Remembrance Day & ISA Vigils

Today is remembrance day in the UK, in much of Europe, and in many many countries in the Commonwealth of Nations. It is not celebrated in Malaysia, even though we are a member of the Commonwealth. Why don’t we have remembrance day on the 11th of November? Is it because we have no dead from the wars? Because we are trying to be different or because we are trying to cast off our colonial influence?

We know the first is untrue. We have many dead and we celebrate our remembrance on 31st July. Is it the second and third then? I do not know. If it is, then it is a very shallow reason to celebrate our remembrance day on a different date from our commonwealth friends. Remembrance day is a very powerful day. If you’ve ever attended a remembrance service, or even watched the national one on TV, you would know. We owe it to the dead to remember them. To remember history, so that we do not repeat it.

I have never attended or watched a Hari Pahlawan service. To me Hari Pahlawan was the day our teacher in school gave out forms for us to donate money. No one ever explained to me what it was. The history we learnt in school was a diluted version, designed so we will never forget who is in power. The history I learnt in school instilled in me, not a sense of pride, but a sense of frustration. Frustration that I spent 4 years learning  Malaysian history, yet not know the truth. Frustration that I spent only 1 year learning world history, and most of that on the history of Islam. Frustration that I do not know anything about the history of the world. Frustration that I do not know anything about the world wars. Frustration that at the end of 5 compulsory years of history studies, I did not know anything about history at all, be it world history or Malaysian history.

History was made a few days ago, when RPK was released from ISA detention. I wish I attended some of the vigils. I would have, if I was at home. I hope and pray that all ISA detainees will be released soon. I light, on this blog, not a candle, but a fire. A bonfire of hope. Hope that our country will be a better place soon. Hope that my fiance and I will be welcomed home with opened arms, that we will have good futures and good jobs. The hope will always be there, the hope that I can come home to a better place. Not just a place to have a vacation in, but to live in and start a family in, unafraid of racism, unafraid of corruption, unafraid of unequality, and most of all unafraid of the government.

I may not know much of Malaysian history beyond what I have read and heard. But on this remembrance day, I pay tribute to everyone who suffered on May 13th 1969, to all ISA detainees past and present, and to all victims of our very corrupt government. I pay tribute to everyone who died in the defense of Malaysia during World War Two and to all victims of the Japanese Occupation.  I also pay tribute to everyone who suffered the effects of the water canons and tear gas during the Bersih Demonstrations last February & March.

I believe we were fed a load of lies and bullshit in secondary school Sejarah. I am neutral on whether we are better off after independence than before. From what I know, the transition to independence was a bloodless one. I am not paying tribute to the people who brought independence to Malaysia, simply because I do not know if independence benefited Malaysia at all.

Happy Remembrance Day everyone.  Keep up the ISA vigils.  I join you in spirit if not in body.

Apex Universities

A search on google.com for ‘apex university’ produces 6 hits to Malaysia-linked websites on page 1. A brief browse of the next few pages reveal that the idea of apex universities, while not new… is not a well-used one. Most of the hits where the word ‘apex’ were linked to a university, merely represent the location of the university, an acronym of some sort, or the name of a sports team within the university. It is very obvious that the government’s sudden announcent of apex universities represent an attempt to increase the reputation of education in Malaysia much more than it is worth. Whether or not they are trying to create a local version of the ivy-league, oxbridge, redbrick or russel group is arguable. However, it is undeniable that none of our local universities qualify to compare with these highly-esteemed institutions. Our universities aren’t even fit to squat under their shadows.

The intentions of the government is unclear on the goal of apex universities and how they are going to accomplish it. If it is merely a measure of extra support, extra funding, and recognition – then all is fair. If it is meant as a pretence to compete with the creme de la creme of universities worldwide, then this whole charade is a farce. There may be some positive gain from it. It will encourage private universities to be more competitive in the race to become an apex university. This is probably a good thing for their students. If it means more funding and more support from the government, then obviously the students will stand to gain from it as well.

In the bigger picture, will it really benefit the fledging tertiary education industry of this country? Will our public universities compete in the same way the private ones will? Apart from the first five universities, the rest of the industry is barely 20 years old. ALL of the universities need support, funding and recognition. Giving a certain university more funding than another would be unfair to the rest. If anything, the weaker universities would need more support than the stronger ones. Is putting these young universities in a race for a meaningless title and pitting them against each other beneficial for the students? Now is not the time for our universities to go dog-eat-dog. Universities should be sharing resources and helping each other to improve.

