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.

Candles

Today is a day for lighting candles. The single candle is for the future of Malaysia, for cleaning our own backyard, and for everything Malaysia represents. Click here for more details.

The next set of candles are for sinergy.starfall. A good friend and the founder /keeper of this blog. Happy birthday my friend.

RANT : First aid : another reason not to live in this country.

What would you do if this were real? Or any of the other images below this. Would YOU know what to do? Can anyone in Malaysia, ANYONE, predict how long it’d take an ambulance to arrive if you called for one? We all know Malaysia is far from a developed country. The Emergency Medical Services (EMS) in Malaysia is far from the quality or even quantity of many other countries. Knowing this, shouldn’t it even be more necessary for us, the citizens of this country, to be adept at first aid? The awareness of first aid in this country is, to put it in a nice way – DISMAL.

I re-attended an empact (emergency patient care training) course a couple of weekends ago. When I took leave off work to go for it, a few questions was asked. Things like “WAH, who are you going to save?” or “What are you going to do with it?” or “Know first aid got benefit ar?” On top of that, on Saturday night (after half of the course was completed), when I told a close relative “Did you know 80% of CPR…..”, she attempted to finish my sentence with “kills the patient” I just went “……………………………………………………………………………………..”

The awareness of first aid in this country is dismal. CPR awareness is worse than dismal. I’ve got a false sense of security, in the sense that I’ve been exposed to first aid all my life, and have always had (and still do have) the secret dream of becoming a paramedic. Formal exposure to first aid knowledge came when I was 15, when I spent 2 year doing various life-saving/life-guarding courses. I also got a St. John. basic first aid qualification during that period. The few years after that was pretty quiet, but first-aid exposure was still pretty much constant, though more practice than training. Quite often, I was the most experienced/qualified person to perform first aid when I’m at scouts/buddhistyouth/other voluntary bodies/activities.

Receiving comments like that from the general public actually pissed me off quite a bit. First aid isn’t about ‘who’ I want to save, or ‘who’ I want to perform it on. First aid isn’t about benefit to oneself, even though it IS important to one’s own wellbeing if the situation arises. Knowledge which saves lives is knowledge better learnt than not. 80% of lay-person CPR is performed on a family member. Which means that if I, a person who isn’t a professional healthcare provider, were to perform CPR one day, there is a four in five chance that it would be on a parent/sibiling/child/grandparent/aunt/uncle.

So, to answer their questions. Who am I going to save? Anyone who needs me to perform CPR, who is more likely to be a family member than not. What am I going to do with it? I’m going to help people with it. What benefite can I derive from it? I may save lifes with it, my own, my family, my friends, who knows. Lay-person first aid is important, especially in a country where healthcare professionals are hard to find. They are few and far in between, especially in non-clinical settings. I may need to splint a broken leg halfway down Mt. Tahan. Or I may need to treat a snatch-thieve victim for shock on the way to work. Or I may need to safe a chocking neice. Who knows?

Do onto others as you wish that they should do to you. I learn first aid because I may need it one day, and so may others. (heck, I’ve been in plenty of situations where good knowledge of first aid and infection control would have save me and others some pain and some trouble). I learn first aid because I hope, in some bizarre twist of karma, that if I ever need medical help, someone suitably equipped will be there to help me.

WHAT is wrong with people!!!! HOW can anyone not understand the importance of first aid and cpr and heimleich and c-spine immobilisation and etc etc etc!!!! HOW can anyone think ’someone else will know it’. Gosh…. people…. sigh…. (is it people of the world in general? Or is it just the tidak apa attitude of Malaysians? Probably a bit of both, but I encounter a lot more ‘tidak apa’ (couldn’t care less) from Malaysians than I do elsewhere. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

Kopitiam

I was having lunch in KL with some friends today, and by and by we ended up drinking chinese tea and discussing Malaysian politics. The session evolved into an intriguing Q&A session with some interesting questions. One of them was concerning the racial harmony we had around the Merdeka years and whether we’ll ever have that level of communication, cooperation and friendship between the races ever again.

