The Teaching And Learning International Survey

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Chapter 1

Bredeson ( 2002) states, "Through the appropriate professional development programs, schools can effectively improve the teachers’ performance and students’ achievement by engaging the learners’ creative and reflective capacities to strengthen individuals and collective capacities".

The principal’s role in such a learning environment is that of a facilitator who creates learning opportunities for dialogue and reflection. His/her role is to create and maintain a healthy and positive teaching and learning environment for all staff members by acting as a key player in the development and change. "The role of the principals is to encourage, nurture and support teacher learning, not to be the gate keepers or governors of teacher professional development" (Bredeson & Johansson, 2000, p.390).

Professional development has generally been referred to as ‘those activities which systematically over a sustained period of time, enable educators to acquire and apply the knowledge, understanding, skills and abilities to achieve personal and organisational goals and to facilitate the learning of students' (Indiana State Teachers Association, 2004). This broad definition encompasses a range of activities from individual teacher reading, to exploring a website, individual or group attendance at a conference, action research in the classroom, the curriculum implementation process particularly with groups, therefore generally including individual, as well as collaborative projects (Alberta Teachers' Association, 2002, p. 46).

As for Chinese independent high school is a type of private high school in Malaysia. They provide secondary education in the Chinese language as the continuation of the primary education in Chinese national-type primary schools. The medium of instruction in these schools is Mandarin with simplified Chinese characters writing.

There are a total of 60 Chinese independent high schools in the country, including 23 from East Malaysia, and they represent a small number of the high schools in Malaysia. The United Chinese School Committees Association of Malaysia (UCSCAM, the association of Chinese school teachers and trustees, also known as the Dong Jiao Zong, coordinates the curriculum used in the schools and organizes the Unified Examination Certificate (UEC) standardized test. Despite this, the schools are independent of each other and are free to manage their own affairs.

Being private schools, Chinese independent high schools do not receive funding from the Malaysian government, unlike their national-type cousins. However, in accordance with their aim of providing affordable education to all in the Chinese language, their school fees are substantially lower than those of most other private schools. The schools are kept alive almost exclusively by donations from the public.

Students usually spend six years in a Chinese independent high school. The six years are divided into two stages: three years in junior middle and three years in senior middle, similar to the secondary school systems in mainland China and Taiwan. Students are streamed into tracks like Science or Art/Commerce in the senior middle stage. At the end of each stage, students sit for the Unified Examination Certificate (UEC). A few schools offer an additional year in senior middle, catering to students taking the government's Sijil Tinggi Pelajaran Malaysia (STPM, equivalent to A-level).

The curriculum used in Chinese independent high schools is developed and coordinated by the Curriculum Department of UCSCAM with reference to secondary education curricula around the world, particularly Malaysia's national secondary education curriculum and those of mainland China as well as Taiwan. UCSCAM publishes textbooks for use in Chinese independent high schools.

With the current rising influx into Chinese School Education and transition into secondary schooling, quality trained teachers need to be increased five-fold if good quality education is to be realised (Lewin & Stuart, 2003: ix). Besides the need for additional teachers to meet these demands, the growing enrolment also means that existing teachers require continuous teacher professional development (TPD) which would support them in dealing with the large influx of students into secondary schooling and the ongoing professional development of teachers are absolutely vital to the well-being of any education system.

According to Day (1999:57), "the achievement and further development of broadly defined competences which are part of the challenge of good teaching and being a good teacher are not only the responsibility of each individual but also that of the employing organisation." So at the heart of developing professional development for teachers stands the person responsible for these teachers’ employment. In broad terms this would be the Ministry of Education and Training (MoET). However, the principal as a leader of the school is given the legal responsibility to oversee teachers wellbeing on behalf of the MoET hence the responsibility of ensuring further development for teachers becomes his/her primary role. Principals also have a normative obligation to develop teachers. The principal‟s task is to ensure that teaching and learning takes place in the school. As the authority in the school, the principal is expected to identify deficiencies in the teachers‟ daily work and from there provide remediation. One way of doing this is by strengthening teachers‟ competencies through professional development.

The study is to examine teacher professional knowledge and development in two secondary schools in Klang Valley and the contribution that school leadership will make in advancing teacher professional development.

Ongoing professional development

The results from Malaysia’s participation in the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) suggest that participation in professional development activities has been very good. Over 90% of teachers report that they spend approximately 10 days each year on professional development, which is more than the Ministry-mandated requirement of seven days per year. This training spans the spectrum of self-study and off-site workshops to school-based coaching activities such as classroom observations and lesson planning. These findings demonstrate that Malaysian teachers are strongly committed to self improvement. Reform in

1.2 Aims and Objectives of the Study

The purpose of the research is to examine the leadership focus within the context of the case study of the two schools. The following are the key aims of this research; to explore how principals and teachers in the two Chinese Independent Secondary schools understand professional development in the context of improving teaching-learning processes; to examine the perceptions of principals and teachers regarding the link between professional development and learner outcomes. Professional development is believed to improve the quality of teaching and subsequently quality performance of learners. Knapp (2003:109) believes that every initiative that is geared towards improving teaching and learning in schools should consolidate its efforts chiefly towards high quality teacher professional development and this is perceived as one of the roles attached to principalship. This provides a basis upon which teachers can improve their instructional competence and pedagogic skills. Another objective for this study is to examine the choices that principals make to foster teacher professional development.