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1.0 INTRODUCTION
Workload and stress among teachers and students regarding School-Based
Assessments (SBA) is among the contentious issues of educational sectors in recent
years (Mubarak, 2013). SBA, which was implemented since 2011, is a holistic
assessment that covered the aspect of cognitive, affective, and psychomotor of
students in line with the aim the National Philosophy of Education and Primary
School Standard Curriculum (KSSR). Clarke & Cooper (2004) stated two factors in
contributing the stress among the teachers and students regarding this SBA
implementation, which are qualitative and quantitative. They, teachers and students
have the impression that they are working under pressure and have too much work
to do in short time (quantitative factor) and feel that they are unable to perform the
tasks due to lacking of knowledge and skills needed (qualitative factor). In order to
cope with the stress among teachers and students regarding SBA, the Ministry of
Education through the state, districts and administration has designed various
measures to alleviate the workload of teachers and students in School-Based
Assessment (SBA). For teachers, the Ministry of Education conducted a Continuing
Professional Development Course through In-Service Trainings (LDP), while for
students, mentor-mentee program is held at school in order to reduce their pressure
on the implementation of School- Based Assessment.
2.0

EFFECTIVENESS OF CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

COURSE (IN-SERVICES TRAININGS) FOR TEACHERS
Continuing Professional Development Course is an effort from the Ministry of

Education in order to make sure Education Service Officer (PPP) are occupied with
professional knowledge, professional skills, as well as values and practices of
professional teaching through well-planned In-Services Trainings or Latihan Dalam
Perkhidmatan (Ahmad Zaki & Razlee, 2010). The emphasis is given in fulfilling the
new knowledge and skills of teachers to suit with the needs of competency in 21 st
century education. One of the objectives of this Continuing Professional
Development Course is to ensure that teachers acquire, improve, master and share
the competency for the effectiveness of T&L process as well as the success of pupils.
In relation of this program in reducing the stress of teachers with School-Based
Assessment workload, it is able to give the knowledge and skills needed by the
teachers such as ICT skills, assessing skills, time-management skills, administration

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skills as well as variety of knowledge to the teachers in order to deal with the
exhaustion of School-Based Assessments.
The positive impacts of these In-Service Trainings, especially for teachers
who are involved with School-Based Assessments are irrefutable. Through the ICT
literacy workshop during In-Service Trainings or LDP at schools, teachers are able to
learn to use the ICT application, equipment and software. This skill is crucial
especially for teachers to build the evident in School-Based Assessment as well as to
save the online record of students. This could reduce the anxiety and tension of
senior teachers, or teachers who are older as they might not have the necessary
skills in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to deal with SBA as the
new generation teachers do. In addition, in order to help teachers in assessing pupils
through SBA, two ICT applications were already built to ensure teachers were not
burden with clerical workload. SPPBS (Sistem Pengurusan Pentaksiran Berasaskan
Sekolah) and PAJSK (Pentaksiran Aktiviti Jasmani, Sukan dan Kokurikulum) were
built in order to record, save and report the development of students. The recorded
data can be printed out as report whenever needed. Teachers who are exposed to
these knowledge and skills during the In-Service Trainings or LDP, (if they are used
properly), will realize that SBA give a lot of benefits rather than harms and reduce
their stress regarding the implementation of SBA.
Next, other positive impact of these In-Service Trainings or LDP under
Continuing Professional Development Course is, it help teachers to manage their
time efficiently through the time management course conducted. Effective time
management skill is one of the prominent skills in life of any government servants
especially teachers. With the hassle and difficulty in handling students problems in
the classroom, managing resources during T&L process, teachers are added with the
new task, which is to assess students through instruments in School-Based
assessment, which required them to use time efficiently and wisely. This condition will
affect teachers emotionally and physically if they are not exposed with the right
understanding in effective time management. Teachers would feel that they are
lacking of time for their personal life and have too much work to do in short time,
which contribute to quantitative factors of stress among them. Thus, through time
management course during In-Services Trainings, teachers learnt on how to apply
the effective time management principles, decide on daily routines according to
Importance and Urgent Needs, tips on how to save time, as well as successful
scheduling techniques. This will decrease the percentage of last-minutes teachers

