdul Rahim, and former Education director-general (October 2017 December 2019), Datuk Dr Amin Senin, have been named as recipients of the Tokoh Kepimpinan Pendidikan Kebangsaan 2021 awards.

On the PdPR issue, Habibah said the pandemic was one of the most difficult challenges, not only for the ministry but also for schools, teachers and parents with children at home.

On the Primary School Achievement Test (UPSR), Amin pointed out that the complete abolition of the examination clearly showed that the country’s education system is on the right track.

Amin, a former Mathematics teacher, said when the UPSR was first introduced, it was good to gauge the mastery of primary school students, but in the end, the purpose of the examination was “abused” to the point of consuming the education system. – Bernama