Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations 2008

The Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations (HPAIR) is pleased to present its 2008 Academic Conference and Business Conference. They are now accepting applications from university students and young professionals around the world. Confirmed speakers for the Business Conference include the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Datuk Seri Abdullah bin Haji Ahmad Badawi, and the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.

The HPAIR Academic Conference is an annual international conference that brings together top students from elite universities across the world to engage in high-level discourse on economic, political, humanistic, cultural, and social issues affecting Asia and the world.

The HPAIR Business Conference is an annual event in which hundreds of international undergraduate and MBA students and young professionals worldwide come together to interact and learn about the most dynamic areas of Asian business from the most prominent industry leaders. Our conference seeks to provide a comprehensive analysis of the current economic trends in Asia and create a forum for discussion of new developments in the region.

The conference approaches its goal holistically and features rigorous academic workshops and lectures led by renowned professors, scholars, government officials, and private sector practitioners from all over the world. Additionally, the conference features opportunities for student paper presentations, interactive activities, field trips, and social & networking events (including the famous annual "International Night" cultural extravaganza as well as the elaborate gala dinner closing ceremony).

Notable past speakers at HPAIR conferences include: Kim Dae-jung (Former President, Republic of South Korea), S. R. Nathan (President, Singapore), Kim Young-Sam (President, Republic of South Korea), Ban Ki-moon (Secretary General of the UN), Fred Hu (Managing Director, Goldman Sachs Asia), Victor Fung (Chairman, Li & Fung Group), Tu Wei-Ming (Professor of Confucian Philosophy, Harvard University), Richard Cooper (Professor of Economics, Harvard University), and Jeffrey Sachs (Professor of Economics, Columbia University).

Details about the HPAIR 2008 Business Conference are as follows:

Theme: Emerging into Focus: Asia Incorporated
Venue: JW Marriott Hotel, Kuala Lumpur
Date: August 14 – 17, 2008

Click to learn more about the HPAIR Business Conference, or visit join the facebook group.

Details about the HPAIR 2008 Academic Conference are as follows:

Theme: Beyond Borders: Asia on the World Stage
Venue: Hilton Hotel, Kuala Lumpur
Date: August 21 – 24, 2008
Acceptance：300

Plenary Sessions:
Higher Education in Asia
ASEAN as an Economic and Geopolitical Region

The application system is currently open. Applications from students will be accepted at http://www.hpair.org/conferences/aconf/. For more information on HPAIR, please visit www.hpair.org. Questions may be directed to help@hpair.org.

Foreign Universities taking us for a ride?

A little belated but a reader alerted me to this rather bitter letter published in Malaysiakini complaining about how a foreign university set up in Malaysia is milking the Malaysian system for all its worth. I'll reproduce the letter below and then comment it.

Foreign universities giving it to us real good
Disgruntled Former Staff | Apr 14, 08 4:29pm

The general public is not aware that a certain Australian university which has a campus here has little interest in developing the nation's intellectual capital. Over the last year, it's hidden agenda is to steal Malaysia's wealth and brain power, contributing very little to the nation while delegating distinguished locals to insignificant supporting roles while harvesting their intellectual work for the benefit of Australia.

The current Malaysian government unwittingly abets in this activity by opening opportunities to these foreigners that are denied in any self-respecting nation, including South Africa. Malaysia has thus become the laughing stock among academics in the know, from Melbourne to Johannesburg.

Consider the following: An Australian with limited experience and a spotty academic record has been appointed vice-chancellor and president of this university, bypassing many distinguished local academics with far better academic calibre and experience within this university's Malaysian campus. He is given a five-year contract, rather than the customary three years. Why?

Because he has promised the Australians that he will harvest Malaysian money, in the millions, in addition to the hefty 16% tuition fees that Australians already take (steal?) in the form of royalties. This additional money (billions) comes from Malaysia's vast research funds. Malaysia is dumb enough to give these so-called foreign professors access to these funds - just look at Mosti's website of experts - it is infested with the names of foreigners who are supposed to tap international research funds for the benefit of Malaysia. Instead, they sit there and ‘collaborate’ with locals - meaning that they insist on locals doing all the work while they publish jointly, and get a harvest of these funds meant to develop local academicians and researchers. Why are foreigners allowed to access these funds meant for Malaysians, paid for with Malaysian tax money? (Example 1 of ‘Malaysia Bodoh’).

In his maiden lecture, the VC mentioned above called for his university’s academics to work ‘collaboratively’ with Australian academics and also pushes for ‘linkages with local universities’. Why? Because he sees this as a means to access local government research funds, funds from private companies and international funds that may be available to distinguished local universities and then share the loot with Australia and get due credit. Of course, the Australian university couldn't care less as long as a fat stream of money flows into its cash-strapped coffers. To a question of when Australia is going to send money due to international publications by local academics (in Australian universities, a set amount of money is provided when the staff publishes in approved international journals), this man refused to pursue the matter. He must be asked to issue a public statement on this money owed to the Malaysian campus and a deadline of when the money will be forthcoming.

To stop this rot, the Malaysian government should immediately revamp its policy on foreign professors at branch campuses - these professors should be required to bring in research money from international research funds (as should befit a ‘professor’) and only play mentoring roles to locals. Mosti should never allow these foreigners of foreign branch campuses to register in their database; they must only be able to collaborate with special permission. In such collaborations, top-level journal publications must be mandatory - otherwise, they get away with dismal work that can easily be accomplished by anyone. In short, not addressing this situation leads to theft of local research funds to foreign shores in the name of ‘education’.

