I thought that the management of KDMC might be interested in our recent findings so I wrote to its executive director, Ms. Cheng Mien Wee, on behalf of Tony and myself to ask if she'd like to respond to our posts. She was very prompt in her reply and we've obtained her permission to publish her full reply here:
Dear Kian Ming & Tony
Thank you for your email and efforts to share with us the recent line of interest established in your blog on KMDC's programme offerings and the profiles of the associated pool of facilitators involved (directly and/or indirectly) in the delivery of KMDC's projects and programmes. We appreciate your invitation to us to respond to your statements.
KMDC is a management development centre, focused on offering training courses and management development solutions. KMDC is registered with the Ministry of Human Resources as an approved training provider. Our clients range from multinational corporations and small medium enterprises to individual professionals. The solutions we offer can be delivered in various modalities, from in-house training workshops to
accredited courses that lead to postgraduate qualifications by our partner institutions, when candidates enrolled with our partner institutions fulfill all the academic requirements associated with the programme(s) concerned.
I spoke with Prof. Zaharom Nain a few days ago, with regards the points he raised in his email to me. I understand the good intentions of Prof. Zaharom and the overall objectives your blog entitled 'Education in Malaysia', and I trust that Prof. Zaharom also appreciated my explanation to him with regards the context of KMDC's business and nature of our projects and programmes.
KMDC's website carries a sample list of facilitators, from its wider pool of other facilitators from across many disciplines (subject matter). The list of facilitators profiled on our website may change from time to time, according to the projects that KMDC may be focused on for that particular period, and KMDC's project consultants are
determined based on our clients' requirements. In the case of accredited training and management development courses, the delivery of such courses would be conducted by facilitators approved by the partner institution(s) concerned.
Based on the above, the contents of KMDC's website is reviewed and updated on regular basis. In this instance, Prof. Zaharom's telephone call to me was actually timely, as it also alerted our team on updating our website with more current information. I am pleased to share that we have worked with Dr. James Chong and Dr. Ragunathan and the other facilitators, whose profiles your blog has highlighted, and their work was appreciated by our clients within the scope of the projects concerned. KMDC 'removed' their names and profiles from the current KMDC webpage, as those projects have been completed some time ago.
Others on our current list of facilitators, like Dr. Alfred Chee and Dr. Lee Kean Thong, do still offer their advice and service as facilitators in relevant training and management courses offered by KMDC. We are pleased with our association with our facilitators and we would be pleased to arrange for Dr. Alfred Chee and Dr. Lee to speak with you should you and your colleagues be interested to learn more about their
respective profiles.
KMDC is committed to offering its clients with relevant and effective management training and development solutions, and we would be pleased to offer more details to you on our suite of current programmes.
Sincerely
Mien
Mien-Wee Cheng
Executive Director
KDU Management Development Centre Sdn Bhd
Levels 19 & 20, Block 3A
Plaza Sentral, KL Sentral
50470 Kuala Lumpur
Tel: +603-22738286
Fax: +603-22735933
Email: mwcheng@kmdc.com.my
64 comments:
This is such a lousy PR like response. Absolutely does not address the issue of whether the lecturers have bogus qualifications or not.
YES, I think the act of KDUM bordering to deception.
The lengthy reply did not answer the question asked ? Are they bogus PhD in KDU and should we alert Ministry of Education pertaining to this false claim.
Profit over integrity and moral ?
Ms Cheng has a lot to explain .
To ascertain the credibility of a scholar , his or her research paper must be publised periodically.
The pack of PhD holders from KDUM worked as production supervisor and marketing manager before , uuhh ...
May be those PHd holders could share with us their research paper to "enlighten" us .
In summary , tertiary education in Malaysia is solely a cash genarating machine and a laughing stock
{ha,ha} High proficiency of English (definitely it is better than me) but without any context.
From her replied, I do not see her sincerity to apologise. She may not be award that this is a serious academic misconduct. To employ "Diploma Mills" or "Dubious Dr.s" for academic purposes. How she goes to defence the situation when all evident has presented so clearly. I will say a good tongue-twister.
She definitely has forgotten what has been taught from her B.Edu and M.Edu (UM). Education is kind of social/community responsibility. You have to be honest, especially when education and business join into a part. You have to be responsible, apologise, when you make a mistake but not to push the responsibility away and put up writing without context.