I wrote in an earlier post about the ‘full circle‘ comment. In it, I mentioned that the majority of international students studying in Malaysia aren’t here to get a local degree. Most of them leave with degrees which contain the name of an overseas institution, most often of an Australian, American, or British University. See where I’m heading?

For our universities to be recognised as ‘good’ worldwide, it is not among the local universities that they must compete with. It is with every accredited university on this planet. So what if we have an apex university if its ranking worldwide is 1000th? The Acamedic Ranking of World Universities for 2007, doesn’t rank a single Malaysian University in the top 500. Neither does The QS World University Rankings by The Times. Not a single one of our universities are close to being competitive internationally.

Is there any reason to wonder at all why the undergraduates who can afford it get overseas degrees? Any reason to wonder why so many of our private colleges/universities offer twinning programmes, under which the student will end up with an overseas degree even if they study locally? As long as these private universities are awarding degrees not of their own name, they cannot achieve worldwide ranking because they do not get full credit for the quality of their degrees. And as long as the public universities don’t buck up to raise their standards instead of their intake, we will come NOWHERE close to competing on a world stage.

Where’s the apex? Are we reaching for the peak of Mount Everest? Swimming into the Marianna Trench? No we are not, we will be left flaundering at the base of the mountain (which we reached via helicopter) yet again. Victims of a government who have many ideas, none of which work. The government needs to increase support for education in this country, not to turn the whole idea of good quality tertiary education here into a comedy caper. Dearie me…. is this where I end the post with my signature phrase again? What you think is best for us, may not necessarily be good for us.

1 million scouts……

or 1 million idiots in scout uniform??

This was in the news some time ago. Not hot news… but the jist of it is that someone ‘up there’ announced plans to increase the number of scouts in Malaysia from 200,000 to 1 million. My question to the people ‘up there’ is this: Are they planning on having 1 million scouts, or 1,000,000 poor souls who doesn’t know anything at all about scouting dressed in the scout uniform?

I’m not the most qualified person to write something like this…. but who is ever qualified to write a blog post? I’ve been a scout for 9 years and 10 months. 5 years as a scout, 4 years and 10 months as a leader, and 2+ years as a rover scout. (One can be both a leader and a rover at the same time). I haven’t spent very many years in scouting, but I have spent more years in scouting than the average Malaysian scout who enters in secondary I and leaves after secondary V. The success of the scouting movement is not in how many entry-level scouts there are, but in how many of those scouts stay in scouting, and how many of those scouts come back. For scouts to want to stay in scouting after adulthood, or to come back to scouting after they’ve left it, they must be imbibed with the scouting spirit, to have enjoy scouting to the core, to have been bitten by the scouting bug, to live the scout oath and law, not just while they are in uniform, but even when they are out of uniform.

It is easy to dress a person up as a scout. Just throw him a uniform. One can even memorise and recite the scout promise, but that does not always make one a scout. Just ask yourself if you live by the principles of the rukun negara. We all had to recite the rukun negara when we were in school, but how many of us live by those principles? If we did, if all the people did, if all the people governing our country did, then we would have a clean and fair judiciary. Do we? I’m not going to talk about the judiciary now, I’m just using it to illustrate a point.

The scouting bug, the scouting spirit, isn’t as simple as reciting a promise. Not even attending and completing a woodbadge course during a tenure in a maktab perguruan can make a true scout out of a teacher. And the knowledge passed on from these teachers to the scouts will not make the scouts scouts, not unless the teacher has been inbibed with the scouting spirit.

In order to increase the number of scouts in this country to 1 million, the country would need 125,000 scout leaders (I’m using the 8:1 scout:leader ratio). To be a scout leader, one needs more than a woodbadge. One needs scouting experience. Scouting is more than uniform and a promise. Scouting is about loving nature, about understanding the patrol system and implementing it, about camps and hikes, about breating, eating and living the scout promise, about teamwork, leadership, cooperation, about passing on knowledge from one generation to the next, about being independent, about knowing how to play when its playtime, to work when its worktime to know what is good for oneself, and what is bad. Voluntarism is a very important part of scouting. Volunteer scout leaders participate in scouting because they enjoy scouting, because the are happy when scouting knowledge and spirit gets passed on to the next generation. Volunteer scout leaders never every get monetary returns, they do scouting because they have the BP spirit deep in their hearts.

