Introduction
Education is the important sector in developed and
developing country. It contributes to building the human resources and social
development. Many countries have more concern on the education sector and focus
on the early childhood education until tertiary. Singapore, officially the
Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian island city-state with the area of
710 km2 (Wikipedia, 2013). Education in Singapore is managed by the Ministry of
Education (MOE), which spend up about 20 percent of the annual national budget.
In Singapore, Primary education is compulsory under the
Compulsory Education Act since 2003. Exemptions are made for pupils who are
homeschooling, attending a full-time religious institution or those with
special needs who are unable to attend mainstream schools. However, parents
have to meet the requirements set out by the Ministry of Education before these
exemptions are granted. Primary education is free for all Singapore citizens in
schools under the purview of the Ministry of Education. We are going to
describe about how Ministry of Education, Singapore use the teaching resource
for primary education by comparing to Cambodia context. The results of the
study provide the lesson learnt of implementing the teaching technique and
material for teachers and contribute to the development of education curriculum
in our country.
Issue of using teaching materials in Singapore Primary Education
Primary education in Singapore, normally starting at age
seven, is a four-year foundation stage (Primary 1 to 4) and a two-year
orientation stage (Primary 5 to 6). Singapore students took first place in the
1995, 1999 and 2003 TIMSS Trends in International Mathematics and Science
Study. They used Singapore Math Primary Mathematics series. The national
textbooks have been adapted into a series which has been successfully marketed
in North America as a rival to Saxon math and an alternative to controversial
reform mathematics curricula, which many parents complained moved too far away
from the sort of traditional basic skills instruction exemplified by
Singapore’s national curriculum.
A teaching material is a teaching resource developed by
teacher training department with the intention of creating cross-curricular
learning. Such materials often include many resources, such as an educators’
guide, a CD-ROM with works of art and primary sources (letters, maps, and
period photographs), overhead transparencies, posters, curricula, and
step-by-step lesson plans. The usage of teaching material contributes to the
processing of teaching and learning to get the good result of student.
Jason Loh (2010), an experienced primary school teacher and
a teacher educator, discovered a powerful way of using pictures with children’s
spoken and listening vocabulary to build their reading and writing vocabulary.
That encounter prompted a decision to utilize this learning strategy, the
Picture-Word Inductive Model (PWIM), in his lower primary class when he
returned to the school system in Singapore.
Singapore math refers to the method of teaching mathematics
developed in 1982 by the Curriculum Development Institute of Singapore in
response to the goals set by the country’s Ministry of Education. The Singapore
math curriculum has been exported to countries such as Japan and Israel, and
has been available in the United States since 1998. Singapore math is a
concept-driven curriculum that seeks to develop math skills using familiar
examples and to apply them to other real-world situations (DudeManDudeBro,
2009).
Many resources are available for teachers to support their
teaching such as lesson plan, crafts and activities, pintables, writing
practice, award maker, flash cards, word search, calendars, templates and clip
art, e-cards, outdoor learning. Moreover, there are some tools for teacher use
to prepare their classroom include classroom designer, complete classroom
software organizer etc.
Available featured products for students such as
Magna-Tiles, Daily Schedule Chart, Reusable Write and Wipe Picket, All about
Today Activity Center, Write and Wipe Alphabet Practice Cards, Super-Fun Marble
Run, Best-Buy Play Food Assortment, Help-Yourself Book Boxes, Bristle Builders
and Privacy Partition (Lakeshore, 2013)
Primary School teaching resources in Singapore are Teachers
TV, things that use electricity, a science resource about using electricity in
the home. It is a good introduction to electricity for younger students. Math
activity, evacuating aliens, this intergalactic brain-stretcher from TES
(Think, Educate, Share) iboard is guaranteed to improve mental addition.
Spelling handbook is the background information for teachers about common
spelling patterns, spelling and phonics games and more (Shyamalan, 2013).
Issue of using teaching materials in Cambodia Primary Education
Education in Cambodia is controlled by the State through the
Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport in a national level and by the
Municipal/Provincial of Education at the municipal/provincial level. The
Constitution of Cambodia establishes that the State shall protect and upgrade
citizen’s rights to quality education at all levels, guaranteeing that all
citizens have equal opportunity to earn a living (Article 66) (So, 1993). The Cambodian Education System includes
pre-school, primary, general secondary, higher education and non-formal
education. The education system includes also the development of sport,
Information Technology education, research development and technical education.
Among 11,370 schools in Cambodia, there are 170 disadvantage
schools in the whole kingdom (EMIS, 2012-2013), 105 of them are primary schools
with many difficulties especially the resources. Teaching materials are faced
in those schools because not only in the rural but also in the urban there are
not enough materials for teachers to teach and cause the number of repeaters
and drop-out increase. Lack of materials is the main issue in teaching and
learning process.
It has been observed that the quality of using teaching
material in primary education in Cambodia remains poor. Teaching and learning
materials are not good quality; In Cambodia teachers still use black board with
chalk for teaching and Singapore equips the digital whiteboard in the class
with the good infrastructure. Students are lack of learning material; In
Cambodia not all students have textbooks for use sometimes they share each
other and students in Singapore can access easily the resource from the digital
media and the Internet. The process of teaching and learning in Cambodia is
very slow if we compare to Singapore. In the rural area of Cambodia, students’
study time is short and not complete in the school year. Moreover, some
teachers don’t have commitment to teach their students because of low salary;
they just go to school and delay until the leaving time and some teachers are
always absent.
Conclusion
In conclusion, teaching materials are important tools for
supporting in the process of teaching and learning at primary school. Ministry
of Education, Youth and Sport should offer full set of teaching and learning
tool kits for school in order to creating the interactive teaching and
encouraging students to get effective learning. Teachers should be provided
enough material and should be able to use all materials effectively in the
class. It is also the useful supporting tool for teachers to teach with the
attractive session and students would be interested and see the visual aid from
their teachers. Students’ learning outcome would be success with the good
quality from these kinds of useful, helpful and attractive teaching resources.
References:
DudeManDudeBro, A. R. (2009). Teach-Singapore-Math.
Retrieved from wiki How to do anything:
http://www.wikihow.com/Teach-Singapore-Math
EMIS. (2012-2013). Education Statistics and Indicators.
Phnom Penh: Department of Planning, MoEYS.
Lakeshore. (2013). Lakeshore Learning Materials. Retrieved
from Lakeshore Learning Materials: http://www.lakeshorelearning.com/
Loh, J. K. (2010). Reflecting, shaking and being shook:
Resistance in a primary classroom. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 9.
Shyamalan, M. N. (2013). TSL Education. Retrieved from TES
Editorial: http://www.tes.co.uk/en-sg/primary-school-teaching-in-singapore/
So, H. (1993, Sepetember 24). Constitution of Cambodia.
Retrieved September 26, 2013, from Constitution of Cambodia: http://www.constitution.org/cons/cambodia.htm
Wikipedia. (2013). Wiki. Retrieved from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore
