Effective School Management System using ICT in Education: Educational Resource Management in Malaysia Online Management System of School Resource Centers in Malaysia LUCIA QUEK SAI GEARN EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY DIVISION MINISTRY OF EDUCATION MALAYSIA 15-17 November 2009 Hangzhou, China.
Malaysia Population: 27,730,000 (September 2008) Age structure: 0-14 years: 32.6% (male 4,093,859/female 3,862,730) 15-64 years: 62.6% (male 7,660,680/female 7,613,537) 65 years and over: 4.7% (male 509,260/female 645,792) Ethnic groups: Malays and other Bumiputera groups make up 65% of the population, Chinese 26%, Indians 8% and other unlisted ethnic groups 1%
Some Facts And Figures Number of primary schools = 7655 Number of secondary schools = 2189 15 state education offices headed by state education directors Number of students = 5.63 million Number of teachers = 327,000 Development budget allocation under 9 th Malaysia Plan (2006 2010) = RM23.1 billion (USD6.1 billion) Operating budget for 2007 = RM 12 billion Average class size: 31 (primary); 32.5 (secondary) pupils per class Bahasa Malaysia (the national language) is the medium of instruction
National Education Policy Malaysia s educational system as the educational hub of excellence and quality based on: The National Education Development Plan 2001-2010, The Third Outline Perspective Plan 2001-2010, The Knowledge-based Economy Master Plan Emphasis on human resource development as well as providing equity, accessibility and quality to students at all levels of education.
National ICT Plan In line with the country s information and communication technology (ICT) Master Plan and Vision 2020 The Ministry Of Education (MOE) has integrated ICT into education on a fundamental level, incorporating systems to facilitate management, information gathering, access, and various forms of communication.
National ICT Strategic Plan The National IT Agenda (NITA) formulated in 1996 vision is to utilise ICT to transform all of Malaysian society into an information society, then to a knowledge society and finally to a values-based knowledge society. With the theme "Turning Ripples into Tidal Waves", NITA focuses on the development of people, infostructure and applications to create value, to provide equity and access to all Malaysians, and to qualitatively transform our society into a values-based knowledge society by the year 2020.
ICT in Education Policy The MOE has focused on three main areas in its ICT in education policy: ICT will be used as an enabler to reduce the digital divide between the country s schools by enabling ICT access for all students; ICT will be used as teaching and learning tools in education, taught as an independent subject and integrated into others; and ICT will be used to enhance efficiency, effectiveness and productivity of management in education.
ICT in Education Policy To ensure the success of these areas, the Ministry of Education has implemented the following strategies: Preparing appropriate ICT equipment and infrastructure for all schools; Introducing ICT curriculum and support for ICT integration into general teaching and learning; Upgrading the ICT skills and knowledge of both teachers and students; Increasing ICT use in educational management; and Upgrading ICT maintenance/management in educational institutions.
THE NATIONAL EDUCATION BLUEPRINT 2006 2010 Pioneering Change: A National Mission
The National Education Blueprint (PIPP) The six thrusts are: Nation Building; Developing Human Capital; Strengthening National Schools; Bridging the Rural-Urban Educational Gap; Improving the Teaching Profession; and Accelerating Excellence at Educational Institutions.
The Ninth Malaysia Plan (9MP) 2006-2010 NATIONAL MISSION: 5 THRUSTS To move the economy up the value chain; To raise the capacity for knowledge and innovation and nurture first class mentality ; To address persistent socio-economic inequalities constructively and productively; To improve the standard and sustainability of quality of life; and To strengthen the institutional and implementation capacity.
Implementation Of ICT In The 9MP Sufficient ICT equipment to all educational institutions Roll-out of ICT curriculum and assessment, integration of ICT in teaching and learning Upgrading of ICT knowledge and skills Use of ICT in educational management Upgrading of maintenance and management of ICT equipment
ICT Action Plan - 9MP Wetware Software Action Plan for Making All Schools Smart Hardware Maintenance & support
Major ICT Education Projects School Access Centres Making all schools smart SchoolNet Web TV Computer Labs Teaching of Science and Mathematics In English
Major ICT in education projects: The implementation of the Smart School project which was scheduled to go through four waves, viz; the pilot project (1999-2002), the post-pilot (2002-2005), making all schools smart (2005-2010), and consolidation and stabilization (2010-2020); the equipping of schools with Computer laboratories (to date 6633 schools) School Access Centres (3025 schools with 70% rural schools and 30% urban schools distribution); the Teaching of Mathematics and science in English (provision of 132,649 laptops, 78,333 LCD projectors, 67,439 screens, 63,254 mobile trolleys, and 9,662 printers), training of more than 200,000 teachers in basic ICT skills and using ICT in teaching and learning); introduction of WebTV (via the internet, reaching almost 96% of the schools as well as available outside school hours); the SchoolNet providing internet accessibility to 9654 locations; and transforming all the schools into smart schools by the year 2010.