The foreign VC in question has pressured long-serving locals to resign as a result of them bringing attention to his dubious policies. He insists on rewriting original Australian policies that promote openness and transparency to obscure the facts and hide these dastardly deeds. Malaysia has no laws to address this (Eg. 2 of Malaysia Bodoh). Again, the Australian university doesn't care as long as money keeps flowing. As long as its financial interests are protected, to hell with its ‘equal employment opportunities’ policy - which is only for Australia.

All Western nations (US, UK, Australia) have strong policies on employment, insisting that foreigners are hired only when qualified locals are not available. Foreign universities in Malaysia freely hire foreigners who barely meet the grade (from the perspective of academic credentials and work experience) while better qualified locals are neglected, or made to play relatively minor leadership roles (Malaysia obediently issues work permits, Example 3 of ‘Malaysia Bodoh’).

Again, these foreigners care little about quality of teaching; textbooks are late in many cases across all the schools and often teaching material from Australia is not well-planned. As such, there is no benefit of giving these foreign, professional beggars these top posts. Thanks to our stupidity, rather than their cleverness.

First of all, this creates a healthy outflow of funds to foreign lands. Secondly, it helps them enact more of their own rules and regulations to increase this flow of money to Australia and wherever else. Thirdly, it forces locals to keep their mouth shut or get lost - in their own country. Since this VC took over, a growing stream of resignations from locals has taken place. The salaries and fringe benefits paid to these foreigners goes into millions! This is the kind of money US, UK and Australia save by only giving visas to foreigners who can deliver value. We should do the same by insisting these holders of top leadership posts and senior professorial positions bring in research money from sources abroad.

All of this is the result of the polices of the former PM. The result is an abortion of human capital development, not to mention the outflow of government and taxpayers’ funds.

We hope that the new Selangor government can initiate full investigations into these activities and track where all this research money goes to. Given that this university enjoys access to government-funded scholars, government-based research funds (formerly Irpa, now eScience, etc) as well as money from privately-funded students (whose parents are taxpayers), this foreign university must report in a true and transparent manner all its sources of funds and the subsequent use of these funds (including who gets both internal and external research funds and how these funds are allocated).

First of all, this letter is written by a 'Former Disgruntled Worker' so obviously he or she (I suspect that the person is a 'he') has an axe to grind which warns me to read the contents of the letter with a pinch of salt. The letter writer is obviously not trying to write an objective assessment of this foreign university.

Secondly, it should not be surprising to many that one of the main reasons why these foreign universities set up shop in Malaysia is to earn revenue from the local market. Why else would a university like Nottingham and Sunway set up shop in a place like Malaysia if not to take advantage of the fact that they can derive revenue from such a move? With shrinking subsidies and funding from their respective governments and a restriction on the number of foreigners which they can accept to their home campuses, these universities have done the next best thing, which is to expand to overseas markets and increase their revenue base.

Local students benefit because they can obtain a Nottingham or Monash degree without incurring the cost of studying overseas and these colleges benefit by being able to earn revenue from the local market.

In addition, the academic standards set in the branches of these foreign universities are not noticeably lower than their home campuses. The proportion of PhD holders in the Malaysian campuses of these universities are much higher than other private colleges and university colleges (although probably lower than their home campuses). While the courses available might be slightly less than their home campuses, I'm quite sure that the teaching standards and syllabi won't differ by much.

And of course, these universities also provide employment to Malaysians either in the academic / research fields or in other fields associated with the activities of these universities.

Thirdly, I want to address the issue of foreign academics in these universities 'milking' the system by obtaining MOSTI funds via doing research with local academics. I think there is some validity in that criticism in that a case can be made that the MOSTI funds (through IRPA and other grants) should be reserved for Malaysians only since Malaysian taxpayers are funding these grants and their purpose should be to boost the research capacity of local academics.

For example, many scholarships and grants in the US, which is a pretty liberal place when it comes to funding research, is only open to US citizens or green card holders including the prestigious National Science Foundation scholarships and grants.

But what I found surprising was the fact that the letter writer accused the foreign academics of piggy backing on the efforts of local academics. If this is the case, why should the local academics want to collaborate with these foreigners in the first place unless they had something to offer to the project in question? Put it this way, if I were asked to collaborate with a foreign academic who could not bring anything to the table and needed my help to obtain funds for the project, I would definitely not agree to such a collaboration.

In academic circles, the practice of more senior people piggy backing on the efforts of their more junior counterparts is a common practice. But usually, these senior academics bring something to the table - funding, past experience and knowledge on the subject matter, credibility when it comes to publishing and so on. If local academics allow their foreign counterparts to piggy back on their efforts with the knowledge that they bring nothing to the table, then I would put the blame squarely on the shoulders of the local academics for letting this happen.

Do I think that the branches of foreign universities in Malaysia are perfect? From from it. I think there are many loopholes which they exploit which they would not be able to do in their home campuses. But I think this is a process of capacity building. Just like how private colleges and university colleges are being pressured to introduce research activities into their campuses, the branches of foreign universities will have to do the same, if they are not doing this already. In fact, I see the potential of a healthy competition existing between our local public universities and the Malaysian branches of these foreign universities in terms of research.

In fact, I think that the branches of these foreign universities provides more rigorous academic training, teaching and standards compared to other private colleges and universities as well as some of our public universities.

Calling all US students and alumni

For our readers who are current US students and alumni of US universities, please think about volunteering your services to help out in organizing this years Discover US Education Fair. I think the name has been changed to USA for students. For more details, please go here. I think this is a fantastic initiative and thanks to people like Chen Chow, it is gaining momentum from year to year. If I was coming back this summer, I'd definitely sign up. Maybe next year. The date for this year's fair is June 14th, 2008.

