Allocation of JPA scholarships
Jumat, 27 Maret 2009
Read this Bernama piece in the Star today about 20% of PSD scholarships being set aside for bumiputra students in Sabah and Sarawak. The Minster in question, Bernard Dompok, Minister in the PM's office said that "under the new PSD scholarship scheme, 20 percent or 400 of the 2,000 scholarships offered this year were for excellent students and 60 per cent or 1,200 scholarships were for bumiputra and non-bumiputra SPM leavers nationwide. He said the remaining 10 percent were for disabled students who excelled in their studies." Not really sure how the 20% of 'excellent' students are different from the other SPM students elsewhere except perhaps to say that these 'excellent' students may have better extra curricular records and activities than those who scored better academically. Let me dig up more information on the changes in the JPA scholarships policy and write another lengthier post later.
Tok Pa for Minister for Higher Education
OK, one final note from the UMNO GA and we can move on. Since Khaled Nordin, the current Minister for Higher Education, failed to win one of the 3 VP positions and since there will be a cabinet reshuffle coming up soon, I'm going to publicly state my support for Tok Pa or Mustapha Mohamed, to be given back the cabinet position of Minister for Higher Education. I've always had more praise than criticism for Tok Pa during his time as Minister for Higher Education and I hope that his skills and intellect will once again be used to improve the state of our public and private universities and colleges in Malaysia.
Appoint UMNO loyalists
Kamis, 26 Maret 2009
I knew that it was going to be a challenge to keep the UMNO elections out of this blog. Check out this quote from an UMNO delegate:
Musa’s call was also echoed by a Malacca delegate, Datuk Hasnoor Husin, who also urged the government to ensure that only Umno loyalists be appointed to senior positions in public universities. “Please make sure the faculty members are all Umno men, and the same goes for other civil servants,” said Hasnoor. He cited the example of UiTM vice chancellor Datuk Seri Ibrahim Abu Shah who was a party loyalist.
I leave you guys to comment.
Musa’s call was also echoed by a Malacca delegate, Datuk Hasnoor Husin, who also urged the government to ensure that only Umno loyalists be appointed to senior positions in public universities. “Please make sure the faculty members are all Umno men, and the same goes for other civil servants,” said Hasnoor. He cited the example of UiTM vice chancellor Datuk Seri Ibrahim Abu Shah who was a party loyalist.
I leave you guys to comment.
Not Enough PhD Applicants
Sabtu, 21 Maret 2009
A couple of weeks back, I blogged about how the mini-budget / stimulus package provides for an additional 10,000 places for Masters level courses and 500 places for aspiring PhD candidates in public universities as well as at Uniten, Multimedia University and UTP.
A week after this announcement, on March 17th, Bernama reported that only 16 people had applied for places in the PhD programs. On March 22nd, the Deputy Minister for Higher Education announced that less than 100 applications had been received.
In a typical university in the US, the ratio of applications to places is about 30 to 1 for most programs. This means that if there are 10 spots open, there should be 300 applications for this program. Some PhD programs like Economics will have more. Some, like Romance Studies, will have fewer.
With so few applicants, our public universities should be worried if they can actually find good enough candidates to fill these places. If they can't, typically what will happen is that these spots will go to overseas candidates. This is not necessarily a bad thing but one needs to find out and understand why there are so few local candidates in the first place. Especially since the number of people who want to do PhDs in a developing country like Malaysia should be increasing.
A week after this announcement, on March 17th, Bernama reported that only 16 people had applied for places in the PhD programs. On March 22nd, the Deputy Minister for Higher Education announced that less than 100 applications had been received.
In a typical university in the US, the ratio of applications to places is about 30 to 1 for most programs. This means that if there are 10 spots open, there should be 300 applications for this program. Some PhD programs like Economics will have more. Some, like Romance Studies, will have fewer.
With so few applicants, our public universities should be worried if they can actually find good enough candidates to fill these places. If they can't, typically what will happen is that these spots will go to overseas candidates. This is not necessarily a bad thing but one needs to find out and understand why there are so few local candidates in the first place. Especially since the number of people who want to do PhDs in a developing country like Malaysia should be increasing.
Politicising Education
Selasa, 17 Maret 2009
No, this isn't about the issue of teaching science and maths in English — an issue where I slightly disagree with Kian Ming's take, by the way — but more on that later. This is about the authorities cracking down on opposition politicians who participate in events organised by students in their schools, colleges and universities. The government claims to recognise that to nurture the freedom of thought and inquiry necessary for a good education, academics and students need the freedom to explore a variety of different viewpoints, but then why does it persist in throwing up all kinds of obstacles when students invite opposition politicians attend their events?
