The document discusses challenges in implementing information and communication technology (ICT) in Malaysian smart schools. Key challenges include lack of technological infrastructure and teaching materials, especially in rural schools; lack of experienced teachers skilled in using ICT; and problems engaging students in the new learning approaches of smart schools. To address these issues, the document recommends increasing funding to improve infrastructure and teacher training, as well as better preparing students mentally and physically for changes in learning with ICT.

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FACULTY OF SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS
BIOLOGY DEPARTMENT
SBI 3013
INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY IN BIOLOGY
ASSIGNMENT TITLE : CHALLENGING IMPLEMENTATION ICT IN SMART SCHOOL
Prepared by :-
LECTURER’S NAME :-
ENCIK AZMI IBRAHIM
NAME MATRIC NUMBER
NABILA ALIYA BINTI SHAHROL D20152071968
SITI NOR AMIRA MOHD AZLI D20152071969
SITI QHALILAH RADIN D20152071984

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TABLE OF CONTENT
No. Title Page Number
1.0 Introduction 3
2.0 Issues and challenging implementation
2.1 Lack of technological infrastructure and teaching materials in school 4
2.2 Lack of experienced and skilled teachers using ICT 5-6
2.3 Student’s problem 7-8
3.0 Approach to resolve issues 9
4.0 Conclusion 10
References 11

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1.0 Introduction
The Malaysian National Philosophy of Education underpins every element of the Smart
School
“Education in Malaysia is an on-going effort towards further developing the potential of
individuals in a holistic and integrated manner, so as to produce individuals who are
intellectually, spiritually, emotionally and physically balanced and harmonious, based on a
firm belief in and devotion to God. Such an effort is designed to produce Malaysian
citizens who are knowledgeable and competent, who possess high moral standards, and
who are responsible and capable of achieving high levels of personal well-being as well
as being able to contribute to the harmony and betterment of the family, the society and
the nation at large.”
By 2020, Malaysia target to achieve the status of a developed nation to compete
other country. So, the various efforts have been made by the government to achieve the
goal. The smart school Project of Malaysia was developed in early 1996 with contribution of
Ministry of Education. By the end of the year, smart school had become one of the seven
flagship applications of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) project, promoted by the
Multimedia Development Corporation (MDC).
Smart school as a learning institution has been systemically reinvented in terms of
teaching-learning practices and school management in order to prepare students for ICT
(information and communication technology) in the digital world. To function effectively, the
smart school will require appropriated skilled staff, and well-designed supporting processes.
The new learning situation encourage an active thinking process. This system must
encourage students use personal computers (PCs), the internet as research and
communication (Harihodin Selamat, Maslin Masrom & Siavash Omidinia, 20 December
2012).
The idea of smart school is actually to revolutionize the education system through
holistic approach to a development that focuses on the individual, making value based
education available to anyone, making value based education available to anyone, anytime
and anywhere.
The goal is to realize the change in lesson content and method in delivery the content
to the students at the school. However, we cannot denied that there must be some
challenges in smart school implementation. There are some of challenges faced since the
inception of smart schools in Malaysia. The challenges can divide to several categories
which is principals, teachers, students and the school (Nazura Yusof, 2016).

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2.0 Issues and challenging implementation
2.1 Lack of technological infrastructure and teaching materials in school
Since the establishment of smart school, numerous challenges need to be faced in
the process of ensuring the successful of this project. First of all, lack of technological
infrastructure and teaching materials in school especially on the outskirt area of
Malaysia. Excellent and success of a smart school is heavily depending on the
effectiveness of the computing system. The problem that the school is facing is the
limitation in infrastructure. The school need to emphasis on the technological
infrastructure such as laboratory, smart whiteboard and media mass material. We are
aware that there are some schools that do not have complete technology equipment
in their school due to capital scarce especially the schools in rural area.
Besides, the problem that the school have to face is the hardware related
problem such as LANs, PCs and servers. In rural area, as they are located quite a
distance from the urban city their internet access can hardly be accessible. Thus, the
connection is very limited and the speed is very slow compared to the smart schools
in the city. The internet connections are well developed and the internet speed are
fast. Besides, the school in the city have more complete technology equipment as
they receive more capital injection. Shortage of computers for the students to explore
the world of cyber is limiting them to go further. The PCs allocation needs to be
relatively proportionate to the number of students. Due to the shortage of computers
and instructors, the school laboratory and computer are not accessible after the
school session.
Furthermore, the breakdown of electricity supply should also be considered.
The authorities should play their roles in improving the management of smart school.
The cost and maintenance fees for the facilities are high. Government needs to spend
a lot on the electronic facilities and new book supplies thus not all of the school in
rural area received the injection of capital as the government also need to spend
wisely on development of the rural area.