A friend then mentioned that she liked going to old chinese kopitiams, specifically the ones where she can see her grandfather with his Malay and Indian friends who may’ve worked in both the government and private sectors sitting around one table and talking about everything under the sun. That sight used to be pretty common 20 years ago, and it was a dime a dozen 40 years back. But as that generation of people decrease in numbers, so too do these picture perfect sightings of true friendship between the different races. The only other place we can think off where we’ve encountered these sightings are in overseas Malaysian communities. In cities like London where there are large numbers of Malaysians working, it is also common. They would generally be aged above 25 and have a stable job. Some may be married with young children. The most common topics of conversation for these two groups are the same. They reminisce about Malaysia and the past, and they talk about the current state of Malaysia – its shortcomings and its politics.

Is there anything in common which unite these two very different groups of people, who do the same thing in similar surroundings?  Yes.  Neither are very much affected by current government policies.  One group is retired and has nary a worry in the world, and the other group have pretty much migrated out of the country.  They do not feel the recent racial tensions caused by keris-wavers, nor the gender-inequality by the bumbung-leak-commenters, etc etc.  In short, they are unaffected by it, and thus they can talk about it among themselves without feeling stressed out or wound up.  The people who are affected by it talk about it too, but only in little groups they feel cormfortable with, because there is no longer any communication, cooperation or friendship between the races.

What happened to the frienship?  Why are the only people who can maintain these friendships people who are unaffected by the government policies.  Is the lack of racial harmony a reflection of what 50 years of Merdeka has done to the country?  Are we better off for it?  Tepuk dada tanya selera……

Overcriticism Anyone ?

 I really CAN NOT STAND some of the folks here. They keep comparing Malaysia to western countries and Singapore and makign them sound like a utopia without any problems. These people are VERY ill informed about things overseas and besides, these countries being high and mighty (in Singapore’s case, just plain kiasu) do not really make it a habbit of announcing their problems for the world to see and the local papers would not report it since most of them bear no relevance to our country.

Take Singapore for instance, granted they have alot of things that leave us looking primitive but they do have their fair share of problems. They have a political system that would almost make a them a dictatorship, albeit a benign one. Unlike here they do not have a very open political system whereby any criticism will be handled very harshly which is apparent in their parliment with their apparent lack of proper opposition as well as the inability of the newpapers to say anything bad about the government. We on the other hand have a more open press whereby writers are allowed to write critical stuff about the government within boundries of the law and we have what resembles as quite a substantial presense by opposition parties who do speak their mind, at times too far but hey, thats the price of freedom.

Another example would be America which our less than informed friends love to compare to. America is a great nation and was one of the first successful democracies and boasts one of the most open societies in the world. Now don’t you morons think having such a open democracy and society here can actually be counter productive? Do we want our youth shooting people in our education institutes? Do we want morons running around preaching hate in the name of free speach? Do we want their kind of public health system where most people without medical insurance do not get the care they need since most of their hospitals are privatized? Our society is not stable enough for such openess since people in our country is nowhere close to their level of development and per capita income. We can not risk having extremists openly preaching hate in our country since the majority of our people are easily incited to do crazy things thanks to the relegious fervour of the race that holds the position of majority here. 

Those are a few examples of the problems faced by those countries you people so love to compare to and make thdem seem so perfect. I can list a whole lot mroe problems faced by these nations and my point is there is no such thing as a perfect country and while it is nice to follow the good points of the aforementioned counties always bear in mind are we capable of doing what they do and are we ready for such things. 

p.s – I know this is not on par with my usual posts but I am really tied down with my college work :s

Not Always Boleh

As we reach our 50th birthday and cries of “Malaysia Boleh” ring out, we should really reflect on this a bit. I am one of those who always find the constant shouts of “Malaysia Boleh” a bit tiresome. Not to be a spoilsport or anything, it’s just that sometimes our focus on what we boleh (can) seems very shallow.

