Nottingham Extravaganza

In conjunction with the just concluded "Nottingham Games", our most senior officials in charge of Education spent a couple of days deliberating educational issues with Malaysian students in the United Kingdom (UK).

The Nottingham Games is billed as the largest Malaysian sporting event in the UK, this year’s game was the biggest so far involving more than 7,000 Malaysian students from 70 universities across UK.

What was interesting however, was the extensive nature of the dialogue, presentations and discussions with the Malaysian students. For a start, the panelists included:

• Dato Mustapa Mohammed, our Minister of Higher Education
• Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, our Minister of Education
• Dato’ Dr. Sharifah Hapsah Syed Hassan Shahabudin, Vice-Chancellor, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
• Prof. Dato’ Dr. Dzulkifli Abdul Razak Naib Canselor, Universiti Sains Malaysia
• Dato' Dr. Salleh bin Hassan, Education Planning & Research Division Deputy Director, MOE
• Pn Hajah Noor Rezan Bapoo Hashim, School Division Director, MOE
• Dr Habibah Abdul Rahim, Education Planning & Research Division Deputy Director, MOE
• Dr. Mohd. Padhil bin Hashim, Planning & Research Division, MOHE

I for one, would applaud the Ministries for having these dialogue sessions with Malaysian students although I must say that I'm a little taken aback by the number of top guns making the trip to the UK.

I would also not comment on the potential outcome of the dialogue and exchange which you can read in here, here or here.

What I would love to have happen however, is for the respective Ministries to hold such functions here. I'm certain that there will be plenty like me, who wouldn't hesitate to write papers, present and attend such dialogues if held in the country, not out of it.

Ethical Limits to College Advertising?

No, I'm not attempting any plugs here. ;p

My wife spends approximately 2 hours a week conducting Law classes for students reading business administration at a local private college. It's not one of the more established ones, but neither is it an unknown institute. [What to do, the hubby might not be gainfully employed at some point in time in the future, hence got to find supplemental income for the family ;p]

She has been teaching for only approximately 2 months or so. But it appears that the private college has absolutely no ethical qualms about milking the fact that an Oxford graduate is teaching there. Apparently, they intend to run advertisements promoting the college to such effect.

Goodness! She's not even a permanent lecturer there, she's not teaching at a premium rate and not to mention the fact that she has yet to be paid for her classes to date. And the subject she is teaching is only an elective subject for the relevant degree programme.

I've always complained about the local private colleges stretching the ethical limits (for example, here and here) of marketing themselves and their educational programmes. Can it be stretched any further?

Money for Easier Access?

Here's an interesting piece of news published in the Financial Times yesterday.

Students from a little known Saudi university are to be helped into Oxford colleges as part of a deal involving a £2m gift from the kingdom's defence minister.

In documents seen by the Financial Times, the university formally thanks Prince Sultan Bin Abdul Aziz for "his munificent benefaction to the Ashmolean Museum" and outlines arrangements for bringing students from Prince Sultan University in Riyadh to Oxford.

In the memorandum of understanding, Oxford promises to "endeavour to identify four to six colleges with resources and expertise" for visiting students from Prince Sultan University. It will also "seek to expedite the application process".

Apparently, this has infuriated senior members of the university who want "to see a clear separation of Oxford's academic mission from its fundraising activities."

Peter Oppenheimer, a senior academic at Christ Church College, said: "Prince Sultan [University] is not Princeton. Of all the thousands of universities in the world, why are we having a special relationship with a second-rate university? It is hard not to conclude that a foreign university have bought their way in."

Although the university insists that "[t]he document states that students will have to satisfy the admissions criteria in the same way as any other student", there appears to be obvious concerns to the integrity of the entire process.

Anyone sees the potential similarities to the alleged RM500 million "donation" to Cambridge University by our very own Government? Will it raise an equally damaging furore whereby our universities get labelled "second-rate", or worse?

Yang di-Pertuan Agong Scholarships

I've not heard of this scholarship before and was surprised when it was featured in today's NST but I'm glad that these 10 receipients are able to go overseas to pursue a post-graduate degree. It seems that this is part of an overall trend where more and more scholarships are being provided by different bodies (both public and private) for talented Malaysians to go overseas to pursue their post-graduate studies. I hope that this trend will continue.

The NST report only said that 5 of these recipients were pursing Masters degrees while the other 5 were purusing PhDs, all in the field of science and / or technology of their choice. It didn't list down where every individual was heading to with the exception of these two individuals: Nik Noor Jehan Nik Mokhtar, 22, who is heading to Oxford and Yee Wen Huei, 24, had chosen to pursue his Masters in Automotive Engineering in Michigan University, United States. These 10 were selected out of a pool of 283 applicants.

It is interesting to contrast this scholarship with those offered by the JPA. I suspect that all (or almost all) of the 283 applicants were applying to or had already applied to specific universities for specific courses before applying to this Yang di-Pertuan Agong scholarship. Tony has argued, quite convincing, that the JPA should only offer scholarships to individuals at the STPM or college level and not at the SPM level and furthermore, that the JPA should offer scholarships only to those who have offers from established universities. I think that this is a much better use of resources and incentives and it should certainly by applied at the post-graduate level.

I'm sure that part of the selection criteria for this Agong scholarship included whether the applicant already had a firm offer to a graduate program overseas and whether these programs belonged to well known universities (or universities with established programs). This immediately weeds out those people who are just 'thinking' of pursuing a post graduate degree but have not taken the necessary steps like researching different programs, taking the necessary graduate exams (GRE, GMAT, etc...), and applying to their universities of choice.

Of course, we cannot be sure of what the exact selection criteria of this scholarship is and whether all the recipients were headed to established schools or programs, without more information but I'm fairly confident that the individuals chosen are highly motivated and talented and are serious about their post-graduate studies.