A couple of days ago, Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad — a PKR state assemblyman in Selangor who, for the sake of full disclosure, is a friend of mine — was invited by the Persatuan Mahasiswa Islam Universiti Malaya (Muslim Students Association of the University of Malaya) to officiate at an event they sponsored. Of course, Nik Nazmi ran into all sorts of difficulties when he tried to attend, and eventually had to be smuggled into the campus riding on a student's motorcycle. You can get the full story from Nik's blog and Malaysiakini (Malay).
This is of course not anything new. Not too long ago, it was DAP state assemblywoman Hannah Yeoh who complained she couldn't even attend an event held by her old secondary school's Prefects Association — when she herself had been head prefect once.
The government often claims it just does not want education to be politicised, but the way this implicit policy is enforced, it often seems that the government really wants education politicised in its favour. When I was in school, the administrators never shrank from inviting local politicians — always Barisan Nasional politicians — to attend and officiate at school events.
What's obvious is that when you give people in power the authority to ban people from campuses because they are political, you basically give them the power to ban almost anyone they like. Unless you have perfectly unbiased human beings in power — people who actually honestly want to keep education depoliticised and are completely just about doing it — bad things will happen.
And what's often overlooked is that education is itself political; there's no running away from this. We as a society collectively have a stake in how we bring up our children and what kind of citizens our schools create. And you don't need a political scientist to tell you that when society has a collective stake in something, you need some sort of political system to work things out.
So I think exposing students to politics is actually a fantastic thing; what's important is that they get the full picture, and not just the picture which one interest group wants them to see. Schools and student societies should be free to invite just about anyone to their events. The important thing is to promote a culture of questioning and critical discussion; students shouldn't blindly accept whatever any politician tells them. I would hope that at the event he attended, Nik Nazmi got peppered with questions from students about why he believes what he does. That should be the whole point of organising events with politicians.
There is no reason to arbitrarily depoliticise education, when education is supposed to make you a good citizen, which requires you to know something about politics. If you're worrying that your students will be misled by politicians because they blindly accept anything they hear, then your real problem is that you haven't nurtured the right values in them. That's what we should be trying to fix, instead of worrying about politicians speaking to the students who will one day themselves be voters, if not politicians.
A couple of days ago, Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad — a PKR state assemblyman in Selangor who, for the sake of full disclosure, is a friend of mine — was invited by the Persatuan Mahasiswa Islam Universiti Malaya (Muslim Students Association of the University of Malaya) to officiate at an event they sponsored. Of course, Nik Nazmi ran into all sorts of difficulties when he tried to attend, and eventually had to be smuggled into the campus riding on a student's motorcycle. You can get the full story from Nik's blog and Malaysiakini (Malay).
This is of course not anything new. Not too long ago, it was DAP state assemblywoman Hannah Yeoh who complained she couldn't even attend an event held by her old secondary school's Prefects Association — when she herself had been head prefect once.
The government often claims it just does not want education to be politicised, but the way this implicit policy is enforced, it often seems that the government really wants education politicised in its favour. When I was in school, the administrators never shrank from inviting local politicians — always Barisan Nasional politicians — to attend and officiate at school events.
What's obvious is that when you give people in power the authority to ban people from campuses because they are political, you basically give them the power to ban almost anyone they like. Unless you have perfectly unbiased human beings in power — people who actually honestly want to keep education depoliticised and are completely just about doing it — bad things will happen.
And what's often overlooked is that education is itself political; there's no running away from this. We as a society collectively have a stake in how we bring up our children and what kind of citizens our schools create. And you don't need a political scientist to tell you that when society has a collective stake in something, you need some sort of political system to work things out.
So I think exposing students to politics is actually a fantastic thing; what's important is that they get the full picture, and not just the picture which one interest group wants them to see. Schools and student societies should be free to invite just about anyone to their events. The important thing is to promote a culture of questioning and critical discussion; students shouldn't blindly accept whatever any politician tells them. I would hope that at the event he attended, Nik Nazmi got peppered with questions from students about why he believes what he does. That should be the whole point of organising events with politicians.
There is no reason to arbitrarily depoliticise education, when education is supposed to make you a good citizen, which requires you to know something about politics. If you're worrying that your students will be misled by politicians because they blindly accept anything they hear, then your real problem is that you haven't nurtured the right values in them. That's what we should be trying to fix, instead of worrying about politicians speaking to the students who will one day themselves be voters, if not politicians.