I do not see a heart of sincerity.
I do not see an educator but businessman operating an academic institution.
I do not see rainbow of academia but rusted diamond shines.
I feel shameful for myself as an Education graduate.
Is Me, The Student.
I hope Tony and Kian Ming would do further research on the current cirruculum of IT eduction in tertiary system and share with us their views.
I notice most of the local university includes e-learning and KM as the subject. May I ask what is the signficance of all these subjects while most if the graduates DO NOT understand what is UML and data modelling
a typical 'political answer' not responding directly to the question but regurgitating the same garbage.
And she expect us to swallow all the crap? She be thinking we have very low iq or poor understanding of academic and matters pertaining to education
If her response typifies the whole private college system, then i feel very sorry for the poor trusting parents that use their life savings to send their children to such establishments
wat a laff!
Muaha ha ha ha!!!
I still recall Tony and Ming lament on the writing skill and the response of fresh graduates. Basically , you post them one question, they throw you back thousand of reply but NONE of them is the answer to the question .
But Ms Cheng suppose to do better , she is not green , but why she simply could not answer directly to the question instead turning around into the bush ?
Do you expect Mien-Wee Cheng to slaughter the geese that lay the golden eggs for KDU Management Development Centre Sdn Bhd? Damage control. Business first. There are lots of suckers around and it's the season of 'Ho, Ho. Ho'.
If I am not mistaken Emeritus Professor Dr Khoo Kay Khim is one of the academic adviser to this college?
If it is true I why cant he comment on this? He is a very respected academician cum political analyst..
She reply " KMDC 'removed' their names and profiles from the current KMDC webpage.."
But why there is an apostrophe in the word "removed" ?
Does she feel guilty or reluctant or forced to removed the bogus title from the web ?
I pity the poor KDU students being taken for a ride!
I tot only the medicine peddlers at chow kit road are bogus...!!!???
I can bet you all that now all the bogus phd holders in KDU or KDMC are sweating in their cold air conditioned offices...
The other bogus phds or lecturers at other private colleges have to wait for their turn before TP and KM come with their ' parang panjang'
That doesn't change the fact that KDMC employed a joker with a PhD from Irish International University.
Just one question would suffice.
Why did KDU employ a joker with some fake PhD to run their classes? That is what we are interested in.
Tony and Kian Ming sure have strong and big Khrams.....
khrams?
I think other ITPS will quickly removed all lecturer profile as soon as possible, before TPKM comes. {ha,ha}
Is Me, The Student.
Do you realize that they fall under the Ministry of Human Resources and NOT the Ministry of Higher Education even as they do provide Masters degree (if I am not wrong).
This is one way to bypass the Ministry of Education and LAN and I assume they do not need to seek approval from MOHE or LAN for the Master degree. So, MOHE cannot touch them, or can they?
Tony and Kian Ming....the Bogus PhD killers!!
Why the long winded reply from the Executive Director of KMDC? All I need is an answer to one simple question: Why does KMDC employ these dubious PhD holders? I am sure a reputable (or otherwise) organization involved in professional training with its sibling being KDU, which has been in education for so many years, is aware that certain credentials of their staff cannot possibly be true. It is not an issue of whether these facilitators are good or not. It is an issue of dubious PhDs of these facilitators to boost sales.
"KMDC is committed to offering its clients with relevant and effective management training and development solutions, and we would be pleased to offer more details to you on our suite of current programmes".
The point raised by this blog and other commentators is very simple. Nobody is questioning whether these facilitators are good or not. I am questioning the fact that KMDC would surely know that some of the credentials cannot be genuine PhDs and yet they choose to publish them to make the faculty looks better and attract students.
Ms Cheng. Can you please answer one question for me. Do you check the authenticity of the credentials of the people you employed before publishing their qualifications in your website? And if you did check them, did it ever cross your mind that some of them are simply impossibly good to be true?
As an academic institution, academic integrity is very important.
Is Me, The Student.
Big khrams=happy wives.....LMAO.
Did anyone miss the point or rather where's the explanation on "fake" qualifications.
KMDC completely ignored the subject.
She seems to have replied with perfect PR sense, protecting the reputation of the college by avoiding the question.