It is also interesting to note that they are not 'bonded' to any organization but are only required to come back to work in Malaysia, whether it is the public or the private sector. I think this is a very open minded policy but I also hope that there will be some punitive financial measures associated with not coming back to Malaysia (like paying back a substantial portion of the scholarship upon deciding not to come back). After all, if we have the carrot, we also need to have the stick.

Good luck to this pioneering batch of Yang di-Pertuan Agong Scholars and may they do themselves, their family and their country proud!

"Schools of the Future"

Til today, Malaysia is still foundering over the establishment of smart schools, a concept which was born during the dot-com boom in the late 1990s. With the exception of setting up schools with computers and multimedia projectors, the current "smart school" definition used by the current Minister of Education, there doesn't seem to be any coherent plan to bring technology into the actual education curriculum.

A one-day trip down south today, an article the Singapore Straits Times gives a little clue as to how far we have fallen behind in terms of leveraging and embracing technology in education.

Tour a safari park, touch a lion's mane and watch nervously as a rhino makes ready to charge - all without leaving the school grounds. These are some of the things which students will be able to experience in "virtual labs" soon.

Virtual reality goggls and gloves are likely to be standard fare in a drive by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) to develop 15 "schools of the future".... This will fit in with IDA's Intelligent Nation 2015, a 10-year plan to increase the use of innovative infocomm technology.

Schools in Malaysia which are modelled pretty much on a top down approach - where the Ministry of Education directs and the schools feebly comply. This is despite the "yet-to-be-seen" 300 cluster of excellent schools policy devised by Datuk Hishammuddin Hussein. On the other hand, schools in Singapore, which are often given a large degree of independence, partly due to very competent school administrators, are instead requested to submit concept proposals by January on what they hope to do with infocomm technology in their schools. For example:

At Crescent Girls' [School] in Tanglin Road, the entire school is covered by wireless broadband network. And most Secondary 1 to 3 students have their own tablet PCs which they use during lessons... Crescent Girls' which is aiming to be among the IDA's 15 benchmark schools, will prepare a proposal by this month.

And I must say, unlike the Malaysian counterparts which define "success" as hard infrastructure set up, the educators recognises the importance actually "preparing students for the 21st century workplace". The IT department head of Crescent Girls', Mr Lee Boon Keng stated that:

"It's not about simply coming up with high-tech gadgets and infrastructure all over the school, but about how to prepare students for an environment dominated by technology and information."

This is coming from a schools' head of IT, who clearly know his priorities. I wish the senior officials in our Ministry of Education will even have an idea of what it takes to be our schools of the future, beyond purchase of computers and multimedia projectors.

It's the language, "stupid"

Not meaning to offend anyone, the above is a spin-off of the much quoted "It's the economy, stupid", an often used phrase during elections in the US. A reader, by the name of Kal, sent me this link to a short Edge interview with Piyush Gupta, the current CEO of Citibank / Citigroup Malaysia (at least I think that's who the journalist is interviewing). No great insights but worth comments worth repeating since he is the country head of a major banking group and his comments on Malaysia is likely to carry beyond our shores, now and also in the future.

His main take on the reason as to why some graduates find it difficult to find employment in the financial services in Malaysia:

The single biggest issue that the financial services industry has with graduates is language. The lack of English-language skills is a big impediment. If you find me a graduate who speaks English well, it is very easy to take him in and do the training in the banking context. We can find people with the thinking pro-cess, that's not really a problem, but language skills are a huge issue

His take on the disparity between local and foreign graduates:

There is, but a large part of the disparity is driven by language. Language refers not only to communications but also to confidence. The big difference is that graduates who come back from overseas are just that much more confident because they interact easily in the language and they don't have a problem communicating and speaking. As for local graduates, if you see them through the analytical thinking process — and I've done this — they stack up. But if you think of them as a performer in terms of being able to deliver, lead and manage people, they can't stack up. So, it is not an IQ [intelligence quotient] deficiency, it is an EQ [emotional quotient] issue.

I found it interesting that he referred to language ability in a more holistic manner - to include confidence, leadership and EQ.

Finally, his take on soft skills:

Aside from language skills, the other thing is the ability to weave a lot more professional development into academia. While I think that a general degree is good and broad, if you can overlay that with professional development like presentation and negotiation skills, it would definitely create a far more employable person.

Personally, I think this is an area which the US system really excels at. You're encouraged to speak out and present your ideas (even when they are not very good). At the graduate level, I'm amazed at the number of opportunities in which graduate students get to present their work to each other and to faculty in a setting which encourages debate, discussion and criticism. I'll be amazed if I can find a similar kind of intellectual atmosphere among graduate students in Malaysia or other parts of Asia for that matter.

So the conclusion to the matter? That our policies to teach English in our local universities (and before that) is leading to a dichotomy in employability between foreign and local grads.

I'll probably write a more extensive post on this issue later but for now the thoughts and insights of Mr. Gupta will suffice.

Caveat: Citibank employs many of its management staff from top universities in the UK, US and Australia so I would imagine that the quality of recruits would be better than the average foreign grad.

Private Higher Education Roundtable

Astro AEC (亚洲娱乐台) will be organising a roundtable on the future development of Malaysian Private Higher Education. I've been invited by the producers to be part of the panel, which includes Dato' Peter Ng, President and Vice-Chancellor of Universiti College Sedaya International and Tan Yew Sing, President and Founder of Inti College International. The programme is expected to be recorded early next week, but I'm not yet sure when it will be aired.

Based on an outline given by the producers, we are expected to discuss several issues relating to Malaysia's private higher education system. They include:

• Given the unimpeded growth of private higher education in Malaysia over the past decade or so, has it since slowed in recent years?
  