I cannot express how much I admire Malaysians who can sail solo around the world, climb Everest, explore Antartica and brave the English Channel. These truly great feats and the glory achieved by many of them reflects on us, and motivates others to try and do similar things. I do however, have a problem with are the types of Malaysia Boleh feats that have to do with creating the longest popiah, the most number of teh tarik pulls, the most number of satay eaten, etc. No doubt everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame, but after that, what ? Will the person who ate the most number of durians ever be featured in Hari Ini Dalam Sejarah ?

As we scramble to get into some book of recordsfor things we boleh do, I wonder if we ever reflect on the things we tak boleh (cannot) do ? Here is a partial list, in no particular order :

• We tak boleh talk about so many things because they are deemed too sensitive for some unknown people’s ears. Thus there are so many things swept under the carpet now that we can hardly walk without tripping.We tak boleh complain about the govrnment on many issues.
• The women tak boleh feel safe in public because if something happens to them, it’s always their fault.
• We tak boleh be trusted to decide for ourselves whether a movie is good or bad.
• Young people tak boleh be given information about the many bad things that could happen to themeven though this could safe their lives.
• Universities tak boleh be left with more women students.
• We tak boleh ask why the government have some ruling or other.
• We tak boleh, tak boleh, tak boleh talk about religion even though sometimes the implementation of religious rulings can make our lives miserable.
• We tak boleh coplain when cars are triple parked and blocking traffic on Fridays because, hey, what is a human law when it is broken to commune with God ?
• We tak boleh be sure if anything we do will be judged on its own merits; we must get some dato’ or VIP to help us.
• We tak boleh point out contradictions in our society.
• We tak boleh act as if we know how to think and give our opinions.
• We tak boleh trust our young people even though one day, whether we like it or not, they will take over the country.
• We tak boleh deny the fact that Siti Nurhaliza is a lot more influentioal than most politicians. But then Siti tak boleh make us feel miserable.

Every day it seems we are encouraged to do things to prove we are the best, biggest, brightest. But rarely are we ever encouraged to be thinking and compassionate Human beings with opinions of our own, especially if those opinions are different from the norm.
Are we to show Malaysia Boleh only in harmless non-threatening ways even though these often have no long term benefit ? Or should we really be challenging ourselves in our minds and hearts, so that we can make a better Malaysia ?

**Adapted and modified from an article published in The Star (2003) **

Malaysia, truly a-partheid-sia…..???

This is an interesting essay for Malaysians to read. It may be slightly lop-sided, but we all know there is some truth to it.

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.

Do we have to classify everything?

Is our population so stupid that we have to classify everything? Are we not able to judge for ourselves the difference between credible and not-so-credible blogs? Won’t professional blog-sites be more akin to newspapers? How will classification of blogs help to persecute bloggers?  What ‘rite’ do you have to control blogging?  What rite do you have to deny freedom of speech?

The majority of blogs are personal opinion. If blogs that ‘touch on matters enshrined in the federal constitution’ are becoming such a problem, isn’t that be a sign that people are not happy with the laws of the country? The more you stereotype us, the more united we’ll be. Classifying blogs into professional/non-professional is a very very very heavy form of stereotyping. The majority of blogs are personal. In the dividing of blogs into professional/non-professional, where would those blogs stand? Why professional/non-professional? Why not sopo/personal/work/etc or something similar and infinitely less discriminatory?

People read SoPo blogs for news which are not published in the mainstream media, which are controled by the ruling party.  Readers do not need to be told what to believe, they can make their own judgement.  Classifying the blogs won’t make a damned difference. We will continue reading. We will continue writing.

We, the blog-readers and blog-writers are not stupid.

2007/05/05

Zainuddin proposes classification of bloggers

KUALA LUMPUR, SAT.: Information Minister Datuk Seri Zainuddin Maidin said today that Malaysia has to classify bloggers as professionals and non-professionals as a mechanism to prevent misuse of Internet blog sites.

