The empowerment of human capital through higher education is a key element that contributes to the growth of national income. In line with this, Malaysia under the MyBrain15 initiative aims to produce a total of 60,000 doctoral degree holders by 2023. However, high attrition and low completion rates among postgraduate students to date have…

The new curriculum introduced in the Malaysian primary students; the Primary School Standard Curriculum (Kurikulum Standard Sekolah Rendah-KSSR) together with the school-based assessment (SBA) is a step taken by the Malaysian government to encourage thinking skills to students, specifically critical thinking skills. The study explores teachers'…

Scaffolding is crucial as transfer of learning does not occur naturally and teaching-learning strategies found to be effective for experts may not be suitably adopted as is for novice learners. Furthermore, opportunities are often "found" or "made." The quality of solutions, however, is mediated by different conceptualizations…

In this study we take up the issue of teacher knowledge by characterising the quality of one teacher's Mathematics Knowledge for Teaching (Ball, Thames and Phelps, 2008) by examining her Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) that was accessed during a Lesson Study observation in a Chinese primary school. Results show that the participant's PCK was…

In the last 15 years Malaysia has witnessed tremendous changes in the socio-political and economic fields, which have been reflected in the country's educational system. Formerly evaluation in the schools was synonymous with the term or yearly school achievement tests, or the administration of periodic standardized achievement tests. In December,…

This volume contains 8 papers presented at the January 2001 United Nations Policy Forum. The first paper provides an overview of major changes in the higher education sector in the selected countries consequent upon the economic crisis in the region. The subsequent papers analyze the crisis and its impact on higher education in individual…

Problems involved in implementing curriculum changes in Asian countries is the subject of this report, presented in the form of a symposium. The Technical Working Group of the Asian Centre of Educational Innovation for Development (ACEID) met in September, 1976, to study the experiences of the following countries: India, Indonesia, Republic of…

This symposium contains reports on: (1) a study of drug abuse among adolescents in India, by Jaya Nagaraja; and (2) a case study of factors contributing to drug addiction among Malaysian youth, by Chandraseagran Suppiah. Based on a sample of 1,000 adolescents attending metropolitan city colleges, findings of the Indian study concern psychological…

The theme of the 1990 meeting of the Ministers of Education of the Commonwealth of Nations was improving the quality of basic education. Basic education was defined as "the activities of primary and junior secondary schools, and of programmes of out-of-school education at an equivalent level, both for children and for adults." This…

In Malaysia, the government is supporting the diffusion of the Internet and is spearheading a project to bring Malaysia into the information age, by helping to design a smart city called the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC). The MSC is being planned as a high-technology center where world-class multimedia companies can develop state-of-the-art…

In this paper, three models of participant interactions in a Web-based instruction courses were identified among a diverse group of seven adult learners in a Course-On-Line, Masters of Instructional Technology Program at the University of Malaya (Malaysia). The three models were named the cyclical model, the hierarchical model, and the parallel…

The twenty case studies presented in these reports are examples of experiments in Asian nations which have been conducted as specific responses to local problems in teacher education. The materials, originally presented in a 1975 conference of the Asian Centre of Educational Innovation for Development, are organized into three basic subject areas:…

The publication recounts two symposiums on Arts Education that took place in Hong Kong and New Delhi, India in January 2004 and March 2005 respectively. Two sections include papers covering the current situation of arts education in Asia and plans for the future. The first part has an introduction to culture and arts education in Asia, the vision…

Eleven papers delivered for the Division of Libraries Serving the General Public at the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions 1992 annual meeting are presented. Most deal with library services to multicultural populations, including those of developing countries. The following papers are included: (1) "Library…

Several features of Beeby's model (1966) of the development of educational systems in developing countries served as the theoretical basis for the Malaysian Teacher Education Project (MTEP). These features include: the qualitative aspects of teaching, a focus on qualitative change, an emphasis on the realistic rate of such change in practice, and…