Can mass production produce the same result as the scouting bug? Can monetary incentives produce the same result as years of enjoyment, years of happiness and experience gained from scouting? Can mass produced scouts really be called scouts? It is easy to dress-up. It is not so easy to be a true scout.

KUALA LUMPUR: The Scouts are coming. Soon, that familiar Scout’s uniform will be seen in every housing estate, village, Felda scheme, Pusat Giat Mara and Institute Kemahiran Belia centre.

The Scouts Association of Malaysia also plans to introduce the Rover Scouts (for those aged 18 and above) at private and public institutions of higher learning, national chief Scout commissioner Colonel Prof Datuk Dr Kamarudin Kachar said.

He said the organisation wanted to increase its Scoutship from the current 200,000 to one million in three years.

“We started the Scout movement in Felda schemes in Johor, Negri Sembilan and Perak some five or six years ago. Now we want to take it nationwide,” he said after a dialogue session with Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said at the Scout headquarters in Kuala Lumpur.

“We are now moving from school-based to community-based. The idea is to instil social integration and national unity and to reduce social ills. This is most important,” he said.

Introducing Rover Scouts at the community level, he said, was also geared towards community development, increasing environmental consciousness and advocating peace.

He added that the Rover Scouts would also be introduced in countries with a large number of Malaysian students.

“We have Rover Scouts in Indonesia and the authorities in London have agreed to us setting up a troupe there as well.”

The association is also planning to introduce Rover Scouts in Australia, Russia, Egypt and the United States.

“The objective is to instil patriotism among Malaysian students overseas, and to increase their leadership qualities, living skills abilities and upgrade their working skills,” he said.

The International Scouts Academy of Malaysia will also function as a leadership and skills-training hub for uniformed bodies from all over the world, he said.

Brunei, Singapore and Indonesia have already indicated interest in sending Scouts here for training. There are 18 million Scouts in the Asia-Pacific region.

A variety of activities have been planned for the 100th anniversary of the Scout movement in Malaysia from May 12 to 18 next year.

The star event will be the 100th year jamboree at Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM). Commemorative coins and stamps will be issued as well.

“Six thousand Scouts, including 1,500 from Asia-Pacific countries, will attend,” said Kamarudin, adding that the association had applied for a RM2 million grant from the Youth and Sports Ministry.

Source: NST – 2007/10/09

Note to readers: I wrote this a few days ago, many times, and I was a lot more mad about this, and the post was a lot angrier… but streamys kept messinag about and I kept loosing my post… the more i lost the post, the angrier the post got…. but in the end strymyx won… and here I write it again… but it probably doesn’t get the point across as well as my last post did… but it may be a better read since its not so angry… either way… at least I wrote something I guess… heh.. Regards…

Whither good education? Full Circle?

This article was prompted by this Bernama report, where our beloved PM said “our education system has come full circle“

This sign was found in the library of a secondary school in the Klang Valley. If this is the quality of education that the foreign students are here to receive, I very much doubt the usefullness of their Malaysian-acquired education on the global scale. Is the sign in English or Malay? Is it even in GOOD English or Malay? what is ‘jangan on’ and what is ‘air-corn’? So what if the library is air-conditioned and cormfortable? There are more tables in there than books. There are more sofas than shelves. IS that what a library is meant to be?

According to dictionary.com, a library is:

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) – Cite This Source – Share This

li·brar·y /ˈlaɪˌbrɛri, -brəri, -bri/ Pronunciation Key – Show Spelled Pronunciation[lahy-brer-ee, -bruh-ree, -bree] Pronunciation Key – Show IPA Pronunciation

–noun, plural -brar·ies.

1.	a place set apart to contain books, periodicals, and other material for reading, viewing, listening, study, or reference, as a room, set of rooms, or building where books may be read or borrowed.

2.	a public body organizing and maintaining such an establishment.

3.	a collection of manuscripts, publications, and other materials for reading, viewing, listening, study, or reference.

4.	a collection of any materials for study and enjoyment, as films, musical recordings, or maps.

5.	a commercial establishment lending books for a fixed charge; a lending library.

6.	a series of books of similar character or alike in size, binding, etc., issued by a single publishing house.

7.	Biology. a collection of standard materials or formulations by which specimens are identified.

8.	canon1 (def. 9).

