NEWS: Measuring ICT skills in schools

The Star

By SIMRIT KAUR, Education

The Education Ministry is drafting the National ICT Skills Standards (NISS) and developing assessment instruments to measure these skills in primary and secondary schools.

Among those helping in the process are experts from the International Society of Technology in Education (ISTE) who served as facilitators at a workshop on the NISS, held in Kota Kinabalu recently.

The National ICT Skills Standards will provide a roadmap on where technology use in Malaysian schools should be going. – Filepic

They are ISTE chief executive officer Dr Don Knezak and senior director Dr Lynn Nolan. Dr Knezek provides consulting services to governments around the world while Dr Nolan is an expert on technology's role and direction in schools of the future.

Dr Knezek said that the NISS needs to be localised so that it suits the Malaysian context.

"We are working with a number of departments in the Education Ministry to determine what standards should be set in relation to ICT, that is, what are the skills and competencies that all students should achieve," he said, in a teleconference.

According to Dr Nolan, the NISS would provide a "roadmap" on where technology use in Malaysian schools should be going.

"At the moment, ICT literacy, especially at the upper secondary level, is not articulated in a clear manner.

"The NISS is meant to bring a structure and framework to the expectations of the general public on what students should know.

"It should be in a form that is easily understood by people outside the system," she said.

Dr Nolan and Dr Knezek shared their experiences of similar undertakings in other countries around the world.

"There is a need to develop a technology standard" - VINCENT QUAH

"Malaysia can learn from what other countries have done. You do not have to start from scratch. You can jumpstart the process," said Dr Knezek.

Participants at the workshop included officers from ICT units of various divisions of the ministry namely the Curriculum Development Centre, Schools Inspectorate, Malaysian Examinations Syndicate and Teacher Education Division.

Also present were lecturers from teacher training institutes as well as primary and secondary school ICT literacy teachers.

The two facilitators from ISTE were flown in by technology giant Microsoft.

Microsoft Asia Pacific public sector programmes director Vincent Quah said that they were brought in through the Partners in Learning (PiL) initiative.

"There is a need for Malaysia to develop a technology standard as the foundation to anchor all past, present and future knowledge, to make it measurable, assessable and sustainable in order to protect the investment the country has made in education. "

PiL is a global programme to improve ICT education among students and teachers. It was launched in 2003 by Microsoft with a cash grant of US$250mil (RM850mil) and has been implemented in more than 100 countries.

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates signed an Memorandum of Understanding on PiL with the Malaysian Government in June 2004 worth RM10mil.