Classroom Technology Use Electronic presentations Word processing Internet Publishing Web editors Spreadsheets Databases E-mail Blogs
School Management System (SPS)- 2009 In January of this year (2009), the Ministry of Education embarked on a journey to deploy a single School Management System for the eighty-eight Smart Schools in the country. The system is known as Sistem Pengurusan Sekolah or SPS in abbreviation. SPS based on open source technology fundamentally Java J2EE and MySQL, is aimed to provide a single platform for the Smart Schools to manage school, student and teacher data, in contrast to the current practice where the information is managed by different stand alone software.
School Management System (SPS)- 2009 Already in place in the 88 smart schools The SPS is to provide a platform to enable our schools to: Integrate knowledge, skills and values for the Information age; Unify the communities of students, parents and educators; Empower the educational communities with selfservice capabilities; and Enable access to real-time information, relevant assessment tools and online educational resources.
ICT in Educational Resource Centers From manual (catalogue cards etc) to electronic digital management of libraries/srcs - to A wide range of ICT tools now available, e.g. computers, the Internet, CDRI and other software, television and radio, video, cameras and other equipment, to aid the teacher librarians. Through the advances made through technology, the walls of the classroom and the library have expanded to include the entire world. we now have a global internet library. The new library spaces exist virtually and physically where students may explore, wander and seek new information and acquire information literacy, critical thinking and practical life-long skills
Malaysian School Resource Centers (MSRCs) The School Resource Centre (SRC), forms an integral part in any school today. Stated in Educational Blueprint: Model school libraries will be developed as centers of excellence well-equipped, functionally efficient and adequately staffed school libraries. Adequate resource materials, proper management and supervision, as well as using the SRC for teaching and learning processes. Inculcating reading habits as part of life-long education e.g: reading activities: national reading program - NILAM, Reading Camp, Writers Camp, etc Teach and Reinforce Information Literacy Skills Provide Access Centres for internet surfing and e-learning (ala cyber cafe)
Management of MSRCs Teacher Librarians appointed to all SRCs-also subject teachers Management of SRCs- proper administration circulation, cataloguing, searching either manually or automatically TLs and TAC officers also manage and handle: Management of SRCs/reading/literacy programs/book fairs etc Excellent SRC Awards Excellent Reader Awards for all students Assistance to SRCs - -administration/physical/tarining/programs/activities Coordination meetings with ETD network (SETDs and TACs)
Monitoring and Evaluation of SRCs (prior to 2009) Manually conducted- through survey questionnaires and administered by TAC, SETD or ETD officers Teacher Librarians answer survey instrument manually, during visits and verified by TAC officers Tedious lack of personnel time-constraints DISAVANTAGES costly, (remote schools) labour intensive
Solution: iq-pss Index quality of SRCs Beginning June 2009, a comprehensive online management system called the iq-pss was deployed to speed up the process of collecting, validating and analyzing the data. It also meant saving time and money Based on five main areas to identify Key Performance Indicators of each SRC. They are infrastructure and facilities, the organization and management of SRC, services, strategic planning and the national reading programme (NILAM)..
The iq-pss acts as a systematic mechanism designed to gauge the standard and status of SRCs. a catalyst for SRCs to achieve excellence status a form of recognition for SRCs which perform well a filter to identify any SRC that needs assistance.
What is the iq-pss? The iq-pss or better known as Index Quality for School Resource Centers is used as a standard measurement: to gauge the performance of SRCs to interpret the qualitative criteria of the achievements of SRC with the quantitative criteria so that the performance of each SRC can be measured uniformly to analyse and identify the strengths and weaknesses of the SRCs in its planning and management of corrective actions for continuous improvement from the point of management, budget planning, supply of resource materials for the SRCs, physical facilities including furniture, training, effective reading and information literacy programs
Implementation strategy The iq-pss is based on the evaluation instrument which was formerly administered manually by officers throughout the country. It covers the following areas: Section A Physical facilities, equipment and materials Section B Management and Administration of SRC Section C Usage of SRC Section D Reading Program (NILAM) Section E - Improvement programmes Section F - Special Features
SCOPE Scope of SRCs under ETD management 9,844 schools in Malaysia (including SK, SMK, SABK, SJK(C), SJK(T) 367 Teacher Activity Centers (TAC) 15 State Educational Technology Divisions (SETD) Educational Resource Management Sector, (ERMS) Educational Technology Division (ETD)
ETD RESOURCE CENTER STATE RESOURCE CENTER SETD RESOURCE CENTER AT TEACHER ACTIVITY CENTER - TAC SCHOOL RESOURCE CENTERS
Methodology: Work Process
Method Survey by self-access TLs key -in data online Verfication of data by TAC officers online Data collection twice a year/updating Reports for each category analysed Star ranking/rating - (1-star, 2-star, 3-star, 4-star, 5-star) to all SRCs
Input Input that is needed: information of the school and SRC etc (9,884 schools) information of TAC (367 TACs) information of SETD (15 SETDs) Level of achievement ( iq for all SRCs)
Output Level of iq for all SRCs (KPI) Statistical Analysis of the iq-pss based on schools, TACs, SETDs and ETD. This analysis can be used for the following purposes: Star Ranking of SRCs to gauge the performance of all SRCs. Choice of the best or excellent SRC in the country under the SRC award scheme. Total and kinds of resource collection at all schools Identifying the physical needs of all SRCs. Planning staff development needs. Planning Information Literacy programs.
