THE NEEDS IN TEACHING TECHNOLOGY AND DESIGN SUBJECT IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS OF MALAYSIA
Azra Syahirah A.Rahman@Hud and *Sarimah Ismail

School of Education, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia,
Skudai Johor

Abstract

The Technology and Design (TD) subject was introduced in Malaysian secondary school curriculum in 2017 replacing the Living Skills subject. The replacement is to expose Malaysian nation to technology as needed by global industrial revolution 4.0 at the school age. This qualitative study was conducted to explore problem faced by the TD teachers that majority are Living Skills expert and their needs in teaching the subject. Data saturation showed that 12 TD secondary school teachers have been interviewed using interview protocol and tape recorder as research instrument. They were selected as study sample using purposive sampling technique. Finding of the study found that the main problem faced by the teachers were lacking of content knowledge of the subject due to not specialize in TD, no trainings were given on how to teach the subject and content of TD text book that should be managed to provide basic knowledge and skill of the subject failed to play its roles. The text book on the other hand focusing more on how to produce projects instead of providing prior knowledge and skill on how to produce those projects. The teachers required TD teaching framework, training on how to teach the subject, teaching modules for reference, the revised Curriculum and Assessment Standard Document to ensure the text book that written based on this document is complete, precise and error free. This study suggested for a development of TD teaching framework as a guide for those teachers at 2440 secondary school in Malaysia.

Keywords: Teaching, Technology and Design subject, Living Skills

Topic: Education