IASL 2002 Conference Logo

The 2002 IASL Conference

Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, 4-9 August

PAPER
School Libraries in Malaysia

This paper was prepared by
Fatimah, Jusoh, Educational Resources Service Section
Educational Technology Division
Ministry of Education, Malaysia

1.0 Background

1.1 Malaysia is part of Southeast Asia and a member of ASEAN. West Malaysia which is known as Peninsular Malaysia is situated to the south of Thailand, north of Singapore and east of Sumatra. East Malaysia on the island of Borneo comprises the states of Sabah and Sarawak. Malaysia has a population of about 245.4 million people. The multi-racial population is made up of Malays (53%), Chinese (25%), Indians (10%), other Indigenous groups (7%) and others (5%). 33% of the population is under 14 years old and 19% of our youth is between 15 to 24 years old. The people of Malaysia also enjoy good educational facilities and quality education. There are now 10 Universities in the country which there are also many private colleges offering quality education. As at year 2002, there are now 7,406 primary schools and 1794 secondary schools with a total of 9052 schools throughout the country. According to the research done by Frank Small and Associates for the National Library of Malaysia in 1996 in it "Profil Membaca Rkyat Malaysia." The literacy rate of Malaysians aged 10 years and above in 93%.

2.0 Brief History of the Development of School Resource Centres in Malaysia

2.1 The School Resource Centre, which forms an integral part in any school today, has come a long way. It began as early as the first school, which was built by the British in the early 19th century. It was then called "khutub khanah" where books were stored in a corner of the school. When the small corner or room expanded into a bigger room and housed a bigger collection, the name of "khutub khanah" seemed outdated, so it was named "perpustakaan" (library). The library merely consisted of a collection of books to meet the students' reading needs as well as educational and language development.

2.2 To raise the standard of library services in schools throughout the country, efforts were taken not only by the Federal Government but also by professional bodies. In 1962 the Library Association of Malaya (Persatuan Perpustakaan Tanah Melayu) drew up a minimum standard for secondary schools which proposed the following:

  • The collection of books and materials is to be placed in a designed room called Library.
  • Library teachers will be required to attend library management courses for a year at recognised training institutions locally.
  • Three types of newspapers are to be made available in the school library daily.
  • The total number of books made available in a school library should be based on a ration of ten books to every student.

2.3 Efforts by the Ministry of Education in obtaining the services of American Librarians were indicative of official concern over the development of school libraries. Many of the recommendations especially those by Margaret Walker in The School Library Manual published in 1964 have been progressively implemented.

2.4 In 1967, administrative circular (3/67) was introduced in an attempt to minimise the teaching load of the teacher-librarian. Pre-service and in-service courses were introduced.

2.5 The establishment of School Library Unit within the Schools Division of the Ministry of Education Malaysia in 1973 brought about the overall development of libraries. Realising that the school library plays a vital role in upgrading the standards of education, the following steps were taken:

  • In 1974, school libraries were awarded a per capita grant to build up the collections Library Science is integrated as a subject in the syllabus of the teachers training colleges.
  • In 1997, a one year course for teacher-librarians was introduced as the Specialist Teachers' Training Institute
  • Circulars were sent out to schools to ensure there is a space or room given to set up a library
  • In-service courses of 35 hours and 45 hours were introduced to selected teachers to manage the school library
  • The National School Library Organiser and seven (7) State School Library Organisers were appointed.

2.6 The development was further enhanced with the publication of the Blueprint for School Library Development in Malaysia, by the Librarians Association of Malaysia (former Library Association of Malaya) in 1979. The Blueprint provided the basis for stock provision, staffing, organization and use.

2.7 In the 80's, changes and trends in educational technology have resulted in an increase in the number of audio-visual materials. Provisions were made and the Audio Visual Aids (AVA) room was set up as an extension of the school library. To face this new role and functions, on the 1st May 1983 schools were directed that the school library and the audio visual room be centralised under one administration and be known as the School Resource Centre (SRC). This resulted in the setting up of the School Resource Centre Department in the Education Technology Division. Thus, the development of all SRCs, came under the responsibility of the Education Technology Division (ETD), Ministry of Education in 1988.