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who used to fill the School-Based Assessment (SBA) evident through online record at
the end of time, which increase the traffic of users, slower down the server and
eventually lead to stressful situation among the teachers. Generally, this time
management course during In-Service Trainings will produce responsible teachers
who are able to organize their time efficiently between personal and work, as well as
teachers who are stabilize and competent in terms of emotionally, spiritually,
physically and cognitively in order to serve for new generation.
However, there is also a disadvantage for teachers when the administrators
or representatives do not conduct this In-Services Trainings or LDP properly at
school. Regarding School-Based Assessment course for instance, as this In-Service
Trainings (LDP) use distributed trainings methods, the representative or Jurulatih
Utama (JU) will go for a week course held by the district education office, state
education departments or Ministry of Education itself before spreading the
information and knowledge to SBA teachers at school. Through this one-week
course, the representatives are exposed with variety of resources, trainings, SBA
operation and SBA Management System (SPPBS) and many inputs for them to
share with teachers at school. The contrast part is that, there is only two hours
briefing regarding SBA given to teachers, from a week course attended by the
Jurulatih Utama (JU) due to the time constraints faced by these representatives.
Teachers only have the one-way interaction through talks, briefing and attending their
ears for what is delivered by the Jurulatih Utama or the Main Coach for their area.
This resulted in lacking of information given and in spite of having clear explanation
about SBA from its planning up to the implementation, teachers are left hanging with
questions mark even at the end session of the course. When this kind of problem
happened, the objective of In-Service Trainings (LDP) under Continuing Professional
Development Course is no longer achieved and benefited teachers at school.
In order to improve the In-Service Trainings (LDP) at schools, there should be
more time allocated for the Main Coach or JU to spread the information to the
teachers. The allocation of time and continuous training is one of the factors, which
can determine the effectiveness of In-Service Trainings (LDP). The failure of this
course happened when the session is merely a short workshop with one-way
interaction (Goldenberg and Gallimore, 1991). This is because, a short-time course
has insufficient time for a big impact training, which can be applied in real practices.
This is supported by a research by Daresh (1987), which the objective is to
determine the effect of In-Service Trainings to teachers, administrators and other

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school personnel, where he claimed that a short-course In-Service Trainings (LDP)

did not carry any great changes towards teachers. However, these changes can be
seen when teachers joined a systematic longterm trainings where they begin to
realize their knowledge and skills learnt throughout the trainings.
Besides that, the facilitators of the In-Service Trainings (LDP) also played the
main role in determining the success of the course. Facilitator should apply the
andragogy technique where the participants involve actively and up to the maximum
level during the course (Mohd Radzi, 1995). This can be done through a more
practical way of interaction such as group work, discussion, presentation,
demonstration, and effective feedback. There should be a small group of 5 to 7
teachers during group discussion so that more views can be shared and the
objectives of the course could be achieved. As what is stated by Knowles (1980), the
adults learn effectively through discussion of experiences rather than being a passive
listener (as cited in Lokman Mohd Tahir & Kalsom Saleh, 2010) . Thus, as well as to
reduce the pressure of teachers in dealing with the implementation of School-Based
Assessment, teachers are encouraged to voice out their opinion, story tell their
experiences, and share the visions with the other colleagues in an informal, but
informative way.

3.0 EFFECTIVENESS OF MENTOR-MENTEE PROGRAM FOR STUDENTS

In order to reduce the stress and anxiety among students regarding the
changes in education assessment system, such as School-Based Assessment, the
Ministry of Education had taken many initiatives that aim to develop the positive
values and perseverance personality of students to survive with the challenges of 21st
century education system. One of the initiatives by MOE is, Mentor Mentee Program
at primary and secondary school, an interaction process between teachers and
students, which involved the action of guidance, support and giving advices. In this
program, mentor not only emphasizes on the individual and psychological
relationships of the mentees, but also guide, give appreciation, love and develop their
survival skills such as making decision, dealing with problems, as well as coping with
pressure.(Panduan Pelaksanaan dan Modul Program Mentor Mentee, 2012).
The effectiveness of this Mentor Mentee program in reducing the stress
among students, both in primary and secondary school is undeniable. Recently, the
introduction of School-Based Assessment in school makes students feel insecure

