The Role of Teacher As Agent of School Curiculum

Agents of change are something or someone that causes or leads to change. Where
as change is to transform something or cause it to be different. In our context, there are two
categories of change, quantitative and qualitative change. Quantitative change is a change
that is measurable, such as a persons age, sizes and test scores. Whereas qualitative
change involves quality, such as personal gained through education and interactions with
others, and change in likes and dislikes, interest and relations with others. Access to an
education system in which people attend schools or enroll in education courses, would be
more or less meaningless if they fail to learn and if there is no change occurring. Conversely,
it is more or less limited, if a school or education system is said to be high achieving, if its
recruitment is on a selective basis, which fails to reflect the diverse composition of its
population it is supposed to be serving.
Change is something all societies have to deal with. Teachers often resist change
mandated or suggested by others but they do engage in change that they initiate. This is
called voluntary change.Changes of the mindsets of a whole society must involve all citizens.
In order to bring about change, there must be the thought leaders who define and redefine,
elaborate meanings and necessity of the desired changes. All societies have their own
beliefs, attitudes, expectations, views, concepts and norms. Schooling and success of
schooling is the best vehicle to challenge the mindsets to reflect and reform, thus setting new
values and projecting the desired attitudes towards accepting change and adapting to them
so as to be able to compete in the new era. Without doubt, teachers of quality will be the best
agents of change since they are the ones involved in the process of change and the change
they are supposed to bring about in their students.
Education is a process and the activity is to develop the changes of individual in our
social community. In this era, teachers are responsible to give education and make changes
to someone behaviour. Teacher should be able to master the technology and they need to
increase their own knowledge so that the students will able to follow them. There are many
steps to make our teacher to become a good agent of change that is, in social life, teacher as
a facilitator, developing understanding and interest in the classroom and as a role model.
Malaysian education system was built in other to uphold the education aspirations
where the main aim is to empower the nations citizens to compete in todays era
globalisation. According to Dr. Nayef R.F. Al-Rodhan (2006), globalization involves economic
integration; the transfer of policies across borders; the transmission of knowledge; cultural
stability; the reproduction, relations, and discourses of power; it is a global process, a
concept, a revolution, and an establishment of the global market free from socio-political

control. A research by S. Chinnammai (2005) also supported that the effects of globalisation
on education bring rapid developments in technology and communications are foreseeing
changes within learning systems across the world as ideas, values and knowledge, changing
the roles of students and teachers, and producing a shift in society from industrialisation
towards an information-based society.
The challenge for teachers is to move the society from mere thirst for news and
information to the passion for knowledge, and to move towards the enlightened search for
patterns of knowledge principles. This principles can become the tools for thinking inculcating
long life learning, mastered by the public after they graduated out of school. With these the
school, university going population as well as population as a whole will become more
enlightened, more mindful and hopefully more rational in making decisions in daily lives and
in time of crises. School/teacher plays the role as agents of change especially for social
transformation. By guidance and support from the MOE through educations policies, six
types of the future generation of students can be produced that are students who can
contribute to the nation-building and have patriotic value, communication skill, moderate and
active in co-curriculum. Next will be students who are able to bring change to/in the society,
instill goodwill and do not have the compartmentalization attitude. Third is the learned
students in the field of science and technology. Fourth type will be students who are literate
in information technology.Lastly will be student who are able to communicate in at least 2
languages and students who are able to think creatively and critically.
Now we look on the Malaysian curiculum. Malaysian curricularist has reform the
Malaysian curriculum that meets the globalisation needs where Malaysian Education
Blueprint (2013) agreed that high aspirations is significant in order to properly address the
needs of all Malaysians, and to prepare the nation to perform at an international level, it is
important to first envision what a highly-successful education system must accomplish,
particularly in the Malaysian context. Therefore, the advent of globalisation democratises the
transformation of Malaysian education through the educational aspirations reforms. Thus, in
order to develop a successful transformation of the Malaysian curriculum, teacher plays an
important role as agents of change.
Acoording to the Malaysia Education Blueprint (2013-2025), access to education is
partly a matter of education supply and school mapping. The MOE, is making sure that every
citizen in Malaysia has equal access to education and is seriously carried out and
implemented. Access, on the other hand , is also a matter of encouraging and stimulating
demand so that the students is motivated enough to self access the open opportunity of self
acquiring knowledge. Here the teacher plays the most important role as a change agent of

