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Jurnal PPM: Journal of Malaysian Librarians
Vol. 14, 2020

can continue to follow up with In-Service Fourteen Weeks or One Year In-Service SRC
Management courses, these are not compulsory. In any case, qualified teachers who
have undergone the training may not even be appointed as school librarians in school.
Due to several years of restructuring in the Ministry of Education (MoE), the
responsibility of training school librarians has disintegrated. Previously, teachers were
trained to be teacher librarians at the Teachers Training Colleges (Zaiton Osman, 1993)
for In-Service Fourteen Weeks or One Year SRC courses by the Teachers Education
Division but these have been discontinued. At the same time, the Basic Thirty–five
Hours SRC Management Course and Advanced Forty-five Hours SRC Centre
Management Course offered by the Teachers’ Activities Centres and Educational
Technology State Departments began to be conducted but only when necessary due to
budget constraints (Tan, Gorman & Diljit, 2012; Tan, 2014). Thus, these circumstances
have created a gap in the training of teacher librarians and neglected their need for basic
training and professional development.

Library Media Teachers’ Qualifications
In general, qualified teachers are teachers who meet the minimum qualifications set by
the education authorities for employment as public teachers at the level of education
concerned (McKenzie, Santiago, & Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development, 2005).

In Malaysia, the teachers’ qualifications are validated and mandatory as offered by the
MoE itself. Teacher education and planning are under the jurisdiction of the MoE but
with the establishment of the Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) on 27 March 2004,
the development and training of secondary school teachers was given to the MoHE to
handle. The MoHE trains these teachers via government-funded universities (Jamil, et
al, 2008). Subsequently, MoE manages the teaching posting and benefits. As there were
non-graduate teachers in secondary schools, the MoE had targeted for all secondary
schools to be staffed by only graduate teachers by 2010 (Boey, 2010).

These graduate teachers would have obtained a Bachelor of Science (Education) [B.SC.
(Ed.)] or Bachelor of Arts (Education) [B.A. (Ed.) degree or undergone a Bachelor of
Education (B.Ed.)] programme (Lee, 2004). Some may have a one-year postgraduate
diploma in education after obtaining their first degree. Most teachers also undertake
various kinds of upgrading courses to further their careers by pursuing postgraduate
programmes leading to a master’s degree or a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree.

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