9.	Computers. a collection of software or data usually reflecting a specific theme or application.

 

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A collection of books? What I saw was a collection of tables and chairs. A collection of cormfortable cushioned settees. A collection of empty shelves. And a collection of raggedy primary-school-grade books.

This was not the library of a rural school. It was the library of a six-year-old, single session secondary school in an affluent area in the Klang Valley which costs the goverment a couple of hundred thousand to maintain a year. Is this the quality of English/Malay that we want our children to learn? Is this the quality of Malay that our children’s teachers use? Whither good education? Education in Malaysia has NOT come full circle. The majority of overseas students studying in Malaysia are doing so in private universities/colleges. Most of these institutions of higher learning are associated/affiliated or at least connected in some way to institutions of higher education in foreign countries, namely the continents of North America, Europe and Australasia. The existence of these local institutions point to the LACK of good quality education in goverment-funded institutions of higher learning. Malaysian students whose parents can afford it are still getting their qualifications from overseas universities. Those who can, do it directly by studying overseas. Those who can’t, do it indrectly do it at local private colleges/universities. The degrees they received are from overseas bodies. The degrees they receive are not FROM Malaysia.

I don’t see a full circle, and I don’t see good education. Good education was available here in the seventies. University of Malaya used to be well known worldwide. Where has that gone? It has been snatched from our hands and our children’s. We are left with shadows. Shadows of past glory, when our education was overlooked by the British. We could be proud of our institutions then.

Anyone can say we have progressed in the past 50 years. We have. But by whose hands? By the shear self-preservation, hard-workingness and desire to succeed of the population? Or by the ‘helping hands’ of the government.  Our education system has not come full circle.  The private education industry have made some headways into improving the standards of education in this country.  But the fact that we cannot trust our own education bodies to award us with degrees which are recognized worldwide says that our education system did not in any way come close to full circle.

English or Inggeris?

A heads-up from malaysiakita to this student blogger who may get kicked out of university for blogging led me to an article he wrote on the standard of English among Malaysian university lecturers. This reminded me of a letter I wrote which was published in the NST when I was 15. Nothing has changed much in the past 7 years has it? Judge for yourself.

My letter from October 2000. I was 15.

English as taught to my parents

I will never forget the day my English teacher asked me this question: “How did you went home?” The mistake is obvious and the language, simple, yet she insists that it is correct. This is the standard of English that is being taught by many of the younger teachers.

I write in respond to the letter titled “Efforts have been taken to increase proficiency of English” by Dr. Sharifah Maimuinah Syed Zin (NST, Oct 2). She said that non-optionist teachers are being given special proficiency courses by the Teacher Training Division to ensure they are able to teach effectively.

What about teachers whose chosen option is English? The question “How did you went home?” was not taught to me by a non-English-option teacher. It was in fact taught to me by a teacher in training last year a month before my final exams. She was a trainee; theoretically receiving the latest training from the latest programs organised by the education ministry.

Grammar is now being taught in context in relation to a topic or theme and not for it’s own sake theoretically so that pupils can see the relevance of using a particular structure. Ask any student and almost all of them cannot name the eight parts of speech, almost none of them know how to analyse sentence structure, and there are university graduates who cannot even string a sentence together. I have seen letters to newspapers written by disgruntled employers complaining about bad English among their new employees, many of them fresh graduates.

During my parents’ time, just one generation ago, grammar was taught as it was; a noun as a noun, and a verb as a verb. It was not at all taught in relation to any topics or themes. This is very obvious if you only take the trouble to look into English grammar books used during those days. It was very basic, simple and easy to understand. Using themes is confusing to say the least.

The teaching of English grammar uses the direct approach. Exercises were given on the different aspects of grammar until the students could recognise the particular structure in any situation. The uses of the eight parts of speech were drilled into their heads until they remembered it for life.

Now, teachers spend time organising activities for English weeks, keeping records of the number of books we read, raising money, doing things which are not at all productive to the students, instead of drilling grammar into our heads. All of which look very good on paper but which is actually a waste of time.

It is acknowledged by all and sundry that the standard of English in Malaysia used to be very high. It is also generally acknowledged today that the standard of English of the younger generation including young university graduates has deteriorated significantly. This drop in standard is the product of our education system over the last 20 years. It did not happen overnight. Therefore, the system of English education in this country has failed.