  
• What are the biggest issues and challenges facing the local private universities and university colleges?
  
  
• Are there any attempts to attract Malaysian academics located overseas to return to the local education sector?
  
  
• Who are our major competitors in attracting foreign students? Which are the key factors affecting competition? Are we able to attract top students overseas?
  
  
• In which aspects do we need to improve ourselves further to attract more foreign students? Which are the countries we are targetting to increase our intake?
  
  
• Renown institutions, such as London School of Economics (LSE) have recently set up branch campuses in China. Will this trend affect the performance of the Malaysian institutions in China?
  
  
• Due possibly to the intense internal and external competition amongst private education institutions in Malaysia, will we be seeing a trend towards sector consolidation through mergers and acquisitions?
  
  
• How do you view the future of Malaysia's private higher education sector?

I'm not sure if the above topics are of interest to you out there or whether there should be other more pertinent issues raised and discussed during the roundtable.

I do know that many of you readers out there are either academics or students within these private universities and colleges. Any feedback you can provide me will certainly help me build a stronger case in my arguments. For example, I've heard recently that one of the local prominent university colleges has been employing many expatriate Indian lecturers, who are either incompetent or speaks unintelligible English (to us anyway) which results in poor delivery of courses.

Thanks for the assist, will let you guys know when the programme does get aired :).

Interesting Jots by Josh

Josh Hong has been a Malaysiakini columnist for some time now as well as an activist in Malaysia and a good friend of mine. His recent column in Malaysiakini on education had some interesting points on the state of higher education in Malaysia which I thought are worthwile to highlight here.

First of all, he reminds us of the dangers of 'playing up' one's ranking in the THES when it is favorable and raising doubt about the same ranking's methodology when one's own position is in freefall.

"After all, there were no grumbling voices when UM was erroneously placed at 89 in the THES global rankings two years back, a mistake that THES readily admitted later. Instead, self-congratulatory banners were everywhere in the campus. I now wonder where have all the banners gone. Anyone can see we are a lousy loser."

He also points to some of the weaknesses in the THES rankings, which in my opinion are quite valid.

"The THES global rankings is not without its problems. For instance, among the top 200 universities, those from the English-speaking countries make up 105 (excluding the French-speaking Université de MontréalUniversity of Canada), a result of the fact that the survey draws heavily from universities and institutes that use English as research language."

"Philip Campbell, editor-in-chief of Nature, UK’s authoritative science weekly, once remarked that the best research in Germany takes place outside of university system, such as the science-based Max Planck Institutes, and the majority of the research reports are only available in German, a core reason why only a handful of German universities are considered for world rankings of any kind."

But even the normally staid Germans are reacting to global trends in higher education, as pointed out in this article sent to me by Charis Quay, a physics doctorate student in Stanford.

Josh also brings in his own UK experience (he was a Chevening Masters student in SOAS, if memory serves) by showing the difficulty of comparing SOAS with Imperial College.

"And one will find if difficult to understand why the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), a purely arts-based college, and the Imperial College, a world-renowned science and technology institute, have both made it to the top 200 list despite that they are poles apart on their fields of specialty. Perhaps a faculty-to-faculty comparison would be a more scientific and reliable methodology in this regard."

But it's some of his insights in regards to proposals to improve Malaysia's own higher education system that drew my attention. He points out, for example, that meritocracy is not the panacea that many think that it is:

"Meritocracy is a noble idea, but far from a panacea nonetheless. Otherwise we cannot explain why thousands of universities worldwide that recruit students on meritocratic basis are still facing the daunting task of narrowing the vast discrepancies in performance vis a vis Yale, Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford etc.."

Certainly, meritocracy by itself cannot solve the woes of higher education in Malaysia, whether one is refering to meritocracy in terms of hiring and promotion practices among lecturers or in terms of entry requirements into out local universities. Other issues such as funding, salaries, research budgets, creating a research based environment and providing the necessary incentives, political interference (or the lack thereof) are important as well. But certainly, one would not argue against the implementation of more meritocratic practices in Malaysian universities as a first step (or one of the first steps) towards improving our universities. It would certainly make it more attractive for good Malaysian researchers who are trained overseas to come back to our local universities as well as to retain good lecturers who are currently teaching in our local universities.

(Incidentally, the idea that the top universities in the US and the UK practice absolute meritocracy is a myth. Sometimes family lineage, ability for parents to make generous donations, minority considerations (read: African American and Hispanic), all count to different extents. The UK government also makes it a point to force Oxford and Cambridge to fulfill a certain 'quota' of students who are from a working class background)

Josh also 'half-rightly' points out that the lack of research in public universities are not directly connected to racial policies:

"Furthermore, the lack of research interest at tertiary level in this country has little to do with the currently raced-based quota system. One only has to look at the private colleges and institutes that have mushroomed over the last two decades. Free of the curse of the quota system they may be, their interest in academic research is anything but desirable. Many see them as a fast-track to career success rather than a place in which they can devote themselves to lifelong knowledge conservation, development and research."

Josh is absolutely right to call out the lack of a research culture among our private institutions of higher learning. The profit motive reigns supreme there. I say only 'half-right' because I think that there is potential for 3 or 4 good private research universities to develop (with the proper incentives and leadership) out of the current crop which we have (MMU is probably the leading example). I also only say 'half-right' because for those academics who don't see an administrative path for career advancement for whatever reasons (racial policies, differences of political opinion), they usually have to resort to taking a more research based path to 'force the hand' of the administration to promote them (read: Terence Gomez, Mustafa Anuar, KS Jomo, Zaharom Nain, Franis Loh, Azmi Sharom, P Ramasamy).