attitudes of students and community towards education. In preparing students to be

successful future citizens, teachers should lay foundation for life long learning at school level
and play an important part in helping children develop the ability to learn and to think
independently, cultivating the basic skills and attitudes necessary for life long learning. In this
era, every student should be equipped with computer skills and the know-how to access
information. Thus many schools in Malaysia are encouraged to develop self access centres,
where students set their own pace suiting to their own style of learning. Creativity of teachers
are much depended upon, tirelessly creating contents, so as to be able to attract, encourage
and motivate students to take the opportunity to use the self access centres. Modern schools
are equipped with at least one computer laboratory, 20 computers with internet/school net
access, accessible for student use. Teachers as agents of change must have the ability to
develop generic skills in students equipping them with the ability to be long life learners.
Roles of the teacher in the successful transformation of the Malaysian curriculum are
teachers must be good in motivating their students. Teachers must know where to start. They
seemed often to forget that these students are not from same background life. In terms of
that, they need to determine students who are facing problems in school. Teachers should
facilitate students with full commitment in all aspect. By doing this, students will not feel that
they are abandon among the rest. Many of social problems happened today because of lack
motivation and guided from parents and teachers. Make students active participants in
learning. Students learn by doing, making, writing, designing, creating, solving. Passivity
dampens students' motivation and curiosity. Pose questions. Don't tell students something
when you can ask them. Encourage students to suggest approaches to a problem or to
guess the results of an experiment. We often teach in the classroom but we did not spend a
few minutes to understand what the students need. Indeed, motivation from teachers gives a
hope that makes students changes.
There are four types of change that can be done by teacher namely shift towards
increase, changes in the organizations strategic , proactive changes and lastly changes
resulting from outreach. As agents of change, teacher should improve their skills by changes
in the performance of duties. In relation to the Eleven Shifts of Malaysian Education Blueprint
(2013), the curriculum develops aims to focus teachers on their core function of teaching
from 2013 by reducing administration burdens. Based on the fourth shift, teachers have the
opportunity to improve their skills because the workload of administrating will be lessened.
Furthermore, the teacher can focus more on their core business which is teaching and thus
they can perform well in their duties. This s supported by Weingarten (2012) where if
educational reform is to work, teachers should believe that the proposed changes in
education will actually help them be successful with students. The above statement indicates

that teacher as agents of change should agree with the shifts proposed by the Malaysian
Educational Blueprint to ensure the system aspirations for Malaysian Education can be
achieved. One of the five systems aspirations related to the shift of performance duties by
the teacher is closely related to the aspirations of equity in which Malaysian education aims
for top-performing school systems that deliver the best education for every child, and
teachers are responsible in improving their performance in duties to uphold this aspiration.
The role of change of teachers as agents of change in the successful transformation
of the Malaysian school curiculum plays a vital role in the national curiculum. The national
curriculum promotes unity through the use of a single medium of instruction (the national
language) and the provision of the same core subjects for all pupils in all schools within the
National Education System. However, the cultural diversity of different ethnic groups in
Malaysia is preserved through the existence of National Type Schools, which are allowed to
use other major ethnic languages as the medium of instruction. The underlying theoretical
principle of national curriculum formulation is that of general education, using an integrated
approach in curriculum planning. The curriculum comprises content and skills, with emphasis
on the development of basic skills, the acquisition of knowledge and thinking skills. Each
subject must also incorporate the inculcation of moral values and attitudes and the correct
use of Malay and other languages, such as English, Chinese and Tamil. The integrated
approach is the main focus in the design of the Integrated Curriculum for Primary School and
Integrated Curriculum for Secondary School. The elements of knowledge, skills and values
are incorporated so as to bring the integrated development of the intellectual, spiritual,
emotional and physical aspects of the individual.

