Analysis of NPE emphasises on teachers which teachers must study and interpret its contents in various factors such as religious, social, political, economy and so on. Moreover, teachers have to understand programs with the aims carefully one by one to fulfil nation’s aspiration to produce good quality of student. Analysis of NPE consists of number of elements which is really crucial to be implemented for both teacher and also students. First element is education is an on-going effort that acquiring and transferring knowledge skills and noble values. Secondly is about development of individual potentials which emphasise on talents and potentials that should be nurtured and developed. Last but not least, elements about producing knowledgeable Malaysian citizens who are balanced and harmonic being. It can be done through JERIS (physically, emotionally, spiritually, emotionally and socially) by giving full love for knowledge and be open-minded. Other elements like holistic and integrated development, balanced and harmonic, belief and obedience to god and produce knowledgeable and competent Malaysian citizenz.
Oxford dictionary defines curriculum as the subjects that are being taught comprises a course of study in a school or college. In spite of, curriculum covers all the experiences which include tasks that were taken from young age until the old age. Malaysia primary education context, primary curriculum had faced many changes in order to accomplish the mission and goals of national curriculum. Old Primary School Curriculum (KLSR), New Primary School Curriculum (KBSR), Integrated Primary School Curriculum (KBSR) and Standard Primary School Curriculum (KSSR) are the great examples of these changes.
Old Primary School Curriculum (KLSR) was designed since Independence Day. In 1961, Education Act 1961 is a base of education system and Laporan Rahman Talib was established by former Minister of Education Abdul RahmanTalib for KLSR (Siti Atiqah Ali, 2010). Laporan Razak year 1956 was established to review back the policy of national education. The reason of establishing this curriculum is to strengthen unity and eradicate illiteracy. Moreover, clear objective of this KLSR is to make sure all students pass Bahasa Melayu by providing a systematic education. However, KLSR was repealed in 1982 because of the weakness. This happens because subjects are not related each n other, emphasis on achieving excellence materials and pedagogy is not related to understanding of behaviourism.
In 1982, New Primary School Curriculum (KBSR) was conducted in 305 schools around Malaysia as trial basis of new curriculum. The main goal of KBSR is to ensure the development of potential, integrated and balanced according to JERIS (physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual and social). Thus, KBSR fully implemented in all schools in 1983 and 3M skills such as reading, writing and arithmetic were fully developed including the solving problems. New Primary School Curriculum was changed to Integrated Primary School Curriculum (KBSR) in 1993 (Hamidah Atan, 2009). The basic change was take place in curriculum and school culture. For instance, local studies were replaced by Man and His Environment subject. The purpose of this subject is to provide students with knowledge, skills and values. Whereas, school culture was included about school environment, patriotism and integration. Meanwhile, development of KBSR was grounded under four principles and they were integrated approach, one education for all, holistic development of the individual and life-long learning. Nevertheless, weaknesses of KBSR are excessive focus to get A in examination and not to impart knowledge, values and skills.
Biggest transformation take place in the curriculum entitled Standard Primary School Curriculum (KSSR) in 2011 which incrementally in 500 schools. This is a way to coordinate the development and the current demand for human capital on more quality time in line and sophisticated to make KBSR as a base of KSSR. Main objective of implementation KSSR is to enhance students’ 4M skills in studies such as reading, writing, arithmetic and reasoning and emphasize more on modelling curriculum to produce quality students. For example, lower primary schools for English subject have four modules on listening and speaking, reading, writing and language arts. Science and Mathematics is the subject which teachers concentrate more. KSSR can describe as a beginning process of forming a holistic changes to the existing school curriculum involves changing the form, organization, content, pedagogy, time allocation, assessment methods, materials and management of school curriculum. Curriculum is actually a guide for teachers to achieve goals and mission that have been stated in education policy in Malaysia. Changes in curriculum happen until now as a way to enhance the ability and skills of students to achieve in certain levels and to produce quality students ever to this nation.
It is very important for all schools to organise activities according to NPE. The purpose of organising such activities is to implement the eight elements of NPE for both teacher and students. Implementation of eight elements is crucial in order to get the perfection and standardised curriculum among all schools in Malaysia. Hereby, it is to prepare students to face real life challenges when they completed their school life and the production of activities are conduct in integrated manner. Experiences that students gain from school will be a good guide for them to face challenges outside the world.
