There are many international schools in Southeast Asia today and more are added each year. This reflects both the impact of globalization which has led to the growth of a large expatriate population in Southeast Asian countries and also a growing demand for good quality education from Asian parents. For many Southeast Asian parents, international schools means quality education for their children.

However, international schools do have a serious problem with regards to their teachers professional development. Many of these schools do not have on their staff trained and qualified teachers. Many of them are taken from the expatriate population that already live in the various Southeast Asian cities. Although I am not implying that untrained teachers make for bad teaching, it would be even better if such teachers are given a concerted and systematic training program with all the basic skills that they need as professional teachers.

Such experience and knowledge can make the classroom learning even more relevant for the students. A widening of the students’ horizons can and should be expected through such teachers. Students will be exposed to a more cross cultural perspective of things. A basic teacher training program can help such teachers be even more effective as agents for a truly global world.

Furthermore, studies have shown that teachers are more likely to stay if they feel that they can affect the outcome of the learning in the classrooms. Trained teachers would be better equipped with the tools and repertoire of skills that will help them exert a more positive impact on what goes on in the classrooms. Teacher training programs although can be costly, can actually contribute positively to the overall quality of the teachers in the school.

Click on this link if you want to learn more about enhancing teacher professional practice.

In the Middle Ages, what kept alchemists busy was the elusive search for the process  to create gold. The ancient Greeks had it much easier, with fables of King Midas and his Golden Touch. Today, many schools, including schools in Indonesia, are also looking for their version of the Midas Touch, a quick surefire way of creating gold. Privately-owned schools do have the goal of making financial surpluses at the end of each year. This is perfectly acceptable.

The alchemist and the search for gold

However, in their rush to make profits, some schools in Indonesia very quickly tag themselves on to foreign school models with foreign examinations or highlighting the presence of computer labs in the schools. They would look for administrative systems from abroad. Many of such schools in Indonesia try to follow the model in Singapore. But what remains key to ensure good academic excellence is often overlooked because they are harder to achieve and it takes a little more time than quick-fix measures.

The key area that all schools must look into is the quality of the teachers. Teachers define the quality of teaching that takes place in a school. It is not the curriculum or syllabus. Good teachers can more than make up for a poor curriculum. Curricula and syllabi can never fire the imagination of students while good teachers can. Good teachers can make lessons seem easy. The latest ICT hardware will not make much of a difference to the learning in school because it is only useful for education in the hands of skilled teachers.

Schools in Indonesia that rush to call themselves Sekolah Berstandar internasional (SBI) or “schools of international standards”, without paying much attention to teacher quality through investment in good teachers and their training, are deluding the parents who send their children to such schools, and themselves in the long run. This is especially true since the majority of teachers teaching in Indonesian schools do not have proper teaching qualifications. This includes the expatriates who teach there too. The lack of attention to teacher quality will eventually show. Parents and school administrators cannot afford to let this happen because the ones who will bear the brunt of poor quality teaching are the students.

To state the obvious, teaching is done by teachers, not good administration, nor a bank of computers on its own nor an international curriculum or international examinations. There is no Midas Touch in teaching. There are no quick fixes. What is required is good quality teaching by well-trained and highly motivated teachers.

When integrating ICT into the curriculum,  special attention must be given to the teachers in the school. There are those who will be early adopters, those who are fairly conversant with ICT use but choose a wait-and-see approach, and those who are not familiar with ICT and are probably worried about its use in the classroom.It the second and the third categories of teachers that we mus be more mindful of. They can make or break any ICT implementation program in a school.

For the second category, the wait-and-see group, they must be convinced about the importance and the usefulness of ICT use. Teachers are in general a fairly pragmatic group of people. They have been inundated with all kinds of fads that has been introduced into the teaching profession. They have seen fads come and go. A (un?)healthy scepticism becomes part of the outlook of such teachers. To convince them, they must not only be told of the importance of ICT use, they must also be convinced that the school is serious in believing that ICT use is important to achieve the curricular goals set for the school; and very importantly, that ICT really works for their students and the teachers.

Such teachers will watch to see if the school is serious about ICT implementation. By “serious” here, I do not mean that, for example, that the school makes it compulsory for teachers to have a certain minimal percentage of their lessons with an ICT element in them. By “serious”, I mean that the school would actually take into consideration, for example, the kind of assessment that the students would undergoing. If the only assessment that matters are the high stakes examinations where students can be drilled to do well in the traditional way, teachers will see little point doing “extra” since no measurable value is attached to the use of ICT in the classroom. In the face of a heavy work load and responsibilities and the perceived lack of time to “cover” the syllabus, ICT use in the classroom will not be given any importance by these teachers. This is made worse if teachers know that the appraisal of their performance is heavily weighted towards how well their students perform in the pen and paper examinations. A whole lot of serious convincing is needed.

For the non-ICT savvy teachers, not only they must be convinced but additional assistance is required if they are going to adapt successfully to using ICT in the classroom. Some of these additional assistance may include even bringing them to an acceptable level of basic ICT skills. It may mean for them to just learn to use word processing or spread sheet software for their own personal use. The training should be of the just-in-time nature.

Getting them to use ICT in the classroom would require a gradual process beginning with the familiar software they already know. Here again school administrators must not set unrealistic expectations of these teachers. I have already mentioned in a previous posting how some school principals banned the use of PowerPoint. For the new users of ICT among teachers, asking them to try something beyond PowerPoint may be asking too much in too little time. Better for them to learn the finer points of using PowerPoint and other simple ICT tools then be stressed out by unrealistic expectations.

The stress of learning to use ICT for these teachers can also be reduced if they are given adequate demonstrations and also a lot of hand holding by more ICT-savvy teachers. This is to give them confidence that someone is helping them and ready to assist. All they need to do is to try and master the simpler ICT tools.

Perhaps, the last important thing is that ICT tools take time to learn and master. Time is needed for teachers to feel confident to use them in front of an audience of usually ICT comepetent students. Rushing it will only lead to unsuccessful lessons in the classrooms.

In short, an ICT integration programme must be people friendly. It is about people first and technology second. The gates to ICT integration will not open unless we do imitate Gandalf at Moria and “Speak Friend, and enter”