1.

Standard Curriculum for primary school (KSSR) The standardized in English Language Curriculum for Primary Schools (Kurikulum Standard Sekolah Rendah) has introduced by Ministry of Education Malaysia. The KSSRs will be carried out phase by phase starting this January of 2012. This new curriculum featured on development of the students which include of new factors such as grooming of entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation, and integration of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Ministry of Education was decided this year KSSR curriculum will be carried out for all standard starting standard one pupils. The mission of KSSR is to educate all students from primary school on general knowledge. This mission means to

accomplished the students to higher level of education in secondary schools. The original "Curriculum Standards" is divided into four "modules", now changed to 6 "pillars", including: science technology, communication, humanities, spiritual life, social studies and aesthetics. At the end of the primary education stages, students should be able to master the basic skills for everyday life. The students will master of these basic skills which is reading, writing and calculating. Then, they will master reasoning creative and wellness awareness, self-esteem, innovative skills, believe in god (Islamic education and morals) and patriotism, and lastly the students will be able to understand and appreciate the national culture.

2. Process Standard Curriculum for primary schools (KSSR) Development The concepts of curriculum transformation are based on Malaysian philosophy of education and the principles of KBSR itself. What is mean by curriculum transformation? What are the comparisons that have been made by this curriculum than the old one? Curriculum transformation is the process of doing a form of holistic change existing school curriculum involving a change design, organization, content, pedagogy, time allocation, assessment methods, materials and management of the school curriculum.

Curriculum transformation
Design Material Organization Content Time allocation Pedagogy Assessment Curriculum management

Diagram 2.1 shows the elements in the new curriculum.

One of the important elements of curriculum transformation design is communication. In this new curriculum, its combine the relationship between verbal skills and non-verbal skills during interaction in class. So, students will be mastered in their communication effectively and knows each situations to use the specific type of communication skills. Humanism is one of the elements for the curriculum transformation design. Humanism helps students to master the knowledge, active in community and local environment, national and global, appreciation of patriotism and unity. Next are physical and aesthetics development. These elements concentrated on the improvement of physical and health well-being and nurturing of imagination, creativity, talent and appreciation. The fourth one is mastering in Science and Technology. This can be done by scientific knowledge, skills and scientific attitudes, mastery of mathematical knowledge and skills, mastery of knowledge and Technologybased skills. Various programs will be held to sustain this element of curriculum transformation design. Next are attitudes, spiritual and values. This can boosts the students in gratitude of attitudes, religious and values. It is very important for the new generation because one day they will become the entrepreneur to the community and the country. Lastly , students need to improve and develop their personal skills while in young ages. The personal skill is one of the elements of this curriculum. By mastering this skills, students can foster the leadership and personal development through curricular and extracurricular activities of humanities.

KSSR was endorsed based on standard content and learning. Standard content is a detailed statement about what students should know and what they should do in school which includes knowledge, skills and values. Standard learning is a willpower of the measures indicators of quality in learning and achievement that can be measured for each of the content standard.

Why standard?
To make sure that all the students pass the given standards. To implement the school-based assessment. To overcome the problems of students left behind in learning. To identify the strategies that needs to be improved (assessment for learning) To measure clearly the designation of knowledge, skills and values.

Diagram 2.2 shows the respons on why the curriculum should be standard.

The term standard in the KSSR is used to refer the spirit of the curriculum which summaries the two main standards. The first is Standard Content that refers to specific statements about what students should know and can be done in a school term that encompasses knowledge, skills and values. Meanwhile, a second standard to be emphasized is the concept of Learning Standards, which is a setting criteria or indicators of the quality of learning and achievement that can be measured for each content standard. So the term "standard" which replaces "integrated" is much relevant. This is because the new curriculum is very different in terms of its modules and the implementation of standards-based curriculum documents. Here the examples of Content Standard and Learning Standard. Content Standard For Bahasa Malaysia subject, students are able to listen, understand and respond correctly a command, questions and messages fluently. For Mathematics, students able to name and determine the value of the numbers. For English subject, students are able to precise the personal response to fictional texts. Learning Standard For Bahasa Malaysia subject, properly respond in orally to a variety of questions. For English, students able to respond book covers, pictures in books, characters with guidance. Mathematics, students are able to name the numbers until 100, count the objects in the group, named for the number of objects to represent the quantity

3. Factors that Lead to the Development of KSSR Many factors influenced the changes in the education system. The most important factor is educational philosophy. Philosophy of education plays an important role in determining the education system in the country, specifically in Malaysia. Philosophy of education has great effects for curriculum development starting early 80s until now. KBSR and the KSSR was the result of the changes, which bests in the National Education Philosophy. Agreeing to Hussein Haji Kamaruddin (1994), among the changes in KBSR is the syllabus indorsed stress on aspect of cohesion and balance. Thus concepts such as equality and integration are needed to be alarmed. In addition, the new emphasis given to the application of moral values. The community is also a factor to change the curriculum, because people are determine whether the curriculum is suitable or not agreeing to their will. But it is not easy to meet all demands of the curriculum and its impact to society in culture, especially in complex societies which still undergoing rapid changes from years to years. Therefore, comprehensive study should be done before any changes are applied. Political factors encourage the changes in the curriculum in Malaysia. This was obvious when the government changed the leader, there will be changes in curriculum and revised. Education curriculum will acts as a major avenue for all governments to strengthen their influence. Government is responsible for establishing the National Education Policy which parallel with the governments will. In addition, the factor of world development is also providing an impetus for curriculum change. This is because countries that want to progress and develop their curriculum should not be static. Therefore it should be modified with time and advances in science and technology.