Ministry of Education claims that activities which are being carried out in the schools must fulfil the elements of NPE in order to produce well-being students. According to the survey that I had conducted in Tamil medium primary school (SJK T Dengkil, Selangor), the headmaster mentioned that his school is organising activities which are related to the NPE and emphasization on these elements play a vital role. These activities will be conducted according to primary school curriculum development for little one from age 7 until 12 years. There are two types of activities which are being conducted, one is school based activities and another one is class based activities for English Language subject.
One of the examples is Majlis Cemerlang UPSR (Ujian Peperiksaan Sekolah Rendah ). This program will be held on January every year for students who achieved more than 3A’s in UPSR. This activity is headed by the headmaster of the schools and teachers will be the coordinators. The main aim of this program is to rewarding students who contribute excellence results for the school and this will be a source of motivation for other students to achieve a better result for upcoming years by being a role-model. Other than that, the headmaster also will give a talk on KSSR and also the band systems for parents who enrol their children in year 1. This activity has hit the NPE’s elements especially in the term of producing knowledgeable and competent students for nation with high moral standards. Even, program like this should be organised in every schools as inspiration even though the schools do not have allocation to conduct such program like this.
Second activity will be Sport’s Day. February will be a busiest month for all teachers and students for the preparation for the Sport day. Training sessions will be conducting every evening in order to train students to get the perfections on the activities which already plan by teachers. Four groups will be formed for students during the actual day and each student need to contribute at least 1point for their group. Activities like 100 meter race. On the actual day, president of PIBG (Persatuan Ibu Bapa Guru) and parents are invited to give supports for students to do better during the sport day. Medals will be given for students who win for each and every activity. The implications of this sport day are to produce students who have high discipline level and balanced according to JERIS physically, emotionally, spirituality, intellectually and socially). Moreover, this activity will be a platform for students to nurture their hidden talents and to continue their achievement further. The selected students will represent the school to participate in the higher level competitions like MSSD (Majlis Sukan Sekolah Daerah) which organise by Ministry of Education.
On every May, the school will organise a program named Program Maju diri for school prefect and librarians as a base to train their leadership. Train the school leaders by implementing self discipline in them and develop well-mannered person together to contribute for good reputation of the schools. Activities like jungle trekking teach them the co-operation values among them without concerning about the race, skin colour and the status of a student. Thus, they will understand more about leadership and will realise that being a leader is not easy because they need to face lot of challenges and obstacles in their real life. Even, this program prepares students to be future leader of Malaysia in future. This prevents students from involving unhealthy activities which will damage their life as a valuable citizen. NPE elements like developing potentials of a person who are responsible and capable of achieving a level of personal well-being really coincide the scope of this program.
Next activity is Perkhemahan Badan Beruniform which will be held during school days on May. This camping will be organize for 3 days 2 night at school and students will be selected from each uniformed bodies to for participation. Different level of activities will be conducted to test students’ ability and their engagement with other students to bond a good relationship with other students. This program is really useful for students because they can learn more about the purposes of joining such program like this and may share their experiences with other students. So, other students will have the interest to join the program on other time. NPE will be used as a base for this program in order producing generation of students with high vision by creating awareness and understanding of the organizational principles which then students will learn through this program.
Lastly, school based activitiy which conduct by the school if Science Fair. The activity really interesting when found out about the students’ achievement that had made last year. October will be the month of Science where the science teachers struggle hard to prepare experiments for each class according to levels such as lower and upper primary. In addition, the purpose of conducting school level Science fair is to give exposure about Science world and make up students’ mind that Science is really fun by doing the experiments and it is not difficult if learn in a proper way. Teachers at the school will guides students how to conduct the experiments and rewards will be given for the most interesting and successful experiments. Parents are invited because to give encouragement to students and to give clear picture about students who are being as a Science class minded. On November, the school will take part in National Science Fair which will be held in Kuala Lumpur and these students will get a chance to engage with other students which come from all over Malaysia as participator and learn more from here. According to the headmaster, last year this school won third place doe the best experiment and attractive experiments. From here can say that, this school is preparing students as a future scientist by producing knowledgeable and competent Malaysian citizens according to NPE.