Too much CSI?

Thanks for Kean Jin for highlighting this letter in Malaysiakini. The letter was written by a student of forensics science who after taking this course in a local public university found that he or she couldn't join the Forensics Department in the Police Force or the Malaysia Chemistry Department.

The English translation of the letter can be found here.
These students, upon graduating, found out that they needed to join the police force before they could be forensics scientists in the police department. But many of them wore glasses and because of this, did not fulfill the eyesight criterion to be a police officer.

These graduates complained that in their opinion, it is not necessary to have good eyesight nor is it necessary to go through training as a police officer to be a forensic scientist.

Furthermore, they also found out that their training as forensic scientists were not sufficient to get them jobs in the Malaysia Chemistry Department (Jabatan Kimia Malaysia).

I have a couple of take away points from this letter.

Firstly, there seems to be a miscommunication between the university authorities who are offering these courses and the potential employers for these graduates (the police and the JKM). Given that there are a limited number of potential employers for the skills of these graduates, it seems clear to me that the university authorities (the department heads, for example) should have had better communication channels with these potential employers as well as with their students.

If this had been the case, they could have tailored their courses better so that these graduates would be more employable or have told potential students of the requirements of the potential employers.

Secondly, if you want to take a more specialized course, it makes sense that you should do some research in advance (asking seniors, checking employer websites) to make sure that you have the criteria to be employed. Forensics science is not accounting and finance or economics which are more generic courses and which allow its graduates a greater amount of flexibility when it comes to employment opportunities.

Thirdly, while I applaud the desire of these students to serve the country by trying to help solve crimes and reduce crime rates, they probably should not have been too influenced by the unrealistic portrayal of forensic scientists in TV shows such as CSI and its many spin offs.

I hope that this example doesn't dissuade our readers from taking 'alternative' career paths which I'm a keen advocate of. But it does show the need for us to do our due diligence before taking up a particular course.

Scholarships for 9As SPM students

Read this in the Star today. JPA announced today that all SPM students who have scored 9As and above would be given scholarships to do their Form 6 and matriculation studies. The Chief Secretary to the Government also said that these students would also be sponsored for their undergraduate degree at a local university and if they managed to get a place in an Ivy league university or its equivalent, they would also be sponsored.

In principle, I think that this is a good move since it will solve the problem of having different criteria for different people when it comes to giving out JPA scholarships. I also think that it's a good move to channel potential JPA scholars to do their studies locally, since I think that this is much more cost effective, especially given JPA's poor track record at retaining foreign JPA scholars.

I'm not sure how effective this policy will be from the perspective of attracting 9A students to take the STPM exams since studying Form 6 is not prohibitively expensive in the first place and from what I know, neither is matriculation. I won't be surprised if most of the students who score 9As and above for their SPM and are in the matriculation stream already receive scholarships in some form or fashion.

Although studying in local public unis are also not very expensive (compared to studying in private unis / colleges or going overseas) and students can easily take out PTPN loans, these scholarships can definitely help those who come from less privileged backgrounds where even a few thousand RM would go a long way in helping alleviate the financial burden on them and their families.

This doesn't change my mind in regard to the need to abolish undergraduate scholarships to go overseas, even (or especially) if students get into Ivy league schools (or their equivalent).

But I think that channeling scholarships and funds in a race blind manner at the Form 6 / matriculation and local public uni levels is to be commended.

SLAI or SLY?

I recently wrote a to "Unwanted Citizen", a blogger, asking him to clarify the difference between SLAB and SLAI after a comment posted in this post said that we shouldn't complain so much about the unfairness of SLAB since there was a program called SLAI that is opened to all Malaysians and not just Bumiputeras. You can read "Unwanted Citizen"'s response here.

Apply to the US, says John

A letter to Malaysiakini by a friend of mine, John Lee Ming Keong, who's currently a freshman at Dartmouth, encouraging students to apply to study in the US. I'll reproduce it below. You can read more of his insights at his very well written blog.

Sponsored higher education - think America
John Lee | Apr 30, 08 4:08pm

I note with disappointment the recent controversy here regarding the disbursement of government scholarships and placement in university courses. I believe the policy solutions to these problems are clear enough - any discrimination in university admissions or scholarships ought to be on the basis of income and access to educational opportunities, not race.

The bumiputra may be severely disadvantaged - Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak claimed in 1997 that only 5% of public university students would be Malays if the quota system were to be completely repealed - but this only strengthens the case for discriminating on the basis of actual disadvantages, rather than race, when clearly many bumiputera are not wanting for any opportunities economically or educationally.

However, barring a sudden turnaround in government policy or a wholesale change in the composition of the federal government, it is crucial that individual students be aware of other opportunities available to them should the public purse be unable or unwilling to assist them in their education. Private scholarships are a common form of assistance which many rely on to study, either at local private colleges or in foreign universities.

In spite of this, not many know about private scholarships offered by universities in the United States. Eight American universities, including half of the Ivy League (Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Dartmouth) will fund the education of any applicant who is admitted, inclusive of tuition, living expenses, etc. Although they require a separate financial aid application, they will not consider ability to pay when making admissions decisions, meaning applicants will be evaluated purely on scholastic merit. All admitted students who choose to attend receive financial aid, mostly scholarships, in proportion to their ability to pay the fees.

Furthermore, many other American universities also offer financial aid to students. However, because they generally do not have the large endowments of other institutions, financial need is a factor in admission, meaning poorer applicants must make up for their inability to pay in academic accomplishments. In spite of this, once the student is admitted, many of these institutions commit to funding their education as much as possible.