3.0 The Scenario of the School Resource Centres in Malaysia

In Malaysia, School Resource Centres are part of the whole continuum of educational provisions. Hence, almost all schools in Malaysia have their own libraries. However, their very existence depends upon many factors such as availability of space, financial support (grant) which in turn depends upon the school enrolment, and staff.

3.1 In terms of space, most of the School Resource Centres are within the classrooms, that is, they are converted from the normal classrooms. The availability of space, varies between schools. The majority have the space of three (3) classrooms and from 1989, all newly built schools are given the whole floor of the building (i.e. four classrooms space for the SRC). We cannot deny the fact that there are still schools which face the problem of space especially the rural and under enrolled schools in Sabah. To date, we have only 135 or 1.5% of the schools having properly designed School Resource Centres.

3.2 For financial support, two (2) grants are allocated yearly to all schools. They are the Library Grant and the Educational Resource Centre Grant. Combining the two (2) grants, each school has a minimum of RM 2,000 (for schools with less than 100 students) and to a maximum of RM 6,900 for schools with 1,000 students. In today's development, especially for the rising costs of books and other resources, the grants are not enough, especially for the under enrolled schools. Therefore, the grant is under revision and has yet to be approved.

3.3 In terms of book collections, most of the schools especially the secondary schools, have achieved the national standard of 1:25 (student : books). Sadly there are still many schools in the primary level that have not achieved the national standards of 1:15.

3.4 The management of School Resource Centres (SRC) is run by co-ordinators who are also full pledged subject teachers. 36% of the SRC co-ordinators in Malaysia have undergone short courses of 3 months or 35 and 45 hours in library management. Only 0.6% of them had a 1 year course in library science. However, we still have 63.4% of teacher-librarians with no proper training but are managing the SRCs they know best from experience and the little knowledge acquired during their training at the teachers training colleges. Some SRC are supported by one clerical staff and some are by library assistants sponsored by the Parents Teachers Association. To rectify this problem, in the "Hala Tuju Pusat Sumber Sekolah" (2001), a proposal was made for full-time SRC co-ordinators and full time trained library assistants.

3.5 Training of teacher-librarians is carried out by the Teachers Training Division, the Educational Technology Division and its network of 14 State Educational Resource Centres and the 367 Teachers Activity Centres.

3.5.1 All the 27 Teacher Training Colleges that offer pre-service programs have included the resource management component in their programmes. The Diploma Programme (3 Years), for example, have made it compulsory for students to take up subjects like Resource Management which include ICT Educational Technology and Library Science which is 105 contact hours. The Certificate Programme (one year) offers the subject Information Technology Skills with only 45 contact hours. With these basic information and knowledge, the teachers are not only able to manage the School Resource Centres, but more importantly, they can translate the resource-based learning concept into the classroom.

3.5.2 The Institut Perguruan Darul Aman (Darul Aman Teachers Institute) offer a one year in-service training program in the field of Library and Information Management.

3.5.3 Short courses with aspects of library management, reading, information skills and use of programming and CD ROM in teaching and learning process are conducted by the Educational Technology Division at the federal level and its network of State Educational Resource Centres at the state level and the Teachers' Activity Centres at the district and local levels. Normally, courses at the federal level concentrate on the training of the trainers, whereas the states will train the teachers in schools.

3.5.4 Specific short courses on classification and cataloguing, indexing and abstracting and other related subjects are also carried out by the National Library of Malaysia, State Public Libraries and Library Association of Malaysia.

3.5.5 Other education programmes open for teachers librarians are under the undergraduate and the post graduate programmes offered by the four local universities. The relevant programmes for the teacher-librarians are:

  • Bachelor of Science in Information Studies (Hons), specialising in Information Resource Centre Management offered by the MARA University of Technology (UiTM)
  • Master in Library and Information Science (MLIS) in the International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM)
  • Master of Information Technology (Information Science Management) In University Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM)
  • Master of Library and Information Science IN University Malaya (UM)

3.6 The states of Malacca, Kelantan, Pahang and Negeri Sembilan have set up the State School Resource Centre Association which has contributed tremendously in raising the standard of School Resource Centres in their respective states. To date, all the 14 states in the country have set up the State School Resource Centres Association after the directive from the Director General of Education. The aim of the Associations is not only to raise the standard of all SRCs in the country, but also to further enhance the reading enrichment programmes to foster the love of knowledge and life long education.