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2.2 Lack of experienced and skilled teachers using ICT
Smart class is a modern and smart class using multimedia, internet and electronic
learning devices in classroom teaching. Teaching and learning process is one of the
important modules for ensuring an effective smart school. One of the issues and
challenging implementation of ICT in smart school is lack of experienced and skilled
teachers. Six of principals of Smart School implementation claimed that the IT
teaching learning process affects 50 percent to 80 percent of success of smart
school. Therefore, based on this statement, it shows that teaching-learning process
gives a high impact in implementation of smart school. Nowadays, most of schools
has been using smart learning which involve uses of “white board classroom”,
projector , computers and multimedia for attracting students active and having fun
learning in school. But, this objective can’t be performed when teachers are not
expert in using technologies, online teaching, and electronic devices during teaching
in class.
Experienced teachers or senior teachers that have been work for almost 10-20
years in classroom are more comfortable to teaching in traditional methods which
more likely lecture style and are inflexible. They love to using blackboard
accompanied by a verbal explanation or lecture during teaching in classroom. Due to
this method, that they have been used for long time in teaching and learning process,
it makes them unable to adapt with the modern teaching learning system. Besides,
they are not ready to adapt with the new concept of learning and teaching which more
likely using ICT and blended learning in class. A survey conducted by Siavish
Omidinia , Maslin Masrom & Harihodin Selamat , 2012 stated that 90 percent of
teachers believe integrating technology in the classroom is important to student
success, yet 60 percent admitted to feeling underprepared to use technology in the
classroom setting. Based on these survey, these shows that some teacher nowadays
are not ready to adapt with new changes.
Some of them also lack of ICT knowledge and can’t perform well when
teaching using ICT technologies in class. This makes learning and teaching process
in classroom is not efficient. For an example, there are some teacher that didn’t know
how to use computers and internet during teaching and learning process in
classroom. Due to this problem, some of the students can’t perform well in the
classroom and didn’t get the best result for the subject. Teachers also are responsible

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to be facilitator in classroom, but when they are not prepared for these new changes
in educational system they can’t be a good facilitator to their students.
Furthermore, lacks of skilled teachers in ICT are caused by lack of technology
trainings. Many teachers understand the need to integrate technology into the
classroom but lack the proper tools and training makes them are not using ICT
technology during teaching learning process in class. Besides, other teachers don’t
even attempt to embrace the latest digital technology, complaining that it is too
complex (37 percent) or that their schools don’t offer proper training (63 percent). (
Siavash Omidinia, Maslin Masrom & Harihodin Selamat , 2012). In addition, even
after workshops and other attempts of training course, teachers also find that they still
lack the right tools for successfully integrating technology into the classroom and lack
of role models for blended-learning classrooms. From this statement we can see that,
all the trainings that has been held for the teachers are not efficient for them. Due to
this problem, some school faced difficulties to perform correct method of e-learning.
For an example, some schools can’t held online examinations because they have
problem with skill teacher. Teachers are vital to the education process, and their
training and continuous development is crucial in improving the quality of education.
How teachers are prepared for teaching is a critical indicator of education quality.
This makes the quality of teachers remains a problem in many poor countries.
In the other hand, some teachers taught that using technologies need them to
prepare earlier if they want to use the computer lab for teaching and it will disturb the
process of teaching and learning in classroom. This will makes their time constraint
and less flexible than always. Some teachers who have other commitments than in
school, found that the uses of ICT in their classroom needs them to prepare new
material such as preparing slide presentation and learning videos to their students
makes them feel burden while they already have more work to do.
From this statement, we can conclude that lack of experienced and skilled
teachers is one of the challenging and issues that involve in ICT implementation in
classroom. Teacher especially senior teachers has been blended with traditional
methods and having difficulties to adapt new instructional technology. Besides, lack
of intensive training and ICT knowledge also one of the factors that cause this
problem . Some teachers cannot teach effectively when using ICT during teaching
and learning session due to lack of knowledge. This makes their class bored and
some of the students are not interested to learn in the classroom.

