Continuous lifelong education should be the goal

THE quality of education in Malaysian schools may not necessarily be boosted by teachers having high paper qualifications, such as Masters’ degrees or PhDs.

In our Malaysian teaching environment, it is a reality that many Malaysian teachers do not have postgraduate degrees that are related to their original field of studies.

It is a known fact in Malaysian schools that there are teachers who teach certain subjects according to their specialised areas as indicated in their first degrees.

However, on numerous occasions their postgraduate degrees indicate that their qualifications are in different fields, such as administration, management and the like. Such postgraduate degrees do not in any way reflect an extension of knowledge in their subject matter.

Hence, teachers with varied postgraduate degrees other than their earlier basic degrees cannot boast of having deepened their teaching methodologies or presentations of certain ideas or concepts when teaching their students.

They cannot claim to be expert teachers just by mixing and matching their degrees which they obtained at various levels.

It is imperative that teachers accept that continuous lifelong education in their field of study is necessary to keep abreast of the latest updates on the frontiers of knowledge.

The knowledge we acquired yesterday becomes obsolete tomorrow unless we update ourselves today. As such, paper qualifications alone is not a guarantee that a teacher has the expertise to teach the knowledge of tomorrow in his or her field.

Being committed to participating in knowledge sharing discourses and forums is inevitable to learn new teaching tools that can make teaching and learning interesting and relevant to students in this challenging world.

RETIRED MATHEMATICS TEACHER

Subang Jaya, Selangor