| Lyna Mohamad |
THE Southeast Asia Ministers of Education Organization (SEAMEO) Regional Centre for Vocational and Technical Education and Training (Voctech) Regional Training Programme on Benchmarking Education Institutional Practices and Performances through a Comparative Study held for 20 participants from ASEAN member countries including six from Brunei Darussalam concluded with a closing ceremony at the Seri Kerna Hall of SEAMEO Voctech recently.
Legislative Council member and Director and Principal Architect of Eco Bumi Arkitek YB Siti Rozaimeriyanty binti Dato Seri Laila Jasa Haji Abdul Rahman officiated the ceremony as the guest of honour.
The ceremony began with recitation of Surah Al-Fatihah and Doa followed by welcoming remarks by Centre Director for SEAMEO Voctech Dr Haji Mohd Zamri bin Haji Sabli, who said that there is a need for an educational institution to make themselves aware of new trends, adopt changes and update practices to progress or sometimes even survive.
“Although the issues relating to teaching and learning in Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) are not new in many countries, they are nevertheless complex and may require more than just fundamental approach,” he said.
With global competition and rapid social and economic changes, the environment in which educational institutions operate in is also changing, hence posing serious challenges to their position on the educational market, their reputation and very existence.
What is needed, the centre director said, is a holistic and wide approach in the planning process towards creating strategic solutions to effectively tackle the challenges.
As impact of globalisation and uncertainties of the world economy will greatly affect the long-term strategy to initiate any necessary plans that will be made, the challenges can be overcome by the process of benchmarking. Benchmarking is a powerful tool for improved performance through continuous monitoring and comparison with most successful organisations of the type.
The success of the benchmarking process is important to identify best practices and determine how such practices can be adopted by other institutions. Most important of all, benchmarking helps to establish priorities for change and resource allocation and contributions to goal settings.
While improving the educational outcomes for children and youths is central to the nation’s social and economic prosperity, parents, teachers, principals and administrators engaged in the running of schools and education systems need reliable information to assess how well their schools prepare students for life.
Unlike most that monitor students’ learning to make the assessment, in a global economy the measurement of educational success can no longer be based on standards and local expectations alone but comparisons also need to be made with the best performing schools and education systems internationally.
International benchmarking and cross-country comparisons can not only help to better understand whether the younger generation is well equipped with required skills in today’s globalised world, but it can also offer guidance for governments, administrations and schools on policies required to catch up with the best performers.
Dr Haji Mohd Zamri continued, “Benchmarking is considered to be an ongoing process. It does not mean that once an organisation has set and met a benchmark, it would never have to set the benchmark again in future.”
As trends keep on changing due to the changes in the economic, political, social and technological conditions, it brings changes in the business practices and activities, of which the organisations are forced to change their set of standards and attitudes towards their products and services.
“Therefore, it is important to keep benchmarking updated and according to the market situation,” the centre director concluded. Participants from Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Brunei Darussalam went through theoretical and practical journeys of conducting education benchmarking during the two-week course where they learnt and discussed about the history, definition, benefits and drawbacks of conducting benchmarking.
They were also engaged in doing examples of benchmarking practices, steps in conducting benchmarking that included identifying target organisations/institutions, developing data collection tools, data collection, data analysis, report writing and presentations.
During the data collection, they visited the Pengiran Anak Puteri Rashidah Sa’adatul Bolkiah Institute of Health Sciences (PAPRSB IHS) of Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD) and Politeknik Brunei and listened to lectures, including one by
Dr Abbes Sebihi, a CEM Expert from Germany for SEAMEO Voctech and a regional forum entitled ‘Good Practices in Teaching-Learning Approaches for Preparing Youths for Employment’.
Beside doing group reports required during the programme, the participants also developed 17 action plans comprising 15 individual and two group action plans which will be implemented in their home institution or ministry after the training programme.
The closing ceremony concluded with the guest of honour presenting certificates to the participants.
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