Finally, he points to the mentality of those who run the universities and their political bosses as a major stumbling block towards improving higher education in our country:

"The crux of the problem in Malaysia’s higher education lies in the fact that the government simply does not know why and whom is it for. Typical of a development-minded politician in other third-world countries, our government officials only want the universities to serve the development agenda of the nation and to pursue economic returns at all costs."

I think that the government and certainly, the current Minister of Higher Education, Tok Pa, realizes that the current status quo in our public universities cannot go on. He wants to see substantive change in the system but is also constrained by political realities.

It's encouraging to know there are many others out there like Josh and some of our readers who share similar thoughts as myself and Tony in regards to the state of higher education in Malaysia. It's also encouraging that people like Josh have good and valuable insights to contribute to this important debate. If only some of the policymakers will sit up and take note.

"Rempitized" Education System

With the attraction that Mat Rempits are attracting in our local media and politicians today, it was quite interesting when Dr Azly Rahman wrote in his column in Malaysiakini of a "rempitised" education system.

Dr Azly offered a fairly complex definition of "rempitise", and it's application to economic and education systems:

Rempitism (noun; also concept and ideology borrow from the neo-Malay word rempit) - a Malaysian phenomenon in which youth uses the public road system to break the speed limit with customised motorbikes in illegal, past-midnight drag-races that rob the restful sleep of peaceful citizens; a phenomena akin to a capitalist economy of a struggling showcasing Third World nation such a Malaysia that hypermodernises beyond the ability of its people to cope with its sensationalised designs of ‘economic miracles’.

A ‘rempitised’ economic and education system ‘rams’ human beings into different ‘pits’ (hence the term ‘rempit’) of the conveyer belt of the capitalist production system; creating what looks like a natural progression of meritocracy in education and social evolution. The foundation of this system is neo-colonialism, structural violence and the alienation of labour.

I wouldn't claim to fully comprehend the above definitions, so I'll provide my own lay man understanding of it. We currently have a declining and clearly inadequate education system at all levels from primary to tertiary levels, as demonstrated by the illiteracy levels as well as the poor performance of our universities in all global rankings. At the same time, for the purposes of political expediency, akin to the egos of the Mat Rempits, we would still like to be seen as "world class". Hence, to rempitise our education system is akin to the haphazard attempts to adopt modern and progressive-like Wesern attributes in a almost reckless manner, without fully contemplating the consequences for themselves, the public and the country's future.

What however, I thought was an extremely key question asked was "Do we have people in the education ministry well versed enough in analysing the phenomenon of our rempitised economy (speeding it up illegally) and how this is directly related to how we are ‘schooling’ our society?"

...how do we deal with the leadership of the public education system? We need to start by selecting only those who are well-versed in the entire spectrum of education.

We have ministers, educational experts, specialists and educational representatives who either have minimal classroom experience or none at all - let alone have much-needed knowledge in the history, theory, post-structurality and possibilities of education.

We place them in this ministry based on political considerations. They mess things up and show their inability to understand where our youth are heading, or how to design an education system good enough to reflect the dream we have - a dream of a just, equitable, environmentally sustainable, intellectual and ethical society.

We are more concerned with having our students and teachers pledge blind loyalty to the signs and symbols of power; one-dimensional thinking; and politically correct behaviour instead of developing, celebrating and further grooming good teachers who can radicalise the minds of the youth of tomorrow... We do this against the backdrop of our speeded-up, hypermodernised economy - one we rempitised in the name of the New Economic Policy.

The question for us now is: how do we de-rempitise our society?

How do we do that indeed.

Elitism in Singapore

Heh heh. I was flayed by some in my earlier post on "The Singaporean Graduate" - for example, "This is one of the lousiest post I have read on your blog Tony." Well, here's a bit more of the same, on the type of graduates Singapore seems to be producing.

But before I proceed and get myself flamed again as making "sweeping statements", please note that this is a commentary on increasing significant trends. It is not however an observation that all or even a majority of Singaporean students or graduates are described as follows.

I was in Singapore for a couple of days over the end of last week for my company's board meeting (possibly one of my last ;p) and other business matters (hence the lack of posts). One of the biggest furores playing out in the local section of The Straits Times was a blog entry by the daughter of one of Singapore's newest Member of Parliament, Wee Siew Kim. Mr Wee is part of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's Group Representation Constituency (GRC) team in Ang Mo Kio. I can't make any online references to the articles because the Singapore press isn't free, but I'll try to outline the background here.

It all started when Ms Wee Shu Min, an 18 year old Raffles Junior College student (yes, that's both Kian Ming's and my alma mater), responded to a post by a Mr Derek Wee (unrelated to Ms Wee) on "The Future of Singapore". Mr Derek Wee was lamenting the fact the ultra competitive society in Singapore whereby you are regarded as "over the hill" once above the age of 40.

Taxi drivers are fast becoming “too early to retire, too old to work” segment of the society. I like to talk to taxi drivers whenever I am heading for the airport. There was this driver. Eloquent and well read. He was an export manager for 12 years with an MNC. Retrenched at 40 years old. He had been searching for a job since his retrenchment. Although he was willing to lower his pay expectations, employers were not willing to lower their prejudice. He was deem too old. I wouldn’t be surprised if we have another No. 1; having the most highly educated taxi drivers in the world.

Derek Wee's post might just have been lost in a sea of many such posts abound in Singapore's blogosphere, if not for a vicious and callous blog response by Ms Wee on her blog, which has since been shut down. Here are some excerpts of her blogpost, thanks to Singapore Election Watch.

mom's friend sent her some blog post by some bleeding stupid 40-year old singaporean called derek wee (WHY do all the idiots have my surname why?!) whining about how singapore is such an insecure place, how old ppl (ie, 40 and above) fear for their jobs, how the pool of foreign "talent" (dismissively chucked between inverted commas) is really a tsunami that will consume us all (no actually he didn't say that, he probably said Fouren Talern Bery Bad.), how the reason why no one wants kids is that they're a liability in this world of fragile ricebowls, how the government really needs to save us from inevitable doom but they aren't because they are stick-shoved-up-ass elites who have no idea how the world works, yadayadayadayada.

i am inclined - too much, perhaps - to dismiss such people as crackpots. stupid crackpots. the sadder class. too often singaporeans - both the neighborhood poor and the red-taloned socialites - kid themselves into believing that our society, like most others, is compartmentalized by breeding. ridiculous. we are a tyranny of the capable and the clever, and the only other class is the complement...