Media has given us lots of negative influences to our children, especially internet and
television. They usually bring it to the school and by the end discipline problem occurs.
Teachers can actually make a positive contribution to this situation. They must think
creatively to find way to help the children to change their view to this problem. With a good
moral supports and stressing the negative things, this will make sure that students believe in
their teacher and by the end it make a good environment of learning in the classroom.
Teacher involvement leads to a curricular transformation where teacher as agent of changes
should be proactive in their work. In order to meet the aspiration of quality, teacher should be
able to be proactive, which means, teacher should be able to create and control a situation in
classroom and school rather than responding to the situation after it has happened. Henly, M.
(2009) agreed with this statement where proactive teachers do not avoid problems in

learning or problems with behaviour. However, these teachers accept responsibility for their
students successes and their students failures.
A proactive teacher should be able to create a proactive classroom through the
positive learning environment. Therefore, other than emphasizing on the academic, some
changes should be made within the teacher and the classroom such as inculcating the social
skills in daily lessons and routines. By inducing social skills in the lesson, students will be
interested in the lesson in classroom. This is supported by the Malaysian Education Blueprint
(2013) whereby teacher as agent changes should ensure that the students aspirations in
ethics and spirituality is being highlighted in which the education system will inculcate strong
ethics and spirituality in every child to prepare them to rise to the challenges they will
inevitably face in adult life, to resolve conflicts peacefully, to employ sound judgement and
principles during critical moments, and to have the courage to do what is right. Thus, the
above statement has specified that to empower the citizens with good ethics and spirituality,
it falls back on the teachers role as agents of change in implementing the curriculum
transformation in school.
Although to make students to understand in all subject in the classroom are difficult,
yet there is still can be change. For example, when some students did not understand what
the teacher are teaching in the classroom, it shows that some technique must be change.
For instants, teachers must make use of different methods in teaching to get students
interest. Therefore, by enhancing teachers technique of teaching, it may helps developing
the students understanding and interest to overcome their problems. The Malaysian
Education Blueprint acts as the outreach of the teacher as agent of changes because mainly
this blueprint emphasizes on the significant roles of teachers and administrators at school.
Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin (2013) stated that the blueprint is indeed so committed to preparing
our children with skills in six student characters, and it would be better if it is to be wellreceived with immense feelings of responsibility so that the programmes could be fully
implemented to achieve the desired results. From the above statements, we could say that
the goals of the blueprint is included in helping students to become productive members of
the workforce, knowledgeable consumers, savers and investors, and participants in the
global economy.
The role of teacher is vital where teacher as the implementer is the person that is
responsible to mould our citizens by understanding the current challenges globally. Teacher
should focus on improving the education lesson into a classroom where students would be
able to think critically creatively by preparing a lesson with hands on learning, collaborative
learning as well as encouraging students to be more confidence in giving out their ideas and

thoughts. Therefore, the role of teacher here will be able to meet the objectives of Malaysian
Education Blueprint (2013) which allow the education to meet new demands and rising
expectations, and to ignite and support overall civil service transformations.

Malaysian Education Blueprint states in detail the five system aspirations and six
student characters to be achieved in the next 13 years. It focuses on student outcomes
encompassing all levels of schooling, that is, from pre-school to post-secondary level where
the main stress turns on the teacher roles as agent of changes. From the above supports,
teacher is seen as the important key players in ensuring that the curriculum transformation is
being implemented well in the school. Thus, teachers should take the responsibilities to
implement the curriculum of the Malaysian Education for the better future that will be facing
more challenging globalisation.
In conclusion, we can easily see from these few examples the teachers as an agent
of change influence on students social life, developing a good interest of learning in
classroom, being motivated and facilitated, and respect of the teachers as role model to
them.