BY Lyna Mohamad

The two-day 2nd Education Specialists Seminar came to a close on Thursday, and saw Head of the Specialist Unit, Educators Management Department at the Ministry of Education (MoE) Chong Yun Inn, in his capacity as the secretary of the seminar, conclude with consolidating key learning points from exploration of the workshop and sharing sessions and critically evaluating different viewpoints for the development of the Brunei Darussalam Education Specialists Competency Framework (BDESCF) in classifying five specialised domains.

The domains are organisation and administration, specialised pedagogy, curriculum and assessment, professional learning and understanding current education trends in supporting the development of the ministry’s expertise in the six areas of specialisation.

Permanent Secretary (Core Education) at the MoE Dr Shamsiah Zuraini Kanchanawati binti Haji Tajuddin was the guest of honour.

The morning session achieved the seminar’s objectives through sharing best practices by local professionals, who imparted knowledge and skills on educational policy research and planning in MoE and analysing data from large-scale longitudinal assessments in comparing different students’ learning to give them a more precise measurement of the education system.

Participants also witnessed research projects on the use of assessment data in driving decision making at school level by the educators who are currently in Tier 1 training to become education specialists.

The way forward after the seminar is for further discussion to take place at the ministerial level while still keeping a close engagement with the educators, and is hoped at the upcoming networking session with education specialists in November, they will be able to update educators with regards to the specialised competency framework that have been co-created, as a result of the validation workshop.

The organiser believes that the BDESCF will provide education specialists with a more distinct sense of the direction and expectations for each of the specialisation area to ensure the continued success of the country’s education system.

Day one of the seminar saw keynote speaker Dr Andreas Schleicher address the key importance of innovative research methodology and evidence-based data in driving decision making to achieve education excellence where he emphasised that the success in education is not just about knowledge, but about the capacity to use knowledge and mindset to build new knowledge to see the future.

This includes developing quality teachers who will deliver quality instructions in increasing productivity and the resoluteness to mobilise students’ cognitive and social agency.

“Hence, among the ministry initiatives relevant to this cause is the project-based training and consultancy in big data analytics (PBCTrain) and student assessment tracker (SAT) lead by Department of Planning, Development and Research and the Department of Examination respectively. The success of these initiatives indicated by improving systematic support through research studies and evidence-based data driven decision making.”

The educators also interacted with Dr Schleicher through a question-and-answer session in discussing helping children to cope with the transition from online learning to physical schooling after the pandemic and to accelerate the delivery of quality education for readiness to change and a sustainable future.

In the afternoon, the seminar saw a dialogue session between heads of departments and education specialists to address important requirements related to specialisation areas for the seven departments as well as fundamental quality and skills as education specialists in contributing towards education initiatives and programmes.

This was followed by a roundtable validation of the specialised competencies on the BDESCF and from the rigorous discussion, the five specialised domains and the proposed competencies were reflected and defined according to specialisation needs and current education trends.

Acting Director of Educators Management and chairperson of the seminar Masdiah binti Haji Tuah, heads of departments, heads of clusters and educators also attended the closing ceremony.

-- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin