Analyzing the Policy Cycle Phases in the Malaysian Education System : A Case of Smart School

The Smart School Policy initiative in 1999 was in line with the Malaysian Government’s goals for technology utilization in the teaching-learning processes. The Malaysian policy was designed to ensure that the education system is set up for the citizens in the future as knowledge workers for the Information Age. It was also aimed at preparing Malaysians to be able to attain the country’s vision of becoming an entirely developed nation by 2020. Establishment of the Smart School Policy can be considered as an effective policy for implementing change in the Malaysian Education System. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the four phases of the “policy cycle” including formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation in terms of the Malaysian Smart School Policy. Through analyzing the policy cycle, this paper also aims to evaluate the achievement status of the smart school policy in the Malaysian education system. The findings of this study showed that the major changes from formulating smart school policy was for the teachers and students in terms of ICT awareness and technology literacy. It also revealed that formulation of smart school policy in Malaysia is able to help the country not only to achieve its goals in producing human capital with ICT skills but also to prepare for the skilled knowledge-based society in the near future