No abstract

For every human being, career is essential in ensuring a better quality of life. This similarly applies to disabled people who are born with disabilities, be it physical, visual, sensory, intellectual or any other disabilities that make them face various challenges to ensure that they are able to obtain career opportunities appropriate to their abilities. This situation led to the need to conduct a study aimed at exploring the best practices in the transition practice to career in terms of student development, especially students with disabilities from the perspective of lecturers at Selayang Community College who are involved in teaching the Special Skills Certificate Program. Qualitative approach with case study design was used in this research. The researcher used the in-depth interview method using semi structural interview questions to collect data. For the purpose of selecting respondents, the researcher used a purposive sampling technique involving three lecturers. The findings show that elements such as the teaching of living skills, careerrelated teaching and working experience are among the best practices that need to be applied effectively in the implementation of a career transition so that these special need students are adequately equipped to go to work. At the end of the research, researchers also suggested several other approaches for further research in the area of career transition.

Scholarly output, particularly in the form of journal publication is a key indicator in various levels of university performance. It contributes to university ranking, faculty ranking and academicians scholarship credentials. Therefore, scholarly output has become a standard measure used to determine intake, promotion and tenure renewal of academicians at the faculty and university levels. In this paper, the Deans office of an education faculty in a Malaysia university collected and analyzed the faculty members journal publication outputs in 2011 as a way to determine the directions to move forward. From an integrated quantitative and qualitative investigation, research supervision and group publication were identified as the major catalysts for research publications. The findings informed the importance of project development and training in these two areas.

Handwriting research lies mostly within discipline-specific boundaries, hindering knowledge transfer across disciplines into academic skills instruction in schools. This paper attempts to review the literature on handwriting across the occupational therapy and education disciplines to propose an interdisciplinary conceptual framework to guide research and intervention on handwriting in the Malay language. This cross-disciplinary review revealed four major factors that may influence Malay language handwriting: i) neuromotor development; ii) ergonomic; iii) orthographic and iv) cognitive factors. The sub-factors under these four major factors also are identified. Many of the neuromotor development and ergonomic factors are derived from the occupational therapy discipline, while the education discipline provides most of the information on orthographic and cognitive factors. As orthography influences handwriting, it is necessary to revisit handwriting from the perspective of languages other than English. In conclusion, an interdisciplinary framework of handwriting synthesised from this crossdisciplinary review will stimulate more coordinated and coherent research on handwriting. The Malay language serves as a future case study for research into orthographies in handwriting.

Since the implementation of 'Educational Blueprint 2013-2025' and 'Zero Reject Policy' in Malaysia, there are increasingly efforts from the Malaysian Ministry of Education to include students with Autism Spectrum Disorder(ASD) into regular mainstream education. A case study investigation was conducted with a mother with two children with different severity levels of ASD. In a semi-structured interview, the mother described her experiences and aspirations of education arrangements for both her children. Through the eyes of a mother, we find a strong belief that children with ASD could learn like others when given adequate opportunities and learning aids. This unique case study offers an archetypical representation of issues and challenges faced by parents of children with ASD in Malaysia, in advocating for inclusive education for their children.