Question

Identify one of the current issues in the implementation of the Standard

Based Curriculum for the Primary School (KSSR) and suggest ways to
overcome it in preparation for the 21st century classroom. (20 marks)

One of the current issues in the implementation of the Standard

Based Curriculum for the Primary School (KSSR) is the assessment.
This is because, a study from Paramasiwam & Ratnavadivel (2018)
stated that the teachers are lack of sufficient understanding about how to
structure the assessment. The teachers only focused on objective and
structured questions and not on course work. When the teachers do not
follow the assessment format, the goal of conducting the assessment is
not achieved. This is because the objective questions, structure and
course work have their respective roles in developing the knowledge,
skills and values that have been learned during the teaching and
learning process. There are also issues related to course work. The
course work is less helpful in improving the student’s knowledge, skills
and values because the students were making photocopies of the
material their textbooks and paste them in their scrapbooks as
homework exercise. Other than that, a school principal questioned the
validity and reliability of the School Based Assessment (SBA) system
when they noticed that some teachers just “tick” in the offline
assessment system without judging the students’ real progress.
Teachers still do not understand the file management system for storing
students records due to lack of understanding in managing student’s
results.
One of the way to overcome this problem is that there should be
cooperation between Malaysian Examination Board and Ministry of
Education (MOE) so that the files are properly and effectively
coordinated. According to the Curriculum Development Division (2010),
the aim of assessment is to track student achievement during the
teaching and learning process. Through assessment, teachers can
evaluate student achievement in acquiring knowledge, skills and value
acquisition. At the same time, ongoing assessments aim to see the
progress, development, performance and achievement of students in
terms of knowledge, skills and values based on content standards and
standards of learning have been set. It is therefore important to solve the
problems faced by the teachers in terms of assessment so that the aims
of School Based Assessment are achieved. The teachers also should
always joining the courses related to SBA so that they can be well-
equipped with the knowledge on how to implement the SBA in school.
Next, the principal can suggest one or two teacher as master teacher
and the master teacher can give knowledge to other teacher. This is to
reduce the cost and time.