အရွင္ဇဋိလ(သီတဂူ)
ဒီအပါတ္မွာေတာ႔ အဂၤလိပ္ ေဆာင္းပါးေလး တစ္ခု ေရးျဖစ္မိတယ္၊ ဖတ္ၾကည္႔ပါဦး၊
Two points needed in Myanmar Education:
In modern day, there are so many current educational issues, such as philosophy, history, teaching & learning, and curriculum, etc. Out of them I want to state two points—teaching & learning and curriculum—because I recently read acceptable news said by Alvin Toffler (2002) who is an American writer as well as futurist “the illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn”.
Teaching and learning issue;
In accordance with Alvin Toffler’s description, we can see his description in Myanmar as truth. Modern Myanmar, as an under developing country, faces so many current educational issues including teaching and learning. Method of teaching and learning is nothing but teachers and student. My Myanmar once had a strong and expanding education system and also good methods of teaching and learning. But those situations now reduce from good position gradually and gradually, since the current military regime stated a coup in 1988. The greatest barrier of education school in Myanmar does not have accurate methods of teaching and learning. Poverty is also an issue of Myanmar’s education. I am sure that the teachers and students in school are scant when poverties increase in the country. At that time they cannot do to scrutinize their method of teaching and learning because they are interested in more working for life than going to school. So we can see what issue of teaching and learning involved as a current educational issue exists in the current period till in Myanmar. So we here need continuously to go on how many teaching and learning issues there are. For answer, Dr. Diana G. Oblinger (2007) stated, in a magazine in which duties as a president, that the EDUCAUSE Advisory Committee for Teaching and Learning (ACTL) had indentified the key technology-related teaching and learning issue in higher education for 2007.
My scenario for Teaching and learning, as a result of the current educational achievement, is to accept 10 important teaching and learning issues described by Dr. Diana. They are;
- Establishing and supporting a culture of evidence
- Demonstrating improvement of learning
- Translating learning research into practice
- Selecting appropriate models and strategies for e-learning
- Providing tools to meet growing student expectations
- Providing professional development and support to new audiences
- Sharing content, applications, and application development
- Protecting institutional data
- Addressing emerging ethical challenges
- Understanding the evolving role of academic technologists.
This is the first point of issue related to teaching and learning. As my opinion, I assume there are various kinds that might be worth learning. What important to learn is skills concerning with profession.
Curriculum issue;
This is second point for higher education in Myanmar. Curriculums in Myanmar indicate teacher’s guides, textbooks, and learning plans. Curriculums in Myanmar, in deeds, are incomplete because it emphasizes only the subjects to be taught. For example, we can, in American schools, see that they have been teaching the various kinds of curriculum organization from two points of views—subject-centered curriculum, and student-centered curriculum. The first, subject-centered curriculum emphasizes the curriculum as a body of content, or subject matter, that give to make sure achievement, benefits, and so on. The second, student-centered curriculum, states curriculum that the terms of student needs and attitudes; it is the most concerned with process—in other word, how the student learns and the classroom or school climate.
However, we can see above two perspectives indicated in American schools as educational issues. For example, the subject-centered curriculum traces both the oldest and most contemporary framework of curriculum organization. In the subject-centered curriculum, we study the following three sections, such as the subject-area approach, back-to-basis, and the core curriculum. Proponents of these sections argue that subjects present a logical basis for organizing and interpreting learning, that teachers are trained as subject matter specialists, and that textbooks and other teaching materials are usually organized by subject.
In my scenario, for student-centered curriculum, it emphasizes student interests and needs, including the affective aspects of learning. Modern scholar accepted that when the interests and needs of learners were incorporated into the curriculum, students would be intrinsically motivated and learning would be more successful. According to john Dewey proponents of student-centered curriculum accepted to establish a curriculum that balanced subject matter with students and needs and he pointed out fallacies of either extreme. So, in Myanmar, we views what it does not practice till Dewey’s opinion is also as an issue.
In conclusion, another issue in curriculum of Myanmar is the question of censorship. Today Myanmar, schools do not be allowed to teach or write or publish freely by the instructors of censorship in according with about political, sex, racially sensitive information, because curriculums instructed in Myanmar emphasize basically the permission of government to be taught. For example, we here should emphasize view of Wilson. LO, ( 1990) as his individual opinion, he said that curriculum is anything and everything that teaches a lesson and also said human are born learning, thus learned curriculum actually encompasses a combination of all of the below_ the hidden, null, written, political and societal etc. These are curriculums issues of Myanmar.
References;
Partnership for 21st Century Skills, (2002) by Alvin Toffler.
Education in Burma, (1999) by Thein Lwin, U,
Quarterly Magazine, Volume 30, Number 3, (2007) by Dr. Diana G. Oblinger training and e-learning Blog. http://www.commlabindia.Com /elearning/ how can you_unlearn.
Foundation of education, curriculum and instruction, chapter 14, page – 414 -431, by Allan C. Ornstein / Daniel U. Levine.
An Analysis of the English Curriculum.http:// www.etni.org.il/etnirag/issue4/ nellie_deutsch. Htm.
Ashin Jatila, (M.Ed. E.A)
S.I.B.A (Kawa)