Factor of social change should also be emphasized. A strong curriculum will be able to create a healthy social among students. Therefore, it must always be changed from time to time according to present situation. Moreover, the factor of knowledge development and its importance is led to the transformation too. A dynamic knowledge make that particular knowledge continues to develop. This development is being disseminated through curriculum planning with a neat and appropriate to the needs of the community and country. This development is important in developing the curriculum so that it can be updated from time to time so that new knowledge can be transmitted to students in order to balance the needs of the times.

4. Role of educators in implanting KSSR in the teaching method and learning process. From the past few years, the government use KBSR curriculum in nations education system. After the course, many teachers now have a somewhat clearer picture of how KSSR differs from KBSR. During the slot on the transformation of the English language curriculum, we have touched upon a few key changes that the teachers are going to face in 2011 under KSSR: 1. Curriculum Documentation - The Syllabus and Curriculum Specifications are replaced by Standard Document and the Content and Learning Standards. 2. Curriculum Organisation - Modular Structure is being introduced in KSSR. The three broad areas (World of Knowledge, World of Stories, World of Self) and the integration of skills that we have in KBSR are still retained.

3. Curriculum Content - KSSR would still focus on the four language skills. What we know as Sound System in KBSR would be replaced by a broader and more focused Basic Literacy with an emphases on Phonics. Apart from that, we would now have the Language Arts component (my favourite!) and also penmanship. Grammar is still going to be taught in context. 4. Approach - The most significant change in pedagogy, from my point of view. For KBSR, we have the Whole Language approach. Under KSSR, it is going to be replaced by Phonics. 5. Added value: Under KSSR, we would have Creativity and Entrepreneurship in addition to Educational Emphases. With the assurance that curriculum change is happening, of course there will be consequences to prospective teachers. One of the effects is culture shock in the new teaching. Therefore, teachers should always be prepared to face the reforms that will happen. In addition, teachers also need to know how to adapt to the current situation. Teachers also need some time to make sure the students get familiar with this curriculum change. Communication process will also be a little problematic because the change in language used as medium of interaction. It also will take time for students and teachers to adapt. It's not an easy process but it is not impossible to be done. The question of whether the KSSR could help teachers to improve their mastery of their subjects in primary schools can be answered in terms of the effectiveness of this KSSR. As we know, in the KSSR there are many new changes and improvements made in many aspects. If you look even glance, this new curriculum is definitely able to

help teachers improve their mastery of their teaching subjects. Logically, the existence of the KSSR as well as the changes in the curriculum is generally because of weakness of the previous curriculum. So it is necessarily better than ever. Further knowledge is very dynamic. So there is nothing wrong with that, moreover it becomes necessary to change curriculum system to ensure that it is consistent. Teachers will certainly play an important role in efforts to implement the effectiveness of particular subject curriculum. This is because the duties of a teacher is not only to present the content for a topic being studied, but teachers also need to focus on what pupils have learned so that these students can go through the process of teaching and learning in a meaningful impact. The first task for a teacher is to create a conducive and attractive learning environment. Teachers should provide activities that could foster students interest so that the students will continue the process of teaching and learning in the classroom effectively. For example through the use of teaching aids (BBM) could indirectly help students understand the topic being studied. Students will only experience learning when they construct their own understanding. Therefore, the BBM that is produced must be appropriate and maintain the learning concepts learned in a particular subject. In an effort to encourage students to use higher-order thinking ability, prospective teachers should engage students with activities that encourage them to analyze, interpret, and make predictions. Apart from that, prospective teachers need to use divergent questions (open-ended) in which one question leads to another question. These questions will catalyze the process the students think of the meaning of a phrase.

In addition, students are also able to think creatively and critically. Students are encouraged to learn through group discussion. With the different backgrounds of the students, it cans diverse student preferences and also it will provide more effective ideas. Furthermore, prospective teachers must play an important role in applying their subjects in everyday life. For example in mathematics subject, students can see mathematics subject as a whole and not just on a scope in the classroom alone. This is because students can understand the concepts of being taught more effective and students will remember it for a long moment. In addition, students will also be more sensitive to the world around if they are be able to apply mathematics in everyday routine. 5. Decision As a conclusion, KBSR and KSSR are two different modules. But the goal and the concept remains the same and never changes that is to produce students who excel and succeed in every aspect whether physical, emotional, spiritual, intellectual and personality based on the National Education Philosophy. We must recognize that new is better than the old. That is why the formation of the Primary School Curriculum Standard (KSSR) is being introduced, which can believe to modify and improve the weaknesses in existing KBSR system. So, we as future teachers should provide a strong support for the new Curriculum so that it can be implemented in accordance with its objectives and be willing to accept change of course curriculum.

References 1. Corporate Communication Unit, Ministry of Education Malaysia, Gov-Policies.edu.my, edited on 2 March 2012 2. Bernama, Education Ministry ready for new school season, http://e.nst.com.my/nst/articles/EducationMinistryreadyfornewschoolseason/Article/art_p rint, edited on 2 March 2012 3. Corporate Communication Unit, Ministry of Education Malaysia.,

http://www.moe.gov.my/bpk/kssr_docs/01_Konsep_KSSR/Konsep%20KSSR, edited on 3 March 2012 4. BERNAMA, KSSR Receives Positive Feedback From Teachers, Parents, http://education.bernama.com/index.php?sid=news_content&id=615717, edited on 3 March 2012 5. Karen Chapman, Change is due, http://thestar.com.my/education/story, edited on 5 March 2012