3.7 Mention should be made here that 22% of all the Malaysian School Resource Centres have been automated using one of six (6) major systems which have been either built by the school or bought from the open market. Most of these systems can:

  • Manage the database of materials in the School Resource Centre for circulation, searches and Online Public Access Catalogue (OPAC).
  • Print bar codes for materials
  • Incorporate the list of materials borrowed with the data required for the NILAM Reading Program to reduce the teachers' burden of having to keep a record manually.

3.8 The Malaysian Smart School Project, which started in July 1999 involving 97 schools has produced 9 modules. One of the modules is the Educational Resource Management Module. The following functions are available in the module:

  • Inputting and retrieval of teaching-learning materials
  • Viewing the resources associated with a subject or a learning area
  • Integrating of third party courseware that conforms to the integration requirements of SSMS
  • Inputting and retrieval of personal data of available resource persons
  • Maintaining an inventory of the school's educational resources
  • Automating the library system

3.8.1 The Project is due to end in December 2002. Malaysia plans to roll out (in phases) the Malaysian Smart School concept to all schools in the country in the year 2003. Thus, the future of SRCs in Malaysia is bright, especially in meeting new challenges of the development of information and communication technology and globalisation.

4.0 The Role of the Educational Technology Division in the Development of School Resource Centres in Malaysia

The development of SRCs in Malaysia is under the supervision of the Education Technology Division. To ensure that the School Resource Centres in Malaysia play their role in disseminating information, inculcating the reading habit and effectively supporting teaching-learning activities, programmes have been formulated and implemented through Malaysia.

4.1 The Malaysian School Resource Centres Excellence Award

4.1.1 One of the activities that has been initiated by the Educational Technology Division since 2000 is the annual SRCs Excellence Award. The objectives of the Award are

  • to encourage students and teachers to become effective and creative library users in acquiring resources and information for reading,
  • to encourage the schools to upgrade the teaching and learning process based on SRC,
  • to raise the schools' efforts and creativity to build and increase the collection of the SRC and to create more quality and functional SRCs in line with the Smart School concept and the current development of information and communication technology.

The award is presented to four categories of schools namely, secondary and primary schools in urban areas and secondary and primary schools in rural areas.

4.1.2 After two years of organising the Award, there is a tremendous change in the SRCs. Not only was there improvement in physical appearance and organisation of the SRCs, but utilisation has increased greatly too.

4.2 Conferences

Every two (2) years a national level SRC Conference is held. Action will be taken to fulfill the requirements of the resolutions passed.

4.3 School Resource Centre Assistance Services Projects

4.3.1. The objectives of the Projects are to meet the administrators and the teachers in the school so as to ensure that resource-based learning and the SRC are used in the teaching and learning process; to see that the National Reading Program, NILAM, is implemented and to have an overview of the development of SRCs in Malaysia

4.3.2. The venue chosen for the project should be a rural school where the SRC is not well organised but there is room for development. Teacher librarians are not trained and there should be a few schools in the vicinity so that the school can be an example for other schools to follow.

4.3.3. During the implementation of the Project, one group of officers will be attached to the project school to do all the necessary work in the SRC until it becomes a clean, organised and well planned SRC. Another group of officers will conduct a day course which includes management, reading and information skills.

4.4 Measures taken to inculcate the reading habit in schools

4.4.1 The NILAM Programme is an integration of all reading activities in schools with the aim of encouraging continuous reading and to inculcate the reading habit. It is a Programme that gives recognition to those who read. It is mandatory for all primary and secondary schools to conduct this programme.

4.4.2 To support reading programmes conducted in schools, from the year 2002 a yearly allocation of RM 5 million is set aside to supply reading materials to 1,000 selected schools, especially newly built ones and schools in the rural areas.