...dear derek is one of many wretched, undermotivated, overassuming leeches in our country, and in this world. one of those who would prefer to be unemployed and wax lyrical about how his myriad talents are being abandoned for the foreigner's, instead of earning a decent, stable living as a sales assistant. it's not even about being a road sweeper. these shitbags don't want anything without "manager" and a name card.

please, get out of my elite uncaring face.

Shocking? You've got it. But it certainly is a way for an 18 year old to gain national prominence, and possibly cost your parent a stillborn political career.

In an initial statement to the press, in response to the fierce criticisms received by his daughter, he offered his qualified apology a la Lee Kuan Yew.

What she said did come across as insensitive. The language was stronger than what most people could take. But she wrote in a private blog and I feel that her privacy has been violated. After all, they were the rantings of an 18-year-old among friends.

I think if you cut through the insensitivity of the language, her basic point is reasonable, that is, that a well-educated university graduate who works for a multinational company should not be bemoaning about the Government and get on with the challenges in life.

Nonetheless, I have counselled her to learn from it. Some people cannot take the brutal truth and that sort of language, so she ought to learn from it.

Now if that isn't condescending, then I don't know what is. The apology that wasn't led to an even bigger furore amongst Netizens. "Wee Shu Min" topped Technorati for a couple of days, equalling the feat achieved by several other Singaporean girls for equally infamous incidents. It led to a second apology two days later, probably under instructions from his political masters, which essentially took back what he said in his first "apology".

I am sorry that my statements carried in The Straits Times of Oct 24 offended some readers. I should not have said what I did about people’s inability to take the brutal truth and strong language.

I have also counselled my daughter Shu Min. She is fully aware and remorseful over her tone, insensitivity and lack of empathy. I have advised her to learn from this.

We both apologise to the people whom we have offended, and especially Mr Derek Wee.

That, in brief is the long and short of the entire saga. Without going into the political impact on Singapore's society (you can read that here) as that isn't the objective of this blog, it tells a little about the education system in Singapore, particularly in relation to children belonging to the upper middle class.

Ms Wee is a scholar (10 A’s in O-level, strong bilingual, French), the sort that is "earmarked for an easy road to high office". Clearly, the Singapore education system is able to produce top academic scholars who are intelligent and eloquent. However, it is quite clear that the system's ability in inculcating the emphathy for the plight of the less fortunate, humility, a sense of social responsibility, obligation and community spirit is left desperately wanting. It is all the more disappointing that it is the more intelligent (yes, from Ms Wee's blogpost, you can tell that she has some brain matter in between her temples) and likely future leaders of Singapore, who are proving the system's shortcomings.

Some will place blame on an "elitist" education system. I beg to differ. I believe that an "elitist" education system, in the attempt to provide the best education to the minds and brains for the country is not mutually independent from a caring and compassionate society. This means that an "elitist" education, with all its supposed negative connotations, does not necessitate an elitist "class" mentality. I'd like to think that I was educated in the top schools in Singapore, and subsequently at a top school in the United Kingdom, without them making me a heartless bourgeois. In fact, I believe that a elitist education coupled with the right balance of moral upbringing (both at home and in school) will make a person better equipped to make more fruitful contributions to society in subsequent years.

In 16 years' time, should my Xin Ying grow up and write like Ms Wee, please do not hesitate to tell me in the face that I have failed miserably as a parent. I will definitely retire from whatever I am doing at that point in time and probably spend a couple of months in a monastery to serve my penance. This is my personal opinion obviously, but I believe the real failure here is Mr Wee Siew Kim.

Primary School Enrollment Drops

In the midst of all the debate regarding higher education in Malaysia, we musn't forget that other aspects of educational policy are important as well. This recent report in the Star caught my attention. It referred to the "Education For All (EFA) Global Monitoring Report 2007" issued by UNESCO which noted that 'Malaysia lost ground in its primary education enrolment during the period under report, falling from 98% in 1999 to 93% by 2004'.

I've always assumed that Malaysia had achieved 100% (or almost 100%) primary school enrollment rate for quite some time. The fact that this % has dropped to 93% is certainly worrying.

According to the EFA monitoring team's policy analyst Dr Nicole Bella, 'She said this could be attributed to the increase in the number of children of school-going age, as the total enrolled in primary education nationwide had remained the same, at about three million.' In other words, the number of children attending primary school has not changed by much but the number of children of primary school going age has increased.

It highly likely that the drop in primary scholl enrollment is due to children from marginalised families not attending school. Indeed, the report cites as much - 'In Malaysia’s case, it cites the difficulty of attracting and retaining marginalised children as a reason for the high number not reaching the last primary grade or moving on to secondary school.'

But my question is this - if 'at risk' or 'marginalized' children were attending primary schools previously (when enrollment was at 98% or higher), why are less of them attending primary school now? Have there been changes to the economic condition of marginalized families which have forced parents to take their children out from the primary school system? Are these marginalized children more likely to be from immigrant families who don't have the same expectations of sending their children to attend primary school as other Malaysians do?

Although not discussed often in this blog, the statistics for drop out rates after Primary Six and after Form 3 are pretty scary especially for a country that has aspirations to become a fully developed nation by 2020.

