School-Based Management (SBM) has been practised in Malaysia over the past two decades. However, SBM studies still found little attention among social science researchers in Malaysia. The details in the success of SBM implementation are still unclear. Thus, the researcher has emphasized the need to conduct a systematic review of existing studies to collect information on SBM in Malaysia. Four questions have been established in this review which are; (1) How SBM is implemented in Malaysia? (2) What is the classification level of SBM implementation strength in Malaysia? ( 3) To what extent are principals, teachers, parents and communities involved in SBM in Malaysia? and lastly, (4) What are the issues and challenges faced in schools related to SBM? The results of a decadelong literature review on SBM in Malaysia showed that SBM implementation in Malaysia was at a moderate level and had used a combination of two models, administrative-control SBM and professional-control SBM. Two critical issues identified from this review were on the role of the school leader and teacher competency. The researcher proposed the need for a standard instrument to evaluate SBM, highlighting the roles of district and state education officers in promoting empowerment among school leaders and teachers, as well as the involvement of the Parent-Teachers Association (PTA). Empowerment among school leaders encompasses leadership capacity while empowerment among teachers includes increasing motivation and professional guidance in various aspects such as pedagogy, professional development, accountability, and integrity.

Teacher autonomy in Malaysia is gaining attention among policy makers, making it a key element in School Transformation Programs (SLP25). However, research on teacher autonomy in Malaysia is still scarce and have minimal interest among social science researchers compared to other countries. The purpose of this study was to collect and analyse previous studies on teacher autonomy in Malaysia. The objective of this study was to investigate the extent, issues, and challenges of teacher autonomy in Malaysia. There were three research questions in this review, (1) How was teacher autonomy level in Malaysia? (2) What type of teacher autonomy implemented in Malaysia? and (3) What are the issues and challenges faced by Malaysian teachers regarding teacher autonomy? To address the research questions, a systematic literature review was performed using four-phase in Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses (PRISMA). Findings show that despite excercising guided autonomy, teachers in Malaysia show an encouraging level of autonomy. Overall, the main challenges related to teacher autonomy are teachers' attitudes and behaviours toward given autonomy.

Classroom assessment requires teachers to focus their autonomy optimally in assessment without having to be distracted by other forms of assessment, especially among level 1 teachers in primary schools in Malaysia. Three objectives of the study were set; to identify whether teachers are still conducting mid-year and end-of-year examinations for level 1 students, to identify support for the abolition of examinations for level 1 students and to identify increased autonomy in classroom assessment.  The quantitative approach was used with survey method as a data collection technique and conducted using an online questionnaire instrument.  A total of 662 teachers teaching at level 1 were selected using stratified random sampling. Data were then analyzed using IBM SPSS version 25 descriptively.  The findings of the study showed that teachers felt an increase in autonomy in classroom assessment as well as supporting the abolition of examinations for level 1 students. However, the majority of teachers still conduct biennial examinations as part of the assessment.