Vocational and Technical Teachers in Malaysia Essay -- Education, Co

An issue arises whether the teachers in this country are ready to face and handle the challenges due to the birth of technology especially ICT in and out of school and due to the fact that the latest technology has acquired unique characteristics with lack of appropriate professional development, for these reasons it is necessary for teachers to be ready in terms of their knowledge, skills and also attitude in order to fully exploit the advantages in ICT (Rosnaini Mahmud, 2006). According to Ely (1995) the stress should not be on the technology itself but more on the teachers who will decide on the purpose in using the technology, how it is utilized and evaluates the effect of its use. Nowadays there are a lot of ICT facilities and tools provided in the school however the optimum use is very much relied on the teacher factor (Demirbilek, 2009). Due to the rapid changes and growths in the use of the computer during the past decades had an impact on the educational system, the technical and vocational teacher development becomes an important component to help the students to provide them the necessary skills to use it in the world of work (Maclean and Ordonez, 2007). As the computer technologies are experiencing brisk growth, they bear the potential to outreach vocational education to more learners in better ways, and in improving teaching effectiveness, it is best that vocational and technical teachers are stimulated to take part in professional development activities in order to familiarize them with the uses of computer technology (Buntat et al., 2010). Moreover, vocational teachers should be equipped with the knowledge to use new technologies as these technologies are constantly changing and have the knack to affect... ...cational schools to describe the factors which contribute the ICT integration among the technical and vocational teachers and the relationships between these factors. Integration of ICT into the classroom is a dynamic process that is connected with various factors and its success does not depend entirely on existence or non-existence of these factors (Afshari et al, 2009). These factors may be demographic characteristics for the teachers such as (Age, gender, and teaching experience), Educational background such as (type of training and level of qualification), supporting factors such as (ICT availability and administrative support) and readiness variables (knowledge, skills, and attitudes). The study will describe the teachers’ knowledge level and skills which used to be specifically for teachers teach engineering subjects in technical and vocational schools.