Inclusive education in Malaysia : mainstream primary teachers' attitudes to chance of policy and practices

Jantan, Abdul (2007) Inclusive education in Malaysia : mainstream primary teachers' attitudes to chance of policy and practices. Doctoral thesis, Northumbria University.

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Abstract

The Malaysian Ministry of Education is planning to implement inclusive education in mainstream primary schools by the year 2010. This ambitious project may lead to significant change but may also encounter a variety of barriers including provision of resources, established forms of teacher training and established teacher attitudes. Malaysian primary school teachers may find themselves in the unfortunate position of having to implement an innovation for which they are unprepared, both in terms of emotional acceptance and technical skills. This study has been undertaken in response to a directive received from the Ministry of Education with the express aim of providing the Ministry with relevant material concerning an examination of the attitudes (understanding/beliefs, feelings/values and behaviours) of primary school teachers in relation to the present and planned educational provision in Malaysia regarding inclusive education. It also takes account of these teachers' perspectives of their own needs and of resource requirements to support this move towards inclusive practice. The study population consisted of a sample of primary school teachers in Melaka, one of the states of federal Malaysia, which I view as representative of the nation's teachers. In the study attitudes were investigated in terms of a three-components model of attitude formation to identify cognitive, affective, and conative aspects. For this purpose two data collecting approaches were used i.e. quantitative (by questionnaire method) and qualitative (by interview), in order to define the nature of teacher attitudes towards inclusive education. To this end two Malay-language instruments were developed for the study, namely a standard questionnaire technique and a semi- structured interview schedule used in individual, face-to-face interviewing. The findings of the study indicate that Malaysian primary teachers at present have a concept of inclusive education as merely placing all children identified by the Ministry of Education with learning difficulties into mainstream classes, either part-time or Rill-time. The teachers were of the view that the structure of primary schools will need to change in order to support the Ministry's plan, or else the plan itself should be modified. Methods are discussed as to how Malaysia's present primary educational provision might begin to move towards an effective policy and practice of inclusive education.

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