A consequence of this will be a growing section of an 'underclass' which will be denied ample employment opportunities and might be forced into illegal activities such as crime and drugs.

There are no simple, clear cut solutions to this complex problem but a good start would be to identify the symptoms and causes of why such a phenomenon is occuring and why it is becoming more serious.

A World-Class Research University for Malaysia

Ong Shien Jin and Charis Quay Huei Li are doctoral students at Harvard University and Stanford University respectively. This article was originally submitted to the New Straits Times and The Star on 7 October 2004 as a Letter to the Editor, but was not published in either paper. I think that they raise excellent points in this article and that it was a pity that either paper didn't publish their letter. We've gotten permission from the authors to post their letter on this blog. Note that this was written in 2004 and that recent developments in the education scene in Malaysia may have changed the opinion of the authors on this issue. Enjoy the read!

We applaud the Prime Minister's recent announcement of the government's intention to make conditions in Malaysia conducive to research and development efforts and thus to attract home Malaysian scientists and researchers abroad. Malaysia has industrialised rapidly over the past few decades, but she cannot rely on manufacturing forever; therefore, this move to strengthen R&D is timely.

The 'brain drain' of the most talented Malaysians to other countries is no accident. The failure of our universities to attract and retain the best talent stems from the following factors.

First, the salary offered to lecturers is not competitive. A junior professor's salary at US research universities start at about RM20,000 a month. [1] Factoring in the difference in cost of living, this figure is equivalent to almost RM9,000 in Malaysia, much higher than the RM3,000 currently offered to starting lecturers. [2]

Second, there is inadequate research funding available. The setting up of IRPA (Intensification of Research in Priority Areas) under the 7th Malaysia Plan (1995-2000) was a step in the right direction, but the yearly average of around RM100 million allocated for R&D is not enough to be globally competitive. [3] Countries like the United States and Japan that have benefited significantly from R&D spend billions of dollars a year on research. [4-10]

Third, there is too little emphasis on research. Local university staff teach up to twenty in-class hours a week and do much of their own marking. This leaves little time to do research. By way of contrast, science department staff at US research universities usually teach three in-class hours a week, with some junior staff given a lighter teaching load to enable them to concentrate on research. In addition, almost all the marking and tutorials are conducted by postgraduate teaching assistants.

Fourth, the Malaysian research community does not have a critical mass of researchers and is not integrated into the global community. These factors are vitally important given the increasingly collaborative nature of scientific research. In the simplest case, this occurs in the form of sharing expensive equipment which no research group could afford by themselves. [11] It has also become increasingly common for new technological developments to require the expertise of researchers from more than one field, often from more than one country and across the industry/academia divide. [12] In addition, few researchers have achieved major breakthroughs without intellectual input from friends and colleagues.

Finally, recognition of talent is lacking. Almost all university lecturers are guaranteed lifetime employment regardless of performance. Furthermore, to our best of knowledge, job performance, namely performance in research and teaching, is often not the main criterion for promotions and for the awarding of research funding.
Transforming all the universities in Malaysia into world-class research institutions is both extremely difficult and requires enormous amounts of money. We therefore propose, as an initial step forward, that the government focus its efforts on developing a single world-class research university.

A single world-class research university is far better than multiple mediocre universities. It will be able to contribute to the bulk of the nation’s R&D effort and lead Malaysia into becoming a developed nation. For instance, it is the few top universities in the United States that have made the most of the breakthroughs in research, thus enabling the United States to be the world leader in science and technology. In contrast, Europe's egalitarian funding policies have been cited as a contributing factor to their comparatively weak R&D sector. [13]

What do we envision for this world-class research university?

A world-class university needs world-class professors. In this regard, we should not only focus our efforts on attracting talented Malaysian researchers abroad, but also on brilliant researchers of other nationalities. Most expatriates love living in Malaysia, but unfortunately this fact is not well-known. Also, as our PM has noted, other countries have been tirelessly recruiting Malaysian students at top universities worldwide. Their recruiting agencies employ various techniques, e.g. having information on government initiatives readily available on well-designed websites, offering to meet with prospects, wining and dining them at receptions graced by high-ranking officials, and placing advertisements in alumni magazines and publications of professional societies. Some of these tactics are perhaps extravagant and unnecessary, but we would do well to discern and adopt the practical and efficient ones.

In light of the importance of connections and collaboration in scientific research, the initial-stage hiring should focus more on established researchers than on freshly-minted PhDs. Many countries that have recently built up their R&D sector have done precisely this. Notable examples include Nobel laureate Yang Chen Ning's return to Taiwan and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology's recent recruitment of Robert Laughlin from Stanford, also a Nobel laureate. [14, 15]
In order for the first-class brains to go about their work, this world-class university needs significantly more research funding. Basic research should be the major focus, because most significant scientific progress relies on basic research.

In addition, while salary is not the utmost concern for many researchers, most talented people would like to be fairly compensated according to prevailing market rates. It is unrealistic to expect a world-class professor to relocate to Malaysia if he or she is being compensated much less than he or she would be overseas.
Furthermore, promotion and distribution of research funding need to be fair and transparent. Our public universities are entrenched in the procedures of the Civil Service, which are unsuitable for research universities. One of the more obvious problems is the concentration of the power to promote or deny promotion in the hands of one or two of a civil servant's direct superiors. This leads, among other things, to the non-promotion of capable people who are perceived as threats to their superiors' positions.

We therefore propose that our world-class university adopt world-class hiring and promotion procedures. We are most familiar with the US system, where promising young people are hired as junior faculty and given 6 to 8 years to prove themselves. After that period of time, they are subject to external peer review and only the outstanding professors who have done world-class research are retained. [16, 17] While this system works well in the US, applying it to our universities immediately suggests many practical difficulties. We strongly urge the government to study hiring and funding practices at research powerhouses in Europe, the Commonwealth and Asia.

