Empathy needed for teacher to train a child

THE New National Education System of the 21st Century (SPN21) is defined by three major thrusts that are needed to be developed, said the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education in an interview yesterday.

In an interview with The Brunei Times yesterday, Hj Mohd Daud Hj Mahmud mentioned that these three thrusts were change in education framework which allows better provisions for all students with different abilities, the review of technical and the vocational education system and finally, change in curriculum and assessment which not only looks at learning areas but also the development of life skills necessary in future.

"So what we are doing with the SPN21 is that we have embedded in all learning areas survival skills needed for students to use in the future," he said.

He said that this requires teachers to be "on-board" from the very beginning and added that they had to be innovative and creative in designing lessons.

"These concept skills such as digital literacy skills, communication skills and scientific literacy are skills students need to learn in the 21st century," he said.

With the 15th International Conference on Education (ICE) in session at Universiti Brunei Darussalam, he said that there should be some new ideas and new skills from teachers as having these attributes are very critical to their continuous professional development.

He also said that teachers needed to have empathy to really develop a child.

"You may be qualified but if you don't have empathy then it would be difficult because different students have different abilities," he said.

He added: "How teachers adjust their learning and teaching processes is very important. If we have not equipped our teachers, I'm afraid we won't be able to deliver the kind of changes we want in a child."

When asked if these type of conferences will be done on a greater scale in the future, he said that there has been so many workshops set up by the ministry in terms of changing curriculum assessment.

"Currently we are training teachers in Bridex in curriculum assessment. Our former system was focused more on determining student assessments through examinations, but teachers are learning to assess student learning from the very beginning," he said.

As an example of these assessments, he spoke of assessing a child's reading ability from Year One to Year Six.

He also spoke of an impending conference for teachers in June at Seameo Voctech.

"We wanted to really develop our teachers so that they are able to cope with the new demands of teaching and learning. Continuous professional development will always be crucial," he said.

The new education system, he said, will be around for a very long time and added that "there will be no changes in the education system even if there was a change in management".

Citing the Mckenzie report in 2004, he said that they viewed the strengths and weaknesses of the system as well as looked at studies and had work visits to learn the best practices.

"In Brunei, it's crucial to have a world class education system by 2035. This is not a commitment of one person but a whole country," he said.The Brunei Times