Topic > Vocational and Technical Teachers in Malaysia - 1040

The question arises as to whether teachers in this country are ready to face and manage the challenges brought about by the rise of technology, particularly ICT, in and out of school and for fact that the latest technologies have acquired unique characteristics with lack of adequate professional development, for these reasons it is necessary that teachers are ready in terms of knowledge, skills and also attitudes to fully exploit the benefits of ICT (Rosnaini Mahmud, 2006) . According to Ely (1995) the emphasis should not be on the technology itself but rather on the teachers who will decide the purpose of using the technology, how it will be used and evaluate the effect of its use. Nowadays there are many ICT facilities and tools provided in school, however the optimal use depends a lot on the teacher factor (Demirbilek, 2009). Due to the rapid changes and growth in computer use in recent decades there has been an impact on the education system, the technical and professional development of teachers becomes an important component in helping students to equip them with the skills needed to use them in the world of work (Maclean and Ordonez, 2007). growth, have the potential to extend vocational education to more students in better ways, and to improve teaching effectiveness, vocational and technical teachers are better encouraged to take part in professional development activities for become familiar with the uses of computer technology (Buntat et al., 2010). Furthermore, vocational teachers should be equipped with the necessary knowledge to use new technologies since these technologies are constantly evolving and have the ability to influence... middle of paper... vocational schools to describe the factors that contribute to the Integration of ICT among technical and vocational teachers and the relationships between these factors. The integration of ICT in the classroom is a dynamic process connected to various factors and its success does not entirely depend on the existence or non-existence of these factors (Afshari et al, 2009). These factors can be teachers' demographic characteristics such as (age, gender and teaching experience), educational background such as (type of training and level of qualification), supporting factors such as (availability of ICT and administrative support) and preparation variables (knowledge , skills and attitudes). The study will describe the level of knowledge and skills of teachers which in the past were specific to teachers teaching engineering subjects in technical and vocational schools.