I write about this because I have noticed that most students do not even consider the US when deciding where to attend university. Although there are disadvantages with the US system - most universities only offer four-year programmess, and American law degrees are not recognised locally - there is no reason to automatically exclude it from contention. If anything, American universities offer much more affordable educations because of their extensive financial aid programmes for the needy.

There are two main barriers to a good education. The first is intellectual and academic - if you cannot make the cut, you will never get into Harvard or Cambridge. The second is financial - how on earth can you pay for Harvard or Cambridge? Many Malaysians are not wanting for brains, but desperately need financial assistance for their higher education. As someone currently benefiting from financial aid at an American university, I believe this is an opportunity which too many bright Malaysians are passing up. Even if you do not think you can get into Harvard, there is no point in not trying - most universities will even waive the application fees if you can demonstrate financial need - and there are so many other lesser-known but equally great institutions eager to help qualified and talented students obtain a higher education.

I strongly urge all parents, students and educational counselors to re-examine the US university system and the opportunities it offers for bright but economically disadvantaged students. Malaysia has no deficit of intellect, but it is squandering its most promising minds through unequal disbursement of scholarships and placement in university courses. Until we rectify this policy problem, individual Malaysians must find our own way, and one route which is often overlooked is that which lies across the Pacific in the US.

For the past three years, concerned students and alumni have helped organise an annual education fair meant to highlight the educational opportunities available in the US. This year, the fair - USA For Students - is being sponsored by the American Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, and will be held this June.

Even if you are unable to attend the fair, the Internet offers many more ways to gather information. Recom, an online forum set up by students, is devoted entirely to educational problems many Malaysians face, from scholarship interviews to applying for placement in local or foreign programmes. Individual university websites also provide a wealth of information on how to apply for financial assistance.

It is not enough for us to rely on the government to spoonfeed us, either in money or education - we must be proactive and learn to help ourselves, if the government is unable to. Malaysia needs all the talent it can get, and we owe it not just to ourselves as individuals, but to ourselves as a nation, to get the best education we can, and to make the most out of ourselves so we can serve our country.

Farewell, Rustam Sani

This is a little belated but we recently lost Rustam Sani, aged 64, academic, poet, activist, politician and blogger. I did not know him personally but from what I've heard other people say, he was someone who was respected by people of all races and religions. You can read about him here, here and here. Farewell Rustam. Just like Adlan Benan, you left us too soon.

Got into Harvard, Rejected by JPA

Lee Jia Hui got into Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth and Cornell but got rejected by JPA and Bank Negara. He explains his rejections (for the scholarships) by his vocal nature. I'm not surprised that he was rejected. I can imagine the eyes of the interviewers bulging as he was discussing his interest in politics, sexuality and self-identity. But I'm glad that he was full funding from Harvard. Goes to show that if you're smart, if you want to do something out of the box and if you are willing to work hard at the application process, you can find funding sources to study overseas, especially in a place like the US. Maybe not everyone can get into Harvard but there are plenty of liberal arts colleges with generous funding opportunities.

Abolish JPA scholarships for undergraduates

RM500,000. That's approximately the amount of money which JPA spends to send one scholar overseas to study in the US or the UK. It probably costs a bit less to send a scholar to Australia but not by much. But the sad fact is that the % of JPA scholars who come back to Malaysia and work for the government in some capacity or another is close to 0%. Given that this is the case, JPA has two choices: (1) drastically reduce the number of JPA scholarships given out (2) implement a comprehensive system of making sure that JPA scholars come back and serve out their bonds in one capacity or another. I would go for option (1) given that (2) is very difficult to implement and carry out, at least in the short term. In other words, why waste RM500,000 on a scholar who is not likely to serve the government or even to come back to Malaysia?

This issue has often been discussed in this blog but I have to flog it again because once again, I've noticed that many of my friends who have received JPA scholarships or loans have not decided to return to Malaysia to serve out their bond. In one sense, I shouldn't blame them because:

(i) JPA does not make an effort to look for decent jobs for them
(ii) Even if JPA plugs them into the civil service, they will die of boredom because there is no specific program within the JPA which is specially catered for JPA scholars
(iii) JPA does not chase after them to repay their bonds / value of their scholarship (unlike for those who have borrowed money under the PTPN)

As the costs of an overseas education continues to soar, I really don't see the value of sending JPA scholars overseas for an undergraduate degree after which they are not compelled to come back to repay their bonds with a length of public service of some sort. You'd never see the Singapore government allow any of their PSC scholars and other GLC scholars given this luxury even though they probably could afford it more than the Malaysian government.

If the JPA cannot introduce some sort of human resource management program that is equivalent to a management trainee program for JPA scholars, then it is better for them to cut down the number of JPA scholars at the undergraduate level drastically. After all, how much does Malaysia benefit from spending half a million ringgit to send a scholar to Oxford or Cambridge who most likely won't return to Malaysia or even if they do, won't work for the government? It is likely that many of these bright young individuals would be able to find alternative sources of funding to go to Oxford or Cambridge. Even if they cannot afford to go to Oxford or Cambridge, it is no great loss (either to themselves or to the country) if they were to take a less expensive option such as doing a 2 + 1 or studying at Nottingham or Monash in Malaysia.

If they stay back in Malaysia, they will still be able to contribute to the economy. There is nothing which states that an Oxford or Cambridge graduate will contribute more to the economy compared to a Monash or Nottingham graduate.