He said he believes that professional bloggers are those who are more responsible in ensuring that their web content is based on the truth and not rumours.

“This classification will also facilitate the action to be taken against those found to have violated the country’s laws,” he told a press conference at the Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC) here.

Zainuddin said certain people in the country have misused blog sites for their own interest and that of their groups, like touching on matters enshrined in the Federal Constitution and others that sparked uneasiness among the multi-racial population.

“We have to control this. It is feared that these (blog sites) will be misused by those who have an agenda to spread slander. By right, there should be a mechanism to control this phenomenon, including by classifying bloggers as professionals and non-professionals,” he said.
Zainuddin said this is important in enabling the people to determine whether they can trust a certain matter and whether the blog content is the truth or a rumour that can cause discomfort or undermine unity.

The minister said that during his recent visit to France, the Chief Executive Officer of the Nice-Matin Press Group, Michel Camboul, had mentioned the need for the French government to classify bloggers and expressed concern over blog sites having an impact on newspaper circulation and the buying of advertisements in newspapers there.

Zainuddin said the Internet has yet to be widely used by the people in Malaysia and if blog sites become an alternative press that forces the shutdown of newspapers, the rural people who depend on newspapers will be denied the right to information.

He reminded bloggers not to touch on matters that have been agreed upon by the consensus of the country’s multi-racial population such as the special position and privileges of the Malays, the Rulers and Islam so as to maintain peace and harmony.

Fantasies and woes

Disclaimer: This post is a hypothetical fantasy. Any resemblance to real life people or events are coincidental and unintended.

I have an imaginary friend. He is a malay. His got 3 or 4 degrees. He speaks fluent English, Spanish, Italian, Malay, and some french too. He volunteers at the local chapter of an international organisation. This organisation is pretty multiracial at grassroots level. It has roughly 250,000 youth (below-18) members in Malaysia. The top rungs of the organisation however, have quite a strong malay presence. Many of them are politicians. It has come my knowledge that many of the top brass doesn’t like my friend. They do not like him because he is hardworking, he loves what he do, he doesn’t do it for money or fame, and he basically does not subscribe to their crooked values and politics.

A certain group of people in the top brass labels my friend as ‘bukan melayu tulen.’ They label him thus because of his good values. Is that ridiculous? You decide. There is also another imaginary character in this story.. Call him the villian if you will. He is a school principal sometimes masquerading as the coffee boy of the top brass. Yep, he has been entrusted by the government of the country to impart knowledge and values to children. He can barely communicate in English, and when he visited England recently, he had to hang on to my friend, or other members of the delegation, because he could not communicate. Because of his shortcomings, he hates and resents my friend not only for speaking English, but for speaking Spanish and half a dozen other languages as well. He is a big big fan of the ‘bukan melayu tulen’ movement.  By his definition, the melayu tulen cannot speak any other languages besides malay fluently, do not love their work, resent everyone who are smarter than them, did not study abroad, did not volunteer abroad, and must have an IQ lower than 100.  The top brass are exempted because, well, they are the top brass… right?

He isn’t the top brass, but he supports the top brass. I imagine that the top brass don’t really care about melayu tulen or not. But they support the sentiment in their coffee boys because it helps them. It helps them to have stupid people under them who label their peers. Its bad politics and does nothing for the development of the organisation or the country, but they support it because it keeps them in power. People who do not question and do not doubt also do not stage uprisings, so they are good to keep below them. But people like this also do not think, do not improvise, and do not solve problems.

A ship requires a crew who are trained, disciplined but also intelligent. A ship with old brass growing older and a crew of coffee boys without brains would be hard asked to sail. It hunches when asked to stand straight, it speaks manglish with no sign of embarassment, even though everyone around them cringes, and it will crumble at the first sign of true adversity. The 250,000 builders may keep the ship from sinking, but will it sail? Or will it remain moored in dry dock, with no hope of ever entering the international arena?