Successful learning process will be successful when the teachers put efforts to make engagement between learning and syllabus. It only can be done through classroom activities and it is really significant for the development of students in the classrooms. Lesson plan is the guide for teachers to prepare activities for students and put varieties in order to create fun learning environment.
The most interesting classroom activity which carries out by teachers is by playing online interactive game in computer lab. Students have chance to play the game by themselves so that they can explore the needs of a game which related to the content that teachers who are going teach. For example, ESL games mostly use for English language subject. Students can move further according to their level like lower level to medium level and higher level. This type of games will offer opportunities for students to improve their English language skills in fun and interactive way. Other than that, game like word of de day create reading environment in the classrooms. This is because students need to bring a cut of newspaper during lesson time and search for words that they do not know after this, students need to search for the meaning and construct a sentences according to the word. Students who collect more words will be the winner and will receive gift from the teachers. This type of activity give encouragement for students to read a lot just to find words and day by day they will practice their own reading independently. Teachers and students are putting their on-going effort for excellency in order to produce knowledgeable Malaysian which has stated in NPE.
Moreover, role play or well known also stimulations can develop the communication skills with other friends. Teachers give guidance for students on the flow of developing characteristic according to the story. For instance, roles play about the great poetry William Shakespeare. Role play is one way of extending the range of purposes especially when students brainstorm to get ideas to develop the sequences of the story. Role play areas often arise from the theme that being undertaken by the class through participation. Students get wider experiences to support their engagement with others students while using signs, props, menus and so on. According to Browne (2009) this imaginative play area will be a valuable source of literacy activities by creating understanding about the theme of story. The schools teacher also states that this role play activity may build student’s confident level and bring them out from the feel of afraid when they need to talk in front of other members. High moral standards can be created among students to mold good behaviours and produce personal well-being as stated in NPE.
Bee’s activity also being conducting in the classroom in different way such as spelling bee, speaking bee and others. The purpose of conducting such activity in the classroom is to ensure students to use their thinking skills during the lesson time. Even, students are able to increase their spelling and vocabularies level which can be used during examination time. The teacher said that this activity usually will be conducted in language classes like English and Malay. Teachers will come out with a list of vocabularies and ask students to memorize those words for the spelling bee which will be held every Tuesday for English classes and every Friday for Malay language classes. Students can create own initiative to modify their language proficiency that will be useful when they are complete their primary school level. In matter of NPE, teachers are in mission of producing students for the betterment of family, society and nation. Producing knowledge Malaysian students in a integrated manner is conscious.
Next activity is named as Lady Bird. This activity specially creates for students who known as slow learners. This is one way of grabbing slow learners’ attention to study smart give confidents that they also can be a good learner like the rest by making them to read. The way of conducting this activity is students will provide a text with number of question which goes on with the level like from easy to average and too hard. Students need to search for key words on the text and highlight those key words to get answer for each question. Students like faster learner will be tutor for the slow learners so that they can easily be guided among their friends. After this session, slow learners are able to read after two months and showed an increase in every school test. This has been proven when this school produce a very least number of slow learners and even this will contribute in producing literacy nation for Malaysia.
Last but not least, this school also has come out a with an activity called as self-access learning where the students need to do self learning in the classroom during independent learning period. Students need to read story books, find moral values which contain in those stories and need to present in the classroom during language subject. This is more to storytelling session which enables teachers to examine student’s pronunciation on certain words. Students also can make this activity as a platform to build their confident level to face other friends and also to speak out. Believe in god and on-going effort with high moral standards and responsibility which really hit this activity according to NPE.
In conclusion, the implication of NPE is really unique in producing a well-being of Malaysian for this nation. While, the implications of NPE on school culture are to ensure that teachers and students follow closely together, realize to give success for the aims and aspirations and basic consideration for reformation of planning education routines and activities. Finally, NPE is very important either for teachers or students to have a very quality education level for all Malaysian’s students and teachers are being as aspiration source for their students in the schools. Thus, values like honesty, dedicatedly; responsible and ambitious are needed to produce a capable achiever for this nation. Those activities which has stated above is one way for molding