In my opinion, I think it is much more cost effective and it would yield higher returns for the JPA money to be diverted towards sponsoring scholars at the Masters or PhD levels. Many of these scholars would be those currently studying or teaching in the public universities. And there is already a system in place whereby these scholars who get sponsored to go overseas are bonded and have to come back to their 'home' university to teach and serve out their bond. It is much less likely that the money spent on a PhD student, which works out to be about the same as sponsoring an undergraduate, will be wasted in a similar manner. It will also fulfill the government objective of raising the number of PhDs in our public universities.

This doesn't mean that the process of awarding of the PhD sponsorships should not be cleaned up and made more transparent. I've been a keen advocate of making that process more transparent in previous posts. Diverting resources in this manner would allow more deserving and capable scholars in our public universities to pursue their PhD programs abroad.

I know many parents and students will object to this proposal. But given that the money spent on undergraduate JPA scholars goes down the drain, at least from the perspective of returns to the country, I think that these objections are not very tenable.

In the meantime, I'd be interested to hear what our readers have to say about this!

Helping kids in rural areas

My wife and I have been volunteering as Math tuition teachers for a few kids from a Vietnamese hill tribe who have recently migrated to the US as refugees. It has been a challenge as well as a blessing and our experience of teaching these kids led us to draw comparisons between them and some of the Orang Asli and Sarawak and Sabah Bumiputera and even Malay kids in rural Malaysia.

We teach 3 or 4 kids out of the 8 kids in the family and we focus primarily on Math. We teach them on a Tuesday evening and other volunteers teach them English, History and other subjects on the other days of the week (not including weekends). These kids are really sweet and innocent but they also come from a background where many things we take for granted are just not taught or not known.

For example, when we told them that we were from Malaysia, they didn't even know where Malaysia was. To them, we might as well have been from India or Africa since they couldn't place Malaysia on a map. (They also had not heard of Siem Reap in neighboring Cambodia) I won't be too surprised if many orang Asli kids in Peninsular Malaysia or Iban kids in Sarawak or Kadazan kids in Sabah in the interior areas do not know where Vietnam was either.

They also had a very limited understand of what money was which made it difficult for me to teach one of the kids - a 12 year old - about money. He had some difficultly in answering me when I asked him how much would he have left if I gave him a 20 dollar bill and asked him to give me two 5 dollar bills in return.

Also absent was any understanding of what geometry and geometric shapes are which makes it difficult to explain concepts such as the difference between area and perimeter.

They have made vast improvements since coming to the US probably because they have had volunteer tuition teachers come to them almost every day of the week for the past year or so. They receive very little personal attention from their own class teachers because of the large class sizes in their school. And yet, I suspect that they are still some way behind their peers.

This experience made me think the following - If these kids, with the help of volunteers who come to them everyday of the week, have trouble keeping up with their peers, how much more challenging is it for the Orang Asli and Malay kids in the rural areas to keep up with their urban peers? I think many of them would have the same kinds of problems of context which these Vietnamese refugees face. Many things which urban kids take for granted, such as the concept of money, geography, travel, newspapers, etc... are more or less absent in the rural areas in Malaysia. It is not that surprising, given this context, that some schools in Sabah have a 100% fail rate when it comes to UPSR or PMR exams!

My heart really goes out to these kids in the rural areas since very little is down to help them with their educational deficiencies. I know of some social organizations and programs which are organized by people in urban areas to travel to some of these more rural areas to help the people out but these efforts are mostly restricted to development projects or activities. It is much more difficult to sustain an effort which ships in volunteers to give tuition to these kids on a weekly much less daily basis.

One way to rectify this shortcoming is to send in more teachers to teach in these rural areas. I remember hearing about the MOE giving more hardship and transportation allowances to teachers who have to travel long distances to teach in rural schools in Sabah and Sarawak. Perhaps these sorts of efforts can be increased. Also, a similar program to the one in the US called Teach for America, where recent college graduates commit themselves to teach in an under resourced urban or rural school for 2 years can be introduced. This can be done with subsidies from the government as well as strategic partnerships with local companies. I think as Malaysians become richer and more educated, the willingness to serve in these volunteer and semi-volunteer capacities will also increase. The challenge here is to create the infrastructure for these volunteers to serve.

Another possibility is to give financial incentives to parents of many of these kids from disadvantages families which are contingent on these kids staying in school. Such a program, called Opportunidades, has been implemented in Mexico for the past decade or so and is in the process of being copied in certain urban and economically deprived areas in the US.

I really think that education is the most important means by which these kids in rural areas can escape from a cycle of poverty and want. Government policy is one way of helping these kids out. Another is through the efforts of dedicated and motivated young people. We all can do our own little part.

P.S. I'm well aware that many urban kids who come from less well to do families face similar challenges. I remember trying to give tuition to some kids from a Chinese Village just off Old Klang Road. Most of them preferred to play with the computer instead of sitting down and revising their Math problems. But these challenges are multiplied in the rural areas because of the lack of resources in their schools.

The Elephant in the Room

A long column in Malaysiakini on education reforms by a Malaysian Professor who is currently teaching in Qatar. I agree with many of his points such as the need to appoint a proper search committee for the VCs of our public universities and the need to bring back English into the public universities. But the elephant in the room in terms of educational reform, especially in our public universities are left out. I'm speaking of the policies of racial preference, particularly in the recruitment and retention of academics. I'll talk more about this in a subsequent post. In the meantime, the column is reproduced below.

Please subscribe to Malaysiakini if you haven't done so already!

Our education system: Time for radical change
Mohamed Zain | Apr 3, 08 1:31pm

It is quite obvious now that Malaysia is heading towards a two-party system. This is certainly good for the country. There will more checks and balances. The winning and ruling party cannot do things according to their whims and fancies without worrying about the possibility of losing the next election.