It would have been very unlikely to expect her to admit "Yes, we have bogus staff with ridiculous qualifications, and of course we don't check their backgrounds. We trust them completely since they hold a PhD". Any reply of that sort and everyone would have run her into the ground. She'd be out of a job in no time.
To be fair, I dont think that her staff are bogus, just that their qualifications require some (maybe a lot) of clarification.
I have personally attended a few of their seminars and I must admit that the speakers (not the ones mentioned here) are well-versed in their topics.
We are quick to criticise but fail to reflect upon ourselves sometimes, sad to say, that's the Msian way of doing things.
Besides KMDC, how about other institutions that were highlighted? Where are their responses? Or are they employing the 'ignorance is bliss' school of thought?
Be fair
Do you see the real issue of the whole argument?
Regarding the other colleges, dont worry, KM and TP will wipe them out with their big WHRAMS soon!
Muaha ha ha
OFF TOPIC
Maybe TP and KM woulf like to cover topics on the Seminar presenter such as Lawrence walter Ng...How to be an A star achiever?
It seems from my observation he carries his round of seminar every two year cycle
To "Is Me, The Student"
I find that your "Is me, the student" signature rather annoying...
Be Fair. We are not talking about criticizing KMDC for the sake of criticizing. We are not talking about other colleges here. We are talking about KMDC and we seek an explanation from Ms Cheng on this Mickey Mouse fiasco. Tell me. Do you condone this fiasco? It seems that you are all so forgiving and you do. Good for you.
"I have personally attended a few of their seminars and I must admit that the speakers (not the ones mentioned here) are well-versed in their topics".
Ha ha ha. I sure hope you may want to re-consider showing your certificates of attendance to your bosses and peers from now onwards. I think you are now peeved because you have been had and your certificates are not even worth the paper it is printed on. Well. You know what to do with it. Be brave. Do it!
Dear Ah Piau,
Dont get your feathers ruffled by ' is me, the student'
he he he!
I thought you have got yourself used to all kinds of students during your teaching days?
Ms Cheng. I am still waiting for your answer. A truthful answer from the heart would suffice and spare me the PR mumbo jumbo.
To "is me, the student"/"is me, black mojo",
I wasn't ruffled at all...I just thought that your structurally-erroneous phrase was a tad irritating..that's all.. :)
"Is Me, The Student" is not "Is Me, Black Mojo"
I apologise for my poor writing.
Is Me, The Student.
Come on , when are you all stopping this me you & dog named boo ?
On a side note, anyone here have the pleasure of sitting through spm this year? I'd like to say that this year's chemistry paper was a bit 'messed up'. My friends and I were prepared for the usual questions that come with the paper: calculations, chemical equations etc... Imagine our utter amazement to open the paper and see a picture of ginger. The question goes as such: Tick the part of the ginger plant used for medicine. Two questions later: How do you use that particular part of the plant as medicine? I don't know, maybe eat it? The rest of the paper was disappointing..There was a particular question regarding Dmitri Mendeleev's role in connection to the 'Mole Concept', at least that is what we could infer from it. Unfortunately for us, the only mention of Mendeleev in our chemistry text books is in the chapter on the periodic table. Out of topic?I have no idea. The allocation of marks were a bit frightening as well: In the essay question, 10 marks were allocated for one drawing of apparatus set-up. Furthermore, the least that they could do in preparing the paper is to print the English half of the paper properly: wrong spellings, references, misused terms abound. Anyway it's now over for us spm students. To all those taking bio on Monday, good luck and let's just hope they don't decide to pull anymore surprises on us like changing the usual format. ooo and moral..now that's another story.
TP and Kian Ming
This whole KDMU fiasco will lead to nowhere.
KDMU is "Shielded" by the MCA's Human Resource Minister.
Probably part of the inside deal to keep him relevant and stays in power and office.
He has to look after his supporters and cronies within MCA party, right?
His supporters are mainly businessmen, merchants, accountants, economists, MNC corporate executives, etc and industrialists.
Stealing public fund and channeling to his supporters and cronies is what he does best!!!
Never heard of Graduate Retraining Scheme???
Come next GE, this Human Resource Minister will come up with some fund and hire some IT guys to design his websites and make him looks glamorous or potray him to be some kind of hero that listens to people's grievances.
But once he got elected, that entire forum webpages of his will be shut down.
Think both of you mighty enough to take him head-on? If not, cease demonising KDMU!
