The digital education policy is in its final stage of development.
The Education Ministry has been engaging and collaborating with the National Education Advisory Council to fine-tune the final draft of the policy.
“The ministry continues to champion digital education and aims to enhance digital literacy among students as well as digital competencies among teachers.
“Once the final draft has been approved, the ministry will prepare and present the policy paper to the Cabinet for approval,” it said in reply to StarEdu.
Digital education, which became a necessity during the Covid-19 pandemic, was a new challenge for teachers, National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP) president Aminuddin Awang acknowledged.
“Many teachers, especially those of the earlier generation, faced difficulties in conducting online teaching. Students who did not have digital devices and Internet access made it even more difficult.
“Teachers learned through trial and error. It was only then that we realised that our country’s education system was behind others when it came to digital learning,” he said.
During training, teachers, said Universiti Malaya Education Faculty senior lecturer and teacher-trainer Assoc Prof Dr Zuwati Hasim, are exposed to the use of technology and how to develop teaching materials that suit their learners.
Given enough time and equipment, under any circumstance, teachers are able to explore and adopt the right teaching tools to be used for teaching and learning, she said.
“With the advent of technology, they could easily manage their planning time, gather resources, design teaching materials, and constructing learning tasks.
“Moving forward, teacher training should continue to focus on supporting digital learning and incorporating technology into the classroom.
“This can include training on specific tools and platforms, as well as strategies for creating effective digital lesson plans and engaging students in online environments. Learning engagement seems to be a struggle that many teachers or teaching staff have with online teaching,” she said.
Although it has been three years since the start of the pandemic, not much has been done by the ministry to equip teachers with the necessary skills for digital education, said Aminuddin.
There have been a few online courses from time to time but these have not been very impactful, he said. For digital education to be successful, schools nationwide must be equipped with devices and Internet access.
“If we cannot even get the basic things done, it will be difficult for us to advance.
“What we see in schools now are computer labs that are poorly maintained, and computers that are broken or obsolete.
“Hopefully, the digital education policy can raise the level of digital education in the country,” he said.
On March 20, Education director-general Datuk Pkharuddin Ghazali said the policy’s direction is towards digital education so that children can have more interesting learning resources which can have a big impact on their understanding.
It was previously reported that the policy would encompass the entire learning ecosystem so it goes beyond schools, higher education institutions, parents and teachers; it involves infrastructure, infostructure and the entire community.
The policy is about the innovative use of digital technology to produce a generation that is not just digitally literate, but also digitally fluent.