Thus, as the country is heading towards a political maturity some drastic changes in our education systems are called for and perhaps are becoming inevitable. It does not matter which of the two eventual political parties rules the country. But the changes that I would like to suggest here are for the benefit of the country.

It is imperative that in this era of globalization and the fact that we want to make Malaysia more competitive as well as to make it a regional educational hub for attracting foreign students, we need to improve the quality of our education so that it is comparable if not better than the best in Southeast Asia.

Let me start first with our school systems. The outputs of the schools are the inputs of the universities. Thus, if we want to produce good products the raw materials must be of good quality as well. Every citizen of the country must have access to education. Hence, it must be made mandatory that every child attends school at least up to the lower secondary level. Thus, the school
education in this country must be free for all. And it must be fee all the way up to the high school level.

Next, we need to have good and qualified teachers for our schools. Thus, most if not all the teachers, must have a bachelor’s degree in education. Those without a degree majoring in education need to also have a teaching credential such as the one-year diploma in education offered by some of the local universities.

Lately, we have heard a lot about the need for the country to have a meritocracy system. This can only happen if we have a level playing field for all our school children. Thus, if we are really serious about implementing such a system facilities of the rural schools must be comparable to those of the urban ones.

All schools – whether urban or rural-based - need to have, among others, good Internet access, instructional aides, library, sport, and other facilities.

While there is a need for us to have a common national language so that all our citizens can communicate with each other in our multi-ethnic country, it makes a lot of sense that our children are multi-lingual as well. The current situations that most Malays can speak Bahasa Malaysia and perhaps English, but most on-Malays can speak at least two and perhaps three or more languages.

Hence, this imbalance needs to be addressed. Malay students should be encouraged to learn Chinese or another local language as well. Once our students have the choice to choose their additional language (especially their mother-tongue) in addition to the national language in the national schools, then the need to have he separate Chinese and Tamil schools (vernacular schools) in the country will disappear.

The presence of these vernacular schools in the country goes against he spirit of national integration. Of course, the offering of other languages for our students must be based on demand and it must be cost effective. More third language teachers must also be trained.

Bringing back English

Later, I will talk about the need to reintroduce English as the medium of instructions in universities. Thus, to prepare for this, the teaching of the English Language in schools need to be upgraded so that when the students enter universities, they will not be handicapped. Hence, more English language teachers need to be trained in the country.

Last, but certainly not the least, we need to introduce a semester system in all ur schools. This system needs to be standardized and synchronized with those of the developed world. In other words, our schools should have fall, spring and summer semesters where most students will go to school during the fall and spring semesters and they will take a vacation during the summer semester.

During the summer the older children, particularly those in cities and towns can start learning to earn money by taking up part-time or short-term employments in such places as fast-food restaurants or shops in the shopping malls. Of course, the system needs to be synchronized with the university system as well, so that on graduation, they will not be idle too long while waiting to enter universities.

I will now talk about the required reforms for our universities.

Universities are excellent places for our country to train its citizens and future leaders in its efforts to fulfill the needs for skilled and knowledgeable human resources. University students are excellent change agents for the country. Thus, first and foremost we need to amend the Universities and Colleges ct of 1971 (UCA). The clauses that prohibit or restrict the independence of cademics and students must be removed.

There is also an urgent need for us to abolish the mandatory requirement for the employees to sign the ridiculous and silly “Akujanji”. University employees, particularly the academics, should not be made to obey the instructions of the overnment or political masters’ blindly. Instead, intellectual discourse should be encouraged because it can be a good source of creativity and innovation for the country.

Top and senior management are crucial to the success of any organizations. In the past, the appointments of university vice-chancellor and his/her deputies re made or at least required the approval of the minister.

This practice has not to stop because most appointments were based on the candidates’ political affiliations or inclinations rather on merits. Appointments of someone to these posts should be made based on the suitability and the capabilities of the candidates for the jobs. They should be made by a search committee instead.

Revise salaries

In a big company or a corporation the appointment of the chief executive officer is made by the board of directors. Therefore, the appointment of the vice-chancellor or the president of a university should be made by the board of regents or a similar body. Of
course, some of the members of the committee can be appointed by the minister.

Similarly, the appointment of deans can also be made via a search committee. Vacant positions for deans or even departmental chairs could also be advertised and relevant media such as newspapers or websites like the Chronicle of Higher Education to invite more capable candidates.

The salaries of academics should be revised. The current salaries for academics, articularly the starting salary for an assistant professor (someone with a PhD) s pathetically low and very unattractive and need to be increased to a level that is comparable to those in Singapore.

The salary scales of academics should also be different from those of other government servants. After all, the nature of their jobs and the required cademic qualifications are different. The current practice where the salaries or academics are decided by the Public Service Department officers always favour the civil servants, particularly the so-called PTD (administrative and diplomatic services) officers and not the academics.

Attractive salaries will not only attract the best candidates but it will also attract more top graduates to be interested in becoming academics by opting to become tutors after their first degree and to pursue their graduate degree leading to a PhD in their field. Otherwise, as the saying goes, “if you pay peanuts you get monkeys.”

Government should also set aside funds to enable our best graduates from universities who are interested in becoming tutors to get enough stipends and scholarships to carry out their graduate research at the research universities in the country. This will help the country save money by not having to send them to foreign universities.

Nevertheless, top graduates should also be sent to study abroad but they should only be limited to those who manage to secure laces in the top universities of the world or in those areas of expertise that are lacking in the country.