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and stress, knowing that teachers will evaluate them everyday at school including
during the academic subject in the classroom, co-curriculum, club, games and
others. These students no longer feel the joyful of schooling phase, but need to
compete with each other in order to achieve the highest band, as well as deal with
workload of homework every time they come back from school. This situation could
deteriorate students performance during T&L process and lead to their misbehaviors
due to pressure given from teachers and expectation from parents. Thus, the
implementation of Mentor Mentee Program by Ministry of Education is considered as
effective in decreasing the stress among students at schools as it emphasizes on the
welfare of the students and gives guidance to students inside & outside of the
classroom.
One of the strengths of this Mentor-Mentee program, which emphasizes on
the welfare of the students, can lessen their pressure in dealing with School-Based
Assessment in the classroom. Mentors, which are also among the teachers at
school, will build positive relationship with mentees as soon as the program begins.
This can be done through the ice-breaking session where the mentors get to know
their mentees, their background family, academic achievement, attitude as well as
their interest in particular subjects. Through the information from the ice-breaking
session, mentors will try their best to design fun and enjoyable activities based on the
module given, so that students totally feel that they are somewhere outside of the
school, which makes them more secure and comfortable. As we know, giving
students time for them to enjoy themselves is particularly considered taking a good
care of their welfare from the aspect of emotional and spiritual. The 30 minutes
session during Mentor-Mentee program could make students forget about the burden
of assessment in the classroom, which also could reduce their negative perception
towards learning environment in school.
Besides, Mentor-Mentee program is effective in reducing the stress of
students in dealing with School-Based Assessment by giving guidance to students
regarding the problems inside and outside of the classroom. As mentioned in the
previous, students feel stress due to two factors, which are qualitative and
quantitative factors. Quantitative factor is due to the feelings of having too much work
to do in short time and qualitative factor is because they are unable to perform the
tasks due to lacking of knowledge and skills needed. Due to this pressure, some
students even copied their friends answer, an illegitimate action that went astray
from the objectives of the School-Based Assessment itself. Students felt that they do

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not have the skills and knowledge as well as unable to compete with the other
classmates in the classroom. This is where the responsibility of mentors in Mentor
Mentee program begins. With the small numbers of mentees, mentors play the role
to guide students with the academic problems by teaching and guiding them of any
topics or subjects that they feel lacking of during the Mentor Mentee session. There
are also students who did not perform in School-Based Assessment due to problems
outside of the classroom, such as family problems, juvenile, bullying and others. In
dealing with these problems, mentors will find the roots of problems and encounter
them with rationale decision by taking account students feelings themselves. By
having patient and caring personality, mentors eventually help their problematic
mentees towards zero juvenile problems and other misbehaviors so that they can
focus in teaching and learning process in the classroom.
However, like the other program, Mentor Mentee program also had some
flaws throughout the process of its implementation. One of the flaws is that, most of
the mentors did not put this Mentor-Mentee session as the utmost important in
shaping the personality of students and helping students to deal with their personal
and academic problems. Mentors only took the time spent for Mentor Mentee session
for granted and did not even conducted any constructive activities which can bring
positive impact towards the students. Some of the mentors did not even know who
were their mentees until at the end of the school year. These groups of mentors
contributed to the negative impacts of Mentor Mentee program, where students were
left lounging around, talking and wasting their time during Mentor Mentee session
without being monitored by the mentors. The aims of Mentor Mentee program, in
reducing the stress among students also could not be achieved as students were not
provided with any guidance and input throughout the 10 times in a year of Mentor
Mentee meetings.
In order to improve this weakness, the mentors of Mentor Mentee program
should be selected carefully, so that they can conduct the program in a responsible
and reliable manner. However, the selection of good mentors might only can be
applied at school with excessive number of teachers, rather than the schools that are
lacking of teachers. This is because, with the low numbers of teachers serve at
particular schools, there might be chances that all teachers are compulsory to be
mentors and feel the burden to involve with Mentor Mentee Program. Thus, it is
recommended that all the teachers who are elected as mentors to attend a 2 hours
motivation and leadership course in order to improve their skills in attending to the

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needs of their students, as well as becoming aware of the difficulties faced by
students, whether inside or outside of the classroom. The course should clearly
explain the responsibilities of mentors as well as motivate these teachers with the
desire to help their students. Through this course, teachers will develop their
potential as good mentors in order to eliminate the stress and pressure faced by
students in dealing with the 21st century education system component, such as
School-Based Assessment.
4.0 CONCLUSION
To conclude, the Ministry of Education had taken many initiatives in order to
reduce the stress of teachers and students after the implementation of School-Based
Assessment in 2011. Through the In-service Trainings (LDP) under Continuing
Professional Development Course, teachers nowadays are able to cope with their
pressure by equipping themselves with Information & Communication Technology
skills, as well as time management skills, which are important for todays world
educators. These teachers are also given input from time to time during this course
without disturbing their classroom instructional time. Besides, the introduction of
Mentor Mentee program at primary and secondary school benefits students in
various ways, where these students will be able to ask for guidance from their
mentors regarding various aspects of learning. This could help students in dealing
with pressure at school, as well as improving their readiness in facing School-Based
Assessment requirements.

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