4.4.3 Reading and Information Literacy Courses were held at the federal level to expose state resource centres staff and key-personnel to effective reading and information skills that they need to acquire so that they, in turn, can run similar courses in schools.

4.5 Publications

4.5.1 A yearly "List of Reading Materials for School Resource Centres" has been published since 1978. The list is based on new published titles sent to the Educational Technology Division for evaluation. It acts as a guide to help develop quality collections at SRC, especially of materials for reference and extensive reading.

4.5.2 To support the reading programme, especially for the primary level, the Educational Technology Division is also involved in the production of reading materials. Under the "MAHSURI PROJECT", quality story books and graded readers are produced with the help of selected teachers all over the country. Last year, 37 titles were published and sent to schools. This year a set of 4 titles graded readers have been published to be sent to the schools by the end of the year.

4.5.3 To ascertain that all SRCs in Malaysia will become the centre of action, the centre of learning and the centre of consultancy, teachers should be given the required knowledge and skills. Other than attending courses, modules will be produced and sent to the schools. Two modules are in the process of publication. They are: "Resource Centre Management Module for Teachers", which will guide teachers on how to manage the SRCs efficiently and effectively. The other module is: "Information Skills Module for Students". The module will guide the teachers on how to teach information skills for students from year 1 to year 6 in the primary school.

4.5.4 The most important publications this year will be the "Standard and Guidelines for the School Resource Centres in Malaysia". The object of the Standards is to give clear guidelines to schools in providing and developing functional services fulfilling the educational needs in line with the development of Information and Communication Technology in today's world of globalisation. It is hoped that the SRCs not only will become an important and integrated component in the teaching and learning process but it will become the catalyst for smart school education and life long education in line with the National Education Philosophy.

4.6 Monitoring of School Resource Centres

This is jointly managed by the 14 State Educational Resource Centres and the 367 Teachers Activity Centres throughout the country. SRCs are monitored, and help and guidance are given. At the end of the year, data pertaining to the SRC's development such as stock, facilities, staffing, as well as reading programmes are collected and analysed for future planning.

4.7 Research and Development

To ensure that the programmes are effective, researches are carried out. This year, a research on "The Effectiveness of Using Resources in Promoting Teaching and Learning School" (Keberkesanan Penggunaan Bahan Sumber Dalam Meningkatkan Pengajaran dan Pembelajaran Di Sekolah) had been undertaken. The main objective is to get the information on the utilisation and the effectiveness of the resources in the teaching and learning process in schools which have won the SRC Excellence Award in the last three years compared with other schools.

5.0 Conclusion

As can be seen, Malaysia has systematic plans for the development of the SRCs which keep up with the changes and demands of the world. Steps taken include those from infrastructure, equipment, furniture and staff to skills necessary for building a knowledge-based society. To take advantage of the advance of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and to maximise its application in libraries, plans are underway for the networking of the States Educational Resource Centres with the hope that the SRCs will consequently be upgraded to electronic resource centres. With this and online management systems in accordance with the progress in ICT, it is hoped that our students will be well prepared to meet the challenges of the information age and evolve into a knowledge based society in line with our Prime Minister's Vision 2020.

Bibliography

1. Buku Maklumat Perangkaan Malaysia 2002 (2002) Kuala Lumpur: Jabatan Perangkaan, Malaysia.

2. Frank Small and Associates (S.E. Asia) (1998). Profil membaca rakyat Malaysia 1996: Laporan kajian yang dijalankan bagi pihak Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur: Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia.

3. Laporan Pelaksanaan Pusat Sumber Sekolah (PSS) Tahun 2001 (2001). (unpublished), Kuala Lumpur: Bahagian Teknologi Pendidikan, Kementerian Pendidikan Malaysia.

4. Ministry of Education Malaysia. Educational Statistics 2001 (2001). Kuala Lumpur: Ministry of Education Malaysia.

5. Szarina Abdullah (1991). Building a knowledge society: Challenges for Universities in Malaysia. MARA Institute of Technology: Shah Alam.

Last Updated 8 April 2003 (LAC)