INCLUSIVE EDUCATION IN MALAYSIA : MAINSTREAM
PRIMARY TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES TO CHANCE OF
POLICY AND PRACTICES
ABDUL AZIZ BIN JANTAN
PhD
2007INCLUSIVE EDUCATION IN MALAYSIA : MAINSTREAM
PRIMARY TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES TO CHANCE OF
POLICY AND PRACTICES
ABDUL AZIZ BIN JANTAN
A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment
of the requirement of the
University of Northumbria at Newcastle
for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
Research undertaken in the School of Health, Community &
Education Studies University of Northumbria at Newcastle
August 2007ABSTRACT
‘The Malaysian Ministry of Education is planning to implement inclusive education in mainstream
primary schools by the year 2010. This ambitious project may lead to significant change but may
also encounter a variety of barriers including provision of resources, established forms of teacher
‘raining and established teacher attitudes. Malaysian primary school teachers may find
themselves in the unfortunate position of having to implement an innovation for which they are
‘unprepared, both in terms of emotional acceptance and technical skills. This study has been
undertaken in response to a directive received from the Ministry of Education with the express
aim of providing the Ministry with relevant material concerning an examination of the attitudes
(understanding/beliefs, feelings/values and behaviours) of primary school teachers in relation to
the present and planned educational provision in Malaysia regarding inclusive education. It also
takes account of these teachers’ perspectives of their own needs and of resource requirements to
support this move toward
elusive practice.
The study population consisted of a sample of primary school teachers in Melaka, one of the
states of federal Malaysia, which I view as representative of the nation’s teachers. In the study
attitudes were investigated in terms of a three-components model of attitude formation to identify
cognitive, affective, and conative aspects. For this purpose two data collecting approaches were
used i.e, quantitative (by questionnaire method) and qualitative (by interview), in order to define
the nature of teacher attitudes towards inclusive education. To this end two Malay-language
instruments were developed for the study, namely a standard questionnaire technique and a semi-
structured interview schedule used in individual, face-to-face interviewi
‘The findings of the study indicate that Malaysian primary teachers at present have a concept of
inclusive education as merely placing all children identified by the Ministry of Education with
leaning difficulties into mainstream classes, either part-time or full-time. The teachers were of
the view that the structure of primary schools will need to change in order to support the
Ministry's plan, or else the plan itself should be modified. Methods are discussed as to how
Malaysia’s present primary educational provision might begin to move towards an effective
policy and practice of inclusive education.