Case Study 7, Brunei: Learners as Educators in the Virtual Absence of Authority

Learner-centric approaches and student-centred learning are desirable traits in twenty-first-century education. However, as much as teachers try to emulate the facilitator’s role, there is still a tendency for them to take control of the lesson, perhaps so that the desired outcome of the lesson is achieved. This is perhaps the consequence of the overt significance placed on pen-and-paper-based examination results, deeming the process of learning secondary, and also often in tertiary, level education. The situation is exacerbated in the Asian setting where Asian students generally have high regard for authorities (Xu & Carless, 2017), so much so that the content of the speech delivered by teachers is often regarded as universal truths.