Since it is acknowledged the standard of English 20 years ago was very high, it means the method of teaching English worked. Therefore, it is perhaps time we re-evaluate the English teaching methods of the past and re-adapt it into the present system.

The present crop of young teachers is the product of the education system that has been acknowledged to have fail in producing the right standard of English. These teachers are at this very moment teaching the same brand of poor English to us students. The drop in the standard of English is being compounded by the system itself. Whither, good English?

I actually know of one secondary school English teacher who can go through an essay and pronounce it perfect when in fact that essay contain 20 obvious grammatical errors. I have also seen a secondary school English teacher who cannot even speak English fluently. She stops periodically to compose her next sentence before she can say it out. All these are trained secondary school English teachers. Are these the teachers that we need?

With teachers like these teaching us, our English will never improve. It will instead get worse and worse. It is not so bad if we can see her mistakes but what happens when we can’t? We will be making the same mistakes over and over again once we leave school and there is no one to correct us.

English is the language of the I. T. world. It is the most commonly used language on the Internet. English is also the language of the knowledge-based economy that the government is dreaming of. I do not think Malaysia wants to be known to the rest of the world as the country where English is taught incorrectly.

To the education ministry, I beg you to spend more time researching the old method of teaching English rather than thinking up new ideas which might not work. The old system worked for our parents. Why can’t it work for the students of today? Remember, what you think is best for us may not necessarily be good for us.

Compare the above to what Rauff said here. Is it getting better? Or getting worse?

EDIT: Rauff just informed me his post will likely be deleted once the verdict is announce. For the good of posterity, I’m adding screenshots of his post.

19 subjects for SPM

Our society seems to be emulating Singapore. We are on an expressway to development, and everyone is busy working the gears, tuning and oiling the machinery to achieve Vision 2020. We are working to develop the nation, but to what end? The people holding the reigns now are either die-hard businessmen and women who learnt success via the University of Hard Knocks, or colonially educated men and women who had an excellent education, and are capable of holding their own next to the UHK graduates. It should be safe to say that these people are currently living the second half of their lives. The people set to take over them, the adults now aged 30 and up, had them for teachers. They have the same values, the same instinct for survival that our parents have. Because they learnt from them. But what of the children of today? Are the younger generation equipped with the basic skills of survival?

The news a couple of days back highlighted SPM candidates who took 19 subjects, candidates who got 18 As. Every year when the SPM results come up, we are faced with apparently high achievers, scoring more As than anyone in history ever had. Is this just evolution proving itself? Are future generations really smarter than before? Or is it a product of an academic-heavy society, equiping its young with academic kiasuness unmatched except in neighboring Singapore? An academic kiasuness that has no place in tertiary education, much less the real world.

What does a string of As prove? I read a commentary on Zewt, where there was mention of students doing 3 sciences, plus general science, plus applied science. Then there was the students who took English, English for S&T, and English Literature. In fewer words, students are taking easier versions of the subjects they are already taking to get extra As. Does this prove academic prowess? I don’t think so. It proves a system that is overly result-oriented and lacking in check & balance. As few as 5 years ago, the maxium number of As was 12. Students took extra subjects because they enjoyed it. Some did it to provide extra options when they leave school. Whatever the reasons were, they did it because they had a genuine urge to learn. From what I can see, that’s not true anymore. People just want As and more As and more As. No one cares about the person, they just care about the As.

I was an SPM student once, and I took 10 subjects, which was one more than the school average. I took English Literature outside of school, because I enjoyed it. My mum, under the influence of younger colleagues who constantly compared their children’s grades, put pressure on me to change teachers, to one who guaranteed an A. Did I? Nope. I didn’t take literature to get an A, I took it because I enjoyed the classes, and there was no way I’d have enjoyed going to the other teacher. I knew I wouldn’t get an A yet I was happy with it. The trend is for younger parents to be more kiasu in academic achievements. This transfer to younger students being put under increasing amounts of pressure to perform academically. These students leave school with unrivalled academic kiasuness. A quality that proved useful in achieveing a string of A’s but will it come in usefull elsewhere? A string of A’s may help you to get into college, but will it help you succeed at work? Will it help you communicate? Will it help you run a business? Will it help you in life, in marriage and in bringing up the future generation?  We should be the generation of thinkers.  Instead we are the generation of robots.

How many hours of sunlight did you enjoy per week when you were 13? How many hours of sunlight do current 13-year-olds get?