If we look at the list of academics in all our universities, we cannot help but otice that a substantial percentage if not the majority of them are holders of only a master’s degree instead of a PhD. This deficiency needs to be urgently ddressed. Once the salary scheme is revised appropriately, this problem can be overcome gradually as more top students will be interested in pursuing research which culminates in a PhD degree.

We should be aware that before anyone, especially a prospective foreign student, begins to apply for a place in a university, s/he will first visit the niversity’s website and among the first information they will seek is the list of academic staff of the prospective department where s/he plans to study.

Thus, well qualified teaching staff will attract more students. Hence, this should bode well towards making Malaysia an education hub for the region by attracting more foreign students from all over to enroll in our universities, particularly the private ones.

The academic ranking of positions in universities should also be standardized across all the universities in the country. It should be based on academic qualifications and experiences in teaching, research, and community work.

A person with a master’s degree should only be given a position of a lecturer. Those with a PhD should start as an assistant professor. As s/he gains more experience and produces more outputs in those three areas of work s/he can gradually climb the academic ladder to associate professor and eventually to the rank of a full professor.

The English language is now regarded as the international language. Just look at he availability of television networks across the world which broadcast free rograms in English via the satellites in their efforts to reach international udiences.

The major and common ones from among the countries whose native language is not English includes Al-Jazeera International (Qatar), DW TV Germany), Euronews (European Union), France 24, Russia Today, CCTV9 (China), and Arirang TV (Korea).

Thus, there is no doubt that our citizens now need to be proficient in English. And the best way to do just that is to revert the teaching of our students in our universities, especially in important fields of specializations such as business, economics, sciences, and engineering to English. After all, most of the text books in these fields are in English.

Here, I am assuming that our school children who graduated from high schools are lready proficient in our national language, in addition to one or two more of ther languages. We cannot compromise on this for the sake on peace and harmony n our country.

Malaysia needs to improve its competitiveness level in order to face the challenge of globalization and to remain relevant in this world. In this globalize world our citizens need to participate meaningfully in whatever international activities, be it business, economic, social, political, legal, or governmental. Thus, they must be proficient in English. Period.

Many universities in the Middle East and the Gulf Cooperation Council (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, and Bahrain) countries have already switched heir medium of instructions, especially for programs in business, economics, sciences, and engineering, from Arabic to English. It is not too late for us to do the same.

Exchange of academics

The current practice in the country of allowing private universities to offer academic programs in English while not allowing the government ones to do so is ot only discriminatory but it is also disadvantageous to those who graduate rom the government universities since they will be less conversant in English nd thus making them more difficult to find jobs in the industry where English is very much in use.

These graduates will depend more on the government for jobs. The current situation where there are many unemployed undergraduates is probably the result of this practice.

Last, but again certainly not the least, there is a need to for the country to introduce the semester system into our universities. Just as I proposed for our chool system above, our universities need to adopt a semester system as practiced by the universities in other countries. Most universities in other, particularly developed countries have a tri-semester system comprising Fall September-January), Spring (February-June), and Summer (June-August).

By having a standardized and synchronized system with other countries it will facilitate exchange of academics between our universities with their foreign counterparts. It will also enable foreign students to enter our universities ithout having to wait too long after they graduated from their high schools. This will again help promote making Malaysia as the education hub.

During the summer holiday, summer classes can be offered to those students who want to graduate faster and the academics who are willing to teach classes during that time can earn extra income. Those students who do not take summer classes can take part-time or short-term employments in the town and cities, just like the case for older school students mentioned above, giving them an
opportunity to earn and save some money before returning to their school.

Those are some suggestions which I would like to propose to the government in order make Malaysia a better and a more competitive country.

DR MOHAMED ZAIN, PhD is Professor of Technology and Strategic Management in the College of Business and Economics of Qatar University, Doha. He can be reached at mzain@qu.edu.qa or mzmohamed@yahoo.com.

Malaysian born US economist recruited as Penang advisor

Read this in the Star a few days ago. Dr Woo Wing Thye, currently at the Brookings Institution, a Washington DC based think tank, as well as a tenured economics professor at the University of California at Davis, has been recruited as a member of a new think tank set up by the DAP led Penang state government.

His CV is certainly impressive. He graduated from Swarthmore, a liberal arts college in Philadelphia, got an MA from Yale and then an MA and a PhD from Harvard. He's published numerous articles in peer review journals including a few articles with Jeffrey Sachs, someone which I've brought up a few times in this blog. He's also advised the US treasury, the IMF and the World Bank. Interesting, he was appointed as a member of the International Advisory Panel to the Prime Minister of Malaysia in 2005. Hopefully, he will play a complementary role to many of the other academics and specialists who are and will contribute their services to the new state government in Penang.

A friend of mine suggested that the new Penang state government hold a Penang 'diaspora' seminar / gathering for all those Penangites who have left the country but are now willing to contribute to building Penang up once again now that it is under opposition hands. My sense is that many of these individuals would have had concerns working for or with a BN led government because of the perception of corruption and human rights abuses often linked with the BN government. I certainly hope that many formerly disillusioned Penangites will step up to the plate and bring about positive changes to the 'Pearl of the Orient' state.

World Class Vice-Chancellor Needed for UM

Datuk Rafiah Salim was appointed as the vice-chancellor of Malaysia's premier university, Universiti Malaya for 2 years ago to replace the disgraced Kapten Datuk Professor Dr Hashim Yaacob, to reverse the rapidly failing standards and her contract ends this month.

While not many persons will dispute the fact that she was likely to have been a better vice-chancellor than her predecessor, her performance to date has been at best mediocre.