Wah...I think the above Anon is either MCA's hatchet man or KDMU hit man!
He is trying to give threat o KM and TP using velvet glove!
he he he
He should be concentrating his threat on the ' kris wielding UMNO delegate'
Muaha ha ha!
Anonymous above just about sums up the country in general. When people want to have a productive discussion about a certain topic, certain elements of politics always come into play. There seems to be no want to improve our society as a whole, rather there seems to be an amazing amount of greed for the need to line our pockets in whatever way we can at the expense of others. I just feel ashamed that political powers should play any role in private, or public education for that matter, in our country. And as much as I would like to believe that the lack of freedom of speech in our country is due to the highly complex multiracial society we live in and the highly sensitive issues that arise from it, I believe it is more a case of political powers interfering with freedom of speech that may find the greedy and the powerful wrong of grave misdoings at the expense of the general public. And because of this, we as Malaysians will never move forward.
As for Ms. Mien-Wee Cheng, I do not think she should be flogged for writing such a letter. The only thing I am dissappointed with is that she fails to persuade Tony and KM that she will look into the matter with great urgency and seriousness, and that KMDC does not condone the use of fraudulent credentials by any of their staff. Otherwise, I think she did a great PR job, and she was in no position to say anything more or anything less.
Are you sure that she wrote this herself?
There is a reasonable chance that this was drafted by a PR consultant/Secretary
Ms. Mien-Wee Cheng has to look after her 'fun-woon' (rice bowl). Despite her high sounding job title, she is just a pitiful little screw in the big wheel of KMDC. What she wrote does not reflect her own thinking - either she was directed by her bosses to reply like what she replied or she had to use her PR skill to craft her reply.
Cari makan, what to do. Please seek the answers from the right guys, not her.
Are you trying to imply in KDMC , Ms Mien is either a ' robot' or ' zombie'?
Who is Prof. Zaharom Nain and why or how is he involved in this matter regarding KMDC?
Could someone explain Prof. Zaharom Nain's role?
Interesting: the leading private college for which I work has been told by the MoHE that they will be checking the qualifications of academic staff - "especially PhDs".
he he he
thats good news.
hope they make the findings public
Hi,
I'm Zaharom Nain. One of you asked about my role in all this. Well, firstly, I am an academic teaching in Universiti Sains Malaysia. Like many other concerned academics, I follow this blog as it provides critical and valuable insights into the numerous problems inherent in the Malaysian education system. At any rate, when I read Tony's earlier blog about KMDC and the questionable qualifications of its 'faculty', I called KMDC to alert them to Tony's post, to express my concern, and to get some kind of explanation from them. This, after all, is Malaysia and often these organisations will just ignore blogs unless we the public follow up and caution them that many of us know. This way, I believe, the situation moves one step further and the good work of people like Tony and Kian Ming will be expanded on by, dare I say, civil society. When I was told that KMDC's executive director, Ms Cheng, was attending a meeting, I followed up with an e-mail to her alerting her to Tony's revelations on his blog. Ms Cheng didn't respond to my e-mail, so I gave her another call. This time she was around and was very polite and provided all the 'right' responses, without exactly saying anything about the questionable qualifications of her 'consultants'. Hence her reference to me in her reply to Kian Ming. Hope that helps to clear matters. Let me quickly state that this is the full extent of my 'relationship' with KMDC! I certainly don't wish to be associated with them in any other way.
Zaharom Nain
TQ for standing up for justice and truth in the education system.
I do hope after your explanations, that KDMC will not continue to play this charade and come clean
BE HONEST!
I think both KM and TP deserves the honarary doctrates from the local universities for being daring in exposing the various educational fiascos in both public and local institutions of higher learnings.
I was wondering if someone could clarify on this DBA degree. I know what a PhD or MBA is, but DBA sounds so cheesy!
There was an article in the STAR education today about someone who did a DBA and he said 'When I was doing the DBA, I spent almost six hours a day studying. It was tough'. I mean, if it is a taught degree then it definitely is not equivalent to a PhD. And if it is supposed to equip for the practical world then surely an MBA with work experience is better than someone with a DBA but no actual business experience?
~
For DBA, LAN does not recognise it a doctrate degree, it is only equal to a masters.
Is Me, The Student.
Why is KDMC showing 'elegant silence'??
