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Sunday, December 18, 2016

KSSM - What's New Compared To KBSM

This post is for those going to secondary school or Form 1 in 2017. In this post I will talk about the new KSSM syllabus and subjects for lower secondary school going kids or SMR. I will not be talking about SMA syllabus or subjects.

Firstly before you continue reading this post, you should know some of the terms used and what they mean.

Terms used in this post:
  • KSSR = Kurikulum Standard Sekolah Rendah
  • KSSM = Kurikulum Standard Sekolah Menengah
  • KBSM =  Kurikulum Bersepadu Sekolah Menengah
  • DSKP = Dokumen Standard Kurikulum dan Pentaksiran
  • SMR = Sekolah Menengah Rendah (Lower Secondary School)
  • SMA = Sekolah Menengah Atas (Upper Secondary School)

What does all this mean to us as a parent? As a parent, reading all the acronyms make our heads spin a little. So, in this post, I will try to make it as simple as possible, cutting out a lot of technical terms with lengthy explanations. You can still get those too because links will be provided.

Please note that this is not an official document/article. This is merely what I got by researching and curating information found around the web to try to understand the subjects or syllabus that kids going to Form 1 starting in 2017 will be studying.

Kids going to Form 1 in 2017 will be the first batch that completed the new KSSR syllabus and sat for the new format UPSR in 2016 for the first time.

They will now move on to do the new KSSM syllabus in Form 1. Before this, secondary school students did the KBSM syllabus. So, what is the difference between KSSM and KBSM?

Here are some links you may find useful on this subject:

1. Taklimat KSSM kepada pengetua by slideshare user roszelan majid. Note that the slides were published in 2012 so there may be changes thereafter. The slides are embedded below for easy sharing.

Go straight to page 11 of the slides to see the subject changes of KBSM vs KSSM. You will notice that the following subjects are not in KSSM syllabus. 

Old subjects under KBSM 
  1. "Pendidikan Sivik Dan Kewarganegaraan (PSK)" and 
  2. "Kemahiran Hidup Bersepadu"
Ignore the new KSSM subjects in the slides because this appears to be a dated document.  (I merely included it to show the old subjects under KBSM because I could not find it elsewhere in the newer links which I shall share with you below)



Taklimat KSSM kepada pengetua. from roszelan majid

2. What are the new subjects included in KSSM?

Teachers can download the DSKP for each subject and this information and download links are often widely available on the internet. If you search online, you may find many teacher's blogs with the download links. Many of these are dated 2016 so this will be more recently updated than the link provided above.

Here are two places you can find the DSKP KSSM Tingkatan 1 (Form 1)

Both show two subjects previously not under KBSM. 

New subjects under KSSM 
  1. "Reka Bentuk dan Teknologi" and 
  2. "Asas Sains Komputer"
I shared the two links above because they are presented in an easy to read format. However, those who are interested in the official download links and who have time to go through long pages of documentation meant for teachers who will be teaching the subjects can download the DSKP KSSM Tingkatan 1 etc. from here: Bahagian Pembangunan Kurikulum Kementerian Pendidikan Malaysia Document Download These will show you each KSSM subject in detail.

There are some who once the child reaches secondary school, do not follow the syllabus, subjects etc. as closely as they did when their child was in primary school. 

I remember the words of a secondary school teacher who once said "Many parents think that once the child reaches secondary school, they do not need as much guidance as before. Look! They say. My child is even taller than me now. He/She can very well look after themselves." As a result, many of the parents do not even know the children are playing truant behind their backs when they drop them off to school. According to the teacher, once the child reaches secondary school, they need just as much support as well as a different sort of guidance from us. That is why I feel it is important to at least know what they will be studying in school, don't you?

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