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2.3 Student’s problem
In a Smart School, students are autonomous learners; they learn how to learn.
Smart Schools enable children to acquire abilities of constructing knowledge from
available information. These abilities are crucial to a learning society. In Smart
School, all students have the ability to learn and progress, which can be enhanced by
using appropriate learning technologies. Student’s role is very important in determine
whether the Smart School is succeed or not. In, Smart School, learning is a
consequence of thinking, and good thinking is learnable by all students. Smart School
also apply the learning should include deep understanding, which involves the
flexible, active use of knowledge. Thus, the students have to adapt to the way of the
Smart School operate. Without the student’s cooperation and achievement in Smart
School, The Smart School may not continue.
Smart Schools for enhancing the learning of students have effectively used
computers, the Internet and other high band communication technology such as
video-conferencing and now satellite data streaming and satellite radio. In sharp
contrast to traditional schools, Smart Schools offer an open environment for learning.
Students function as autonomous learners. In a Smart School, the emphasis of
learning shifts from acquiring discrete pieces of information to acquiring abilities by
students such as constructing their own knowledge from information. In constructing
the student’s knowledge, the student’s own desire to learn are very important and
play a big role to realize the Smart School objective as the student’s desire will help
them in obtain the knowledge without feel forced and make them feel comfortable in
learning. The student’s role is very important because the objective of Smart School
is based on them in determining whether the Smart School achieves the objective or
otherwise.
However, there are challenges in aspect of students. Nowadays, the students
are not active and too passive during education and learning process. They only
depend completely on teacher hoping that every material for learning process was
provided by teacher. They have lack of effort and spirit to gain knowledge. Although
teacher holds the responsibility of teaching process and in also responsible to
introduce the using of information technology to students, the student should also
play an active role to communicate and collaborate with their teacher.

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Next, problem based on slow learner student. Which they have been face with
challenges to adapt with new technique in learning process using information
communicating technology (ICT) in classroom. They have been struggling to
understand, to learn and to discover the new technique to study through ICT. As they
have to be in rough place, they choose to just ignore the learning process. So that in
the end, that why the reasons students get bored and having less fun.
There is no exception for smart school students to face the challenges in
implementation of their smart school. For the some of smart school students, they are
not well informed about the unique features of smart school. They also unfamiliar with
technology and tools.This because they come from non-academic family background.
They preferred to learn in traditional method. So, to overcome those students
problems, the number of students in smart school has should be limited. Only among
the excellent students can attend to smart school because the learning styles need
students who can explore by themselves to gain knowledge.
Actually, the smart school students should be ready to accept and adapt with
the new transformation of teaching and learning process. They should be prepared
mentally and physically so that they can accept the changes and make as initiative to
improve their skills. It is good if the exposure given by the teachers can help and
increase the student interest in learning process. In Smart School, most of student
assessments are using a computer supported by an internet. They have to learn how
to gather information from the internet. Unfortunately some student do not have an
access to internet at home.
The smart school students should ensure all taught that given by the teachers
is a useful knowledge. They need to give efforts to master at all. For the sake of
realize that, the smart school students should ready and understand what teachers
have taught. They must always practice and do revision continuously in order to
become expert in ICT.
Based on this statement, problem that involving student in classroom also one
of the challenging implementation of ICT in school. What we can conclude is,
students are most important component in order to fulfil the objective of the smart
school which is develop students physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritual. If
they lack of their own desire to study and learn the objective of this smart school can’t
be achieved.