Categories in the iq-pss SRCs rating activity status Analysis of statistics of SRCs, Statistics of SRCs by location Overall standard of SRCs, Overall standard of SRCs according to schools (primary/secondary/urban or rural), Top five SRCs according to states, Top five SRCs according to districts, Overall analysis of TLs competency Analysis of TLs competency according to states, Collection of books by SRCs (primary/secondary,urban or rural), Status of SRCs on book ratio (primary and secondary), Report of star-rating of SRCs according to TACs and SETDs Information on teacher librarians.
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Issues/challenges and solutions ISSUE Training / Understanding how to use the iq-pss (TLs) SOLUTION 1. An online manual/handbook to assist these officers. 2. 2. All state SR unit heads have been given a briefing on how to use the iq- PSS
Issues/challenges and solutions ISSUE Verification process nor done by the TAC officers concerned to check validity of data put in by Teacher Librarians SOLUTION Reminders via email and on-site checking by officers from ETD or SETD. Collection of SRCs information online within a certain period for reporting. Reminders via email and on-site checking by ETD and SETD officers.
Issues/challenges and solutions ISSUE Inability to change data once locked in by Teacher librarians. Only appointed officers with passwords can access the data and make changes. SOLUTION A comprehensive internal and external audit program is employed to ensure the adequacy of internal controls.
Issues/challenges and solutions ISSUE 1.Honesty/Integrity 2. True/exact data put in by TLs. (Through this data, SRCs are picked as role models and will be rewarded so data might be inflated) SOLUTION Briefings and explanations on the importance of real and true data to the TLs and officers at the various TACs, as the data will affect the planning and development of future SRCs
Issues/challenges and solutions ISSUE Disruption of internet line and schoolnet problems in schools or TACs where keying in of data is taking place. SOLUTION Central key-in of data at TACs or SETDs where the internet line is good.
Issues/challenges and solutions ISSUE Time constraints of both TLs to key in data and officers from TACs and SETDs to verify the data. SOLUTION Making sure the website stays open 24 hours a day, seven day a week so TLs can access from home and after school hours.
Issues/challenges and solutions Overall: Man Materials Machine Money Method ISSUE SOLUTION Yearly analysis of data collected for each category and Review needed.
RECOMMENDATIONS It is recommended that the online management system of School Resource centers be further enhanced. steps be taken to make it more user friendly and accessible at all times. That further modules be identified, to be added in to make the management of SRCs more transparent and more informative. (just added i-nilam) That more officers from TACs and SETDs are involved in creating the modules that they need to use in monitoring and managing the SRCs plus evaluating them. That Teacher Librarians and school administrators should also be more flexible and open to such methods of reporting and evaluation. Visit iq-pss @ http://tarantula.my/index.php
THE WAY FORWARD:- UNDER 10 th Malaysia Plan (2011-2015) The MOE hopes to move towards automation, electronic and digitalisation of their resource centers using ICT: Standardized Library Managemement System for all schools Increase number of access centres or APs Shared information management system and platform Single data center /central repository shared by all Acquiring more digital material for the SRCs e.g. e-journal e-magazine e- proceeding / circular e-books Training and staff development programs for all TLs and ETD officers
ADVANTAGES OF USING THE ONLINE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM iq-pss After 5 months of administering this system, the data coming In has been really helpful and it is clear that the iq- PSS has been very useful: Cost effective Saves time ADVANTAGES Making informed decisions Labour effective Flexible
CONCLUSION Using iq-pss as a tool for a well-informed decision-making process is only a beginning. SRCs are the catalysts to accelerate the literacy growth among the students via the use of its educational resources. iq-pss must be "usable." The five elements of a usable system are: timeliness, accuracy, consistency, completeness, and relevance. The iq-pss will help transform the management of Malaysian School Resource Centers towards a higher level, this will propel our SRCs to become excellent centers of teaching and learning and raise information literacy among teachers and students and life-long learning. ICT has played and will play a major role in managing MSRCs.