If I were Mien, I won't reply any mail or any comments to Tony and KM because of "Silence is Golden"..
The fact that KDMC remains silent proves that wat TP and KM said is probably true or
KDMC acquired acute laryngitis
KDMC, Give me back my money!
I assume the DBA you refer to is Doctorate in Business Admin rather than a Diploma in Business Admin. A DBA is as good as PhD and has every right to call oneself a Dr (I am only commenting from UK point of view). A DBA (an equivalent in Engineering, it's called Doctorate of Engineering, D.Eng.) is a 4 year programme which consists of taught and research elements wheras a PhD is 3 years pure research. A doctorate degree is geared toward the real world and not for academia. For example, the research work in a doctorate degree is based on real application in business/engineering whereas a PhD research can be purely for academic/knowledge enhancement which has no real application.
I am also like to comment about Honorary Doctorate Degree. It is quite sad that an Honorary Degree has been degraded by a few University in Asia by awarding their Honorary Doctorate to the rich and famous (I am sure Mickey Mouse will get an Honorary Doctorate if he is from Asia). Honorary Doctorate is a very prestige award that a university can award. And normally will only be awarded to someone who has contributed enormously in a particular area. I believed they have ever right to be called Dr. I believed an Honorary Doctorate is more difficult to obtain than a PhD because a PhD only need time, money, perseverance and a little bit of brain! Whereas a real Honorary Doctorate only come by if you have make a significant contribute to the society.
BTW, those who earned their PhD doesn't really bother whether they are called Dr or not! Based on experience, you will only get the thrill being called Dr the moment you pass your viva! I think I am off topic, anyway......
i don't agree with anon.( 9 dec. 12.01.36 ) phrase : ".. a PhD research can be purely for academic / knowledge enhancement which has no real application ".
I am sure the AAUP ( The American Association of University Professors ) would also disagree on that.
my opinion is :
i am positive that all PhD education focus both on the theory and application associated with all content areas of the PhD research.
those PhD recipients especially dedicated to academic teaching are required more to understand both theory and practice .. Lest one forget, PhD academicians are sought after to teach and impart their knowledge.
in universities, both experienced professors and postdoctoral fellows are supervisors and PhD mentors to facilitate the development of their PhD students’ practical knowledge by offering advice on research opportunities and sharing their own practical experiences.
ellie.
my phd completely applied and relevant to industry
"I believed an Honorary Doctorate is more difficult to obtain than a PhD because a PhD only need time, money, perseverance and a little bit of brain!"
Friend, are you telling me the Honorary Doctorate needs "more brain" than a PhD. I am sorry. I can not agree with you. I thought Honorary Doctorate needs "more RM" than a PhD. This is what I understand and you can read many of congratulatory notes form newspaper. Tell me how many of them are qualified for a Honorary Doctorate than according to your expectation?
Is me, the student.
In response to the three 'quite intelligent' respondence of my comment earlier....
Ellie, so you are saying that ALL PhD have real application. In said that, I presume you have read all the PhD theses in the world and on all fields. Just wondering how you apply research work on Accient Egypt in real application? Build Sunway Pyramid?
Anon (sat Dec 09, 02:40:24pm), thanks for telling everyone your PhD is relevant to industry. Good for you. But I don't recall that I or anyone else here ask though.
'Is me, the student', sorry if you don't understand my comment. I am no even bother to explain to you.
Yes, you are not necessary explain anything to me. Anyway, if I am rich, I will "get" many Honorary Doctorate degrees and tell all the world that "Hey, it is not easy man, you have to as rich as I am to get a D.Edu (Hon)". {ha, ha}
Is me, the student.
DR M got the most number of Honorary degreees...every university clamouring to give him
Please check and email the Ministry of Education UK on Calamus Extension College. They should be able to give you a plausible answer to the legitimacy of the institution. Please verify before you post.
From my experience working in the education industry, I find that the very reason colleges/ providers hire people with doubtful qualifications is the lower rate of payment. Most of these lecturers teach reasonably well, and at times better than those with proper qualifications. So why waste the company's money when you can close one eye and deceive the students with their so-called expertise in strange areas. I find that the education industry is getting saturated with business minded people, and all they think about is money and not the quality.
Of course, the real culprits are the CHAIRMAN , CEO AND BOARD OF DIRECTORS, who have a say in decision making!
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