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3.0 Approach to resolve issues
In order for the school in rural area to stand tall as the school in urban area in technology
field, there should be no gap between rural schools and urban schools. Therefore, both
school need to receive the same facilities and the teachers can use ICT as part of their
teaching and learning process in the classroom and make the teaching more fun and
interactive. The technological infrastructure can replace the traditional way of teaching and
learning in the school. The world of cutting-edge cyberspace can be experienced by the
student and they can retrieve the latest information as fast as lighting.
As we are aware, the price of each technology equipment such as computer, LCD
projector, smart whiteboard are highly expensive and costly to maintain. It is a big issues and
challengers when we need to take all the school in Malaysia as the smart school standard.
The government should give more budgets injection to the ministry of education to maintain
and buy the equipment for all the schools in Malaysia. In addition, in order to improve the
internet accessibility, the school need continuous upgrading in broadband. This problem also
can be overcome by increasing the network bandwidth at the school so that the teachers and
students are able to browse the internet freely. Since the technology and information of the
world is upgrading and increase from time to time, the school need to be in line.
Besides, to overcome all the technical problems face in the laboratories, government
should provide a technologist to cope with the problem that will arise as the damage of
facilities will certainly occur. At that time, technical support and technician at computer lab
are very much needed. The technicians will also responsible in preserving the computer
laboratory so that it will always be in good conditions and can be used by the students and
teachers without any problems. Moreover, if the staff or teachers face with the problems
integrating with existing computer systems, each school need to have a system integration
engineer who has broad range of skills including software and hardware engineering.
The teachers also need more training on ICT because they cannot always depend on
technician only. Others, the issues are with the teachers. Mostly the experience teachers
lack the knowledge the IT knowledge and prefer the traditional method to teach students.
Thus, to overcome this situation, the ministry of Education should consider giving incentive to
the teacher that uses the ICT in teaching. Besides, the newly graduated teachers lack
intensive training so the government need to give training to all the teachers to use the ICT
equipment in school. Most importantly, implementation of smart school is focusing more on
the students. The students themselves need to be mentally and physically prepared so that
they can accept the changes and make as initiative to improve their skills.

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4.0 Conclusion
As a conclusion, the issues and challenging implementation of ICT in school are lack of
technology infrastructure and teaching materials in school, lack of experienced and skill
teachers for using ICT and problems that caused by the students. These three factors give a
huge impact towards the implementation of ICT in school. Some school which has enough
technology infrastructure and teaching materials in school has move step forward than other
school which doesn’t have enough technology infrastructure in their school. Therefore, in
order to democratize the education in Malaysia, government should take responsible in order
to make sure that all schools has been provided with enough materials for teaching and
learning process.
The objective of the smart school which are provide opportunities to improve
individual strengths and abilities and develop students physically, mentally, emotionally, and
spiritual can be achieved if all the communities involving the students, teachers, and
government cooperate with each other and help each other to adapt with these new changes
in educational system. Teachers and students should changes their mindset to adapt with
these new changes. They should realize that our educational system need changes
improvement to increase the quality of students.
The implementation of smart school need further study in order to overcome all this
issues and challenges for better future as smart school in Malaysia has a bright future. In
order to promote the goals of National philosophy of education, the establishment of smart
school is a big leap in our local education. Besides, smart school should be improve from
time to time involving the intensive training for the teachers. Teachers is one of the important
person to fulfil this mission. Teachers should be a good facilitator and have a great attitude
to smart education. With this changes , smart school which is learning institution that has
been systematically integrated with ICT in terms of teaching-learning pactices and school
management in order to prepare children for the Information Age can be achieved
successfully.

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References :
Harihodin Selamat, Maslin Masrom & Siavash Omidinia. (20 December 2015) Smart school
system issues and challenges. Retrieved from
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/287420520
Nazura Yusof. (2016) Challenges of smart school. Retrieved from
https://www.scribd.com/document/136158167/CHALLENGES-OF-SMART-SCHOOL
Omidinia, S. (2010). Smart schools issues and challenges.Retrieved from
http://www.academia.edu/3158453/SMART_SCHOOL_SYSTEM_ISSUES_AND_CH
ALLENGES
Siti Nurhafiza. (2012). Issues and challenges of smartschool. Retrieved from
http://d20101037435.blogspot.my/p/2.html
Smart school challenges. (2016, February 22). First Iranian English Economic Daily.
Retrieved from https://financialtribune.com/articles/people/36802/smart-school-
challenges