Running a world-class university is a costly venture, but it is nonetheless worthy of a long-term national investment.

It is necessary for the government to provide the initial funding but when the university is successful, contributions from private companies and alumni could supplement a significant portion of the required expenses. In fact, this is the case with many top US universities, such as MIT and Stanford University, where private industry funding increased significantly after these universities proved to be capable of supplying valuable knowledge to the private sector.

We expect the 21st century to be an era where rapid advancements in the sciences will result in unprecedented improvements in living standards. Advanced scientific knowledge will be highly valuable and nations that invest in this scientific revolution will gain significant a advantage over those that are reluctant to do so.

Note: references for this article have not been included.

Quality of Postgraduates

Kian Ming wrote on the additional grants to our four of our leading universities to promote research, development and postgraduate studies as well as the implications of more postgraduates at Universiti Malaya (UM). It has obviously stirred some interest (I can only say that many of you are actually related to the academia in one way or another), so I thought I'll add my two sen here, particularly with regards to some comments made on the post.

I'd just like to comment on the quality of the postgraduate students who has made applications to positions within my company. My recruitment advertisements are usually for fresh graduates, but I do receive the occasional postgraduates applying for the positions. They do not however, receive any preferential treatment over the typical fresh graduates. Before I proceed with my two sen, I do want to emphasize that my experience is pretty much anecdotal and I've not done a thorough study which will prove or "rubbish" the findings :)

I find the quality of the local postgraduate programmes extremely unreliable. I'm not familiar with the local postgraduate quality control and entry requirements, but the impression I get is that they are either absent or very low. When I review the results obtained by the postgraduates, there usually is a huge disparity between the results obtained from the Masters and their undergraduate studies.

As an example, I will get a candidate who received a CGPA of 2.6 for their undergraduate studies, receiving a score of 3.7 a year later for their Masters. And I get these cases pretty often. I find the disparity in results just unbelievable. It almost appears as if, the Masters programmes are tailored specifically for students who did poorly for the undergraduate programmes to achieve a better score for themselves!

Hence my concern with the idea that the local research universities seek to substantially increase their future postgraduate intakes. I'm not familiar with the entry mechanisms and criteria for postgraduate studies, but I certainly think that they need to be set much higher than it is at the moment. Maybe Kian Ming can share his application process to Duke, and that can be compared against the typical application process to a local institution.

Certainly it will be a self-defeating policy of increasing research and development funds but then throwing them to a larger number of unqualified candidates. And these are the very candidates who may decide to remain in the academia to teach and pursue their PhDs.

"You Left, We Stayed"

Heh heh. I thought this "insight" by Patricia John in the Sunday Star was particularly amusing. And it just about sums up my personal thoughts on staying back in Malaysia instead of migrating overseas. Well, besides the fact that I'd like to make a difference in this country at some point in time.

We have read many letters such as the "very frightened Malaysian" complaining about the discriminating environment as well as the many brain drain cases which find their talents better appreciated overseas. Of course, there are plenty more, as shown in the commentary sections of this blog, who will seek and advocate migration overseas at all costs.

So Patricia wrote on her cousin who has migrated but kept sending her Malaysian "bad news" as if she's an absolute sucker for staying back.

So, from this great and privileged place where they are, they send us stuff of how bad things are in this land where WE choose to live.

My question is this: Are you saying that your Howard is so great? Is he clean and just and honest? Is he intelligent and far-sighted and doing everything right for Australia? Or perhaps your ideal is George W. Bush or Tony Blair? Words fail me when I try to go there!

Her point wasn't so much to criticise the other countries as to make a point that different people are likely to make different choices, and there's probably no right or wrong to it.

I respect the choices people make. I respect their need to leave this land and go find their fortunes elsewhere. It's in our genes anyway - we're the offspring of peoplewho left China and India and came here. I'll understand when my children say they want to work in Canada and Europe and the United States. I understand the need to go seek new things and learn how the rest of the world lives.

But I also understand that paradise is where you make it. Running to another land is not where its going to be. It is here: with the man you love, your daughter, your son, your dogs; with your mum and your wonderful sisters; with your lovely home and garden and with your friends.

If you know who you are and what you want, then you will be happy. There's no need to fly away. Listen with your heart and you will find it's been here all along, and you never knew. I've always known. Always. And life is good.

I'll just add that life is indeed good, but that doesn't mean that it can't be better. We'll just have to do our little parts to help make the "little paradise" of our own, wherever that may be, a better place for you and me, and our future generations to live in. :)

Prof Lim Teck Ghee: Leaving Malaysia Again?

As rightly pointed out by Kian Ming, the Professor Lim Teck Ghee's research proposals for the Government have surprisingly dominated the online and offline media discussions over the past two to three weeks. Specifically, there was controversy over the claims that bumiputera equity ownership in Malaysia has significantly exceeded the target 30% set by the Government for the New Economic Policy (NEP). It also directly contradicted the Government's claim in the 9th Malaysia Plan (9MP) that bumiputera equity has stagnated at 18.9%.

Whilst the issue itself isn't directly related to education, there are some serious underlying implications to our academia arising from the controversy. I thought that they are certainly worth some analysis and commentary here, beyond just our statement of support for Prof Lim blogged here earlier.

For those interested in finding out more about Prof Lim, I would strongly encourage you to read the full interview published in last Tuesday's copy of the Sun's Conversations column. It's an extended piece and is now available online here. I must also give praise to the Sun's editorial board for playing a part in first highlighting the forum in which the study was publicly discussed for the first time, as well as giving the issue the room it deserves in the public space for mature and rational discussion. It should be noted that other English dailies, The Star in particular, has avoided the issue like plague demonstrating its ownership and partisan bias.