Under Datuk Rafiah's tenure:

• Universiti Malaya continued to decline in terms of global rankings by the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) dropping from 169th in 2005 before she took over, to 192nd in 2006 and 245th in 2007. The university remains unranked in the other respected Top 500 global universities ranking table compiled by Shanghai Jiaotung University.
  
  
• Instead of taking the necessary steps to rectify the declining quality, Datuk Rafiah chose to comfort Malaysians with the fact that UM was ranked 13th among nations belonging to the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC).
  
  
• She also hauled up a university academic after he wrote an article that criticised the nature in which the university student elections was held which appeared in a local daily last year. He was ‘advised’ by the vice-chancellor not to write on matters related to the university, clearly perpetuating the limited room for critical thought and constructive dissent within our academic institutions. Despite that, Datuk Rafiah had the temerity of suggesting that "public university students had the freedom to express their thoughts and ideas" at a student forum held in August last year.

Therefore, I call upon the new Minister of Higher Education, Datuk Khaled Nordin to take the all important step that no other ministers had the courage to do - open the search for a new vice-chancellor for Universiti Malaya, not only to all Malaysians, regardless of race or religion, but also for all qualified top academics around the world in order to revive the fortunes of our premier university.

The Higher Education Ministry needs to:

1. Establish the independence of the search and evaluation committee to ensure that the only criteria used for selection is the candidates' ability to improve the quality and standard of education at the relevant university, and not instead, the candidates' political links or connections.
   
   
2. The quality of the committee members should be improved over time with greater emphasis on prominent and high-achieving academics. There's no reason why foreign “world class” academics could not be appointed to identify quality academics with sufficient intellectual prowess and administrative experience to lead our local universities.
   
   
3. The shortlist of candidates should not be provided by the Ministry of Higher Education. We should not limit the candidates to civil servants who rose up the ranks or the deputy vice-chancellors who are part of the current malaise. The shortlist should instead be derived from the applications which are sourced from advertisements made globally in search for the best available candidate.

Only when a world-class academic cum administrator is selected to lead and given the free hand to reform and transform our universities, who won't be shackled by denial syndromes and political interference, then we can reverse the fortunes of the declining standards at our local institutions of higher learning.

And only when the standards of our institutions are raised, will we be able to provide the best quality education to our future generation, without which they will not be able to achieve their full potential. Correspondingly, Malaysia's ability to compete and progress in the competitive global environment would otherwise be impaired.

The end of Datuk Rafiah Salim's tenure provides the new Higher Education Minister the golden opportunity to execute what's best for Malaysia's future.

'SLAB'ed in the face

This letter in Malaysiakini caught my eye today. The issue highlighted is the implementation of the Skim Latihan Akademik Bumiputera (SLAB) in regards to the medical profession. The views of this person is not unique. Check out related pots here and here. We've discussed SLAB in this blog here and here as well. The main issue of contention here is that this scheme is unfair and rewards people who are not as qualified.

When I did a google blog search on this issue, I came across a view from the 'other side', so to speak and I want to share it our readers. This post , written after the recently concluded elections, argues that Malays in Malaysia who are supporters of PAS and PKR have benefited from the NEP in many aspects, whether they were connected to UMNO or not. These include entry into institutes of higher education, scholarships for overseas education and yes, the SLAB scheme.

His views are, in my opinion, factually correct. Many Malays have benefited from the NEP, regardless of whether they were BN supporters or not. Some BN supporters and leaders might have benefited in a more direct fashion (contracts and such) but many Malays, regardless of income, would have benefited from the many social policies enacted under the NEP.

What I found quite interesting is the fact that the author is this view from the 'other' side makes no mention of the costs associated with these kinds of policies which others have pointed out. For example, is there a sacrifice in quality as a result of sending less qualified Malays for some of these scholarships? Would Malaysia benefit more from having a more merit base system of apportioning these scholarships? These questions go unanswered in his post. Perhaps these are issues which he is not concerned about. As long as the Malays benefit disproportionately from these schemes, he is not concerned about the quality of these graduates.

A more refreshing view I found was this letter in Malaysiakini, written by a more progressive Malay. He argues that it would be ideal if Malaysia could move to a multi-racial society where all are considered equal but current circumstances prevent this from happening, at least for now. He thinks that a better solution would be a slow move towards more progressive and merit based policies while at the same time, preserving the rights of the Malays in the constitution.

I am sympathetic to this view even though I'm not sure how exactly something like this might be implemented. One possibility which I envision is the slow removal of quotas in schemes like SLAB such that it can converge to a more merit based system in a defined period of time. For example, instead of giving junior Malay doctors fast track to SLAB while more senior non Malay doctors need to fulfill 4 years of service before they are eligible, policymakers can slowly decrease the 4 years needed by non Malays to let's say 2 years and increase the experience requirement for Malay doctors to 2 years. And instead of having a 90 / 10 quota, this could be slowly reduced to one that was more proportionate to the population of doctors e.g. 60 / 40.

I don't have major problems with recognizing the rights of the Malays in our constitution. But at the same time, there should be greater flexibility in interpreting and determining how these rights are implemented, especially in the field of higher education, where quality and scholarship ability are more important than the race of a person.

In regards to these kinds of issues, I would phrase the question as such: Would you prefer to be operated on by a doctor who is more qualified or would you prefer to be operated on by a doctor who is of the same race as you but might be not as qualified? Or, would you prefer your children at the university to be taught by a professor who is more qualified or would you prefer your kids to be taught by a professor of the same race who is less qualified?

I hope that the answer is obvious to most rational people.