OK, back to the core education issues raised by the entire controversy.

Firstly, as blogged frequently here, the type of irrational and emotional response by some of our government leaders to the assertions of the study proves the failure of our education system, particularly in our pre-tertiary schooling programme in promoting national unity. As argued by Prof Lim:

The longer the country delays the reform of our educational system to enable our young to interact directly and build friendships cutting across race, the more the nation is laying down the seeds of polarisation and social breakdown. In this connection, we applaud the recent move by the Ministry of Education to improve the standard of mother tongue education in national schools as this will help encourage a more balanced student intake. Much more needs to be done.

It is obvious from the type of responses received by senior government leaders, particularly those from UMNO and the deafening silence from the non-Malay component parties (with the exception of retiring Dr Lim Keng Yaik and Dr Toh Kin Woon of Gerakan), we are faced with some serious polarisation in the country, which if left unchecked, can only lead to social breakdown.

I agree with Prof Lim's call to seek "reforms in national and national-type primary schools to ensure they reflect our cultural and racial diversity."

Secondly, and possibly more immediately urgent, the controversy demonstrates, contrary to the Government's official position, the lack of tolerance for academic integrity and independence.

Prof Abdul Rahman Embong, a sociologist and researcher, is principle fellow at the Institute of Malaysian and International Studies (Ikmas) at University Kebangsaan Malaysia was interviewed by Malaysiakini for his views. He is also the president of the Malaysian Social Science Association (PSSM).

Prof Abdul Rahman was asked if he thought "academics now are going to ‘self-censor’ their reports and studies that have political ramifications?" His reply was probably as politically correct as it could be in criticising the Government's approach to the academic study without being overtly seen to be doing so.

Malaysia wants to move forward, and Malaysian universities want to be on the international radar screen. For that purpose, four Malaysian universities have been identified to be research universities. To achieve this, among others, we need to strengthen our research culture, promote good quality research, and uphold a conducive environment for freedom of enquiry.

I think researchers have to be ethical and truthful to their vocation by presenting the findings as they have been discovered. We will be doing a disservice to the profession and to the nation if we don’t do that.

Whether a researcher will self-censor or not as a result of the present Asli episode is a matter of personal choice. But a conducive environment for serious enquiry needs to be promoted and protected if we want good quality research that is useful for the universities,the government and the country.

Professor Emeritus Khoo Kay Kim of Universiti Malaya, was however, not as kind in his remarks on the episode. He warned that if the matter were to be left unresolved, it would result in increased difficulty for academicians to conduct their studies.

“It has become very difficult for people to carry out research as they are not able to obtain formation or source materials. It results in a lukewarm approach to any research project carried out in the country. They are not able to discuss the subject meaningfully. They can only discuss it through the political prism, which is not good.

For example, if you beget the question to students, ‘Why is foreign direct investment (FDI) not coming our way?' they are not able to follow because they have no information to build their own opinions on.”

Khoo added that there is a tendency for pertinent economic issues to be racialised.

“That is the problem with this country. Very often, when we have a problem, it becomes a racial issue. And then you cannot proceed from there, you cannot further discuss it, because it already sensitive.”

“They (politicians) should be showing better example. What's the point of having Barisan Nasional (BN) with so many parties if they cannot discuss among themselves, and then get the public involved,” he added.

“UM scholars used to be the among the best in the world. Now it has practically stopped becoming a university that is well-regarded internationally. Now we’ve stopped trying. We published materials for local consumption, not international.”

Interestingly, just as former Vice-President of the United States, Al Gore triggered public anger with his uncouth remarks as a guest of the country back in the late 1990s which resulted in a spate of public advertisements placed by prominent individuals, this episode has done just the same. Advertisements has been placed in the local vernacular press (the Star has purportedly rejected the advertisement) by concerned distinguished members of the academia and the public.

The first advertisement resulted from a collective effort by a group of graduate students who felt strongly about the issue and wanted to protest the “triumph of politics over intellectual freedom”, as well as the lack of freedom of speech in discussing important issues such as New Economic Policy.

The second advertisement was by a group of intellectuals including 39 Chinese association leaders, commentators, journalists, lawyers and politicians.

Their concerns are certainly valid concerns. And addressing these concerns is critical in ensuring that the standards of our local universities are raised in our "attempts" to climb the global rankings. Without even looking at the merits of specific research by our local academicians, the way in which our government patronise independent research will only serve to taint them with the negative brush.

To quote Prof Khoo again:

“There is probably a serious consequence on research studies now ... we have very few economists left in universities. Do you know that UM currently does not have a professor in economics?”

Unbelievable isn't it? No professors in Economics at our premier university!

Prof Lim has stated that he'll like to "continue researching and would like to teach at one of our universities. But it could be that they may not find my presence and expertise convenient or appropriate."

Datuk Rafiah Salim, you have pledged to raise the standards of our Universiti Malaya (UM). You could do no wrong by making a personal call to Prof Lim to head our Economics department. After all, his international credentials are impeccable, and it'll probably help UM collect a couple more points in the research and publications criteria for global rankings. This is a golden opportunity to both improve our local standards of tertiary education, as well as retaining one of our exceptional talents who only has the interest of the country at heart.

Ironically, for the Government, Prof Lim's interest has always been on "researching issues of Malay poverty and under-development, an area which [he] worked on in the 70s and 80s in Malaysia". Surely, his efforts can only contribute positively toward alleviating poverty, particularly of bumiputeras in Malaysia.

Unfortunately, if no sincere attempts are made, in Prof Lim's own words, "I will probably leave the country again. Finding another job and leaving the country for me - like for many Malaysians presently abroad - is really the last option. We cherish our country, we are in for the long haul and want to contribute to a better society."