The Benefits of Education Fairs
I've always liked the idea of education fairs even though I've not had the opportunity to attend one in the recent past. Since someone asked me to plug an upcoming education fair for postgrads (more on this later), I thought that I'd sit down and write a few words on why I think education fairs are a good thing, on the whole.
1) Education fairs are "free", at least for the attendees who are looking to find out more about the schools and programs which they are interested in. The people who foot the bill are the organizers of these fairs and the exhibitors who participate in them. This is only fair since the organizers profit from putting these fairs together and the exhibitors profit for marketing their courses to their potential 'clients' i.e. the students and parents who make up most of the attendees.
2) Education fairs are a one stop shop to gather the necessary information on the courses and schools which one is interested in. Of course, a lot of this information should be available on line but there's nothing like the process of being able to compared the different course offerings between the different schools in an education fair. Furthermore, students who have questions about specific details which are not available online can use this opportunity to ask the marketing reps from each school. If the marketing reps cannot answer these questions, they should be able to point the student to someone within that organization who CAN answer those questions.
One also needs to remember that not all kids have internet access at home or in schools and hence the ability to do the necessary online research to find out more about these course, especially kids from rural areas and from less fortunate backgrounds. These education fairs are a great opportunity for them to find out more about different schools and programs.
3) Education fairs are not only useful for potential students but also for the parents of these students. I know that sometimes parents can be overbearing and some even try to dictate the course which their kid or kids should take. Nonetheless, if parents and their kids have a good understanding in terms of expectations on both sides, education fairs can be very helpful venues where parents as well as their children find out more about the courses of interest.
4) Education fairs are also a good venue for students and parents to find out more about schools and colleges which they would otherwise not know about. Most students and parents are aware of the 'big names' like Sunway and HELP and INTI and so on but there may be smaller schools which offer programs that are more suitable for certain students or be more affordable to some students. Of course, one needs to do the proper due diligence when looking at some of the smaller schools but I won't prejudge small and not so well known schools because some of them may actually have very dedicated lecturers in certain niche fields.
5) Education fairs should also be a place where students get to interact with former alumni and current students of some of these schools. Ideally, the exhibitors should not only send out marketing people to 'man' their booths but also include former and current students in their marketing strategy. After all, who better to give first hand information to potential students than former and current students? I particularly like what Chen Chow and his team have done in the past to promote US universities by encouraging former and current students to 'man' the exhibition booths representing their respective universities.
In light of these benefits of education fairs, I'd like to draw attention to an upcoming post-grad education fair that I was asked to plug. Most of us are aware of undergraduate fairs but fewer of us are aware of postgraduate or graduate education fairs. I was made aware that there was such a fair that took place in January of this year at the Mid Valley Exhibition Center and that there will be such a fair taking place again in September 2009. This event is organized by AIC, an exhibition and events organizer in Malaysia and for the January event, it was co-located with jobstreet.com, one of the leading job search sites in South East Asia.
I think this is a good time for potential students to think about postgraduate / graduate education in Malaysia as well as overseas. Some people may want to take a break from work, some people may want to take advantage of the fact that the economy is slowing to do a postgrad / grad degree, some people may want to increase their expertise in certain fields of study etc...
It's probably a good time for universities, both local and overseas, to recruit potential students as well given the current economic conditions as well as some of the recent financial incentives for students to further their education in a local public institution.
Of course, students and parents should attend these fairs with their eyes wide open and do as much background research as possible before attending these fairs. It will make the experience a much more beneficial one.
P.S. Just to reiterate again, none of us (Tony, John or myself) receive any 'benefits' in return for promoting these education fairs.
1) Education fairs are "free", at least for the attendees who are looking to find out more about the schools and programs which they are interested in. The people who foot the bill are the organizers of these fairs and the exhibitors who participate in them. This is only fair since the organizers profit from putting these fairs together and the exhibitors profit for marketing their courses to their potential 'clients' i.e. the students and parents who make up most of the attendees.
2) Education fairs are a one stop shop to gather the necessary information on the courses and schools which one is interested in. Of course, a lot of this information should be available on line but there's nothing like the process of being able to compared the different course offerings between the different schools in an education fair. Furthermore, students who have questions about specific details which are not available online can use this opportunity to ask the marketing reps from each school. If the marketing reps cannot answer these questions, they should be able to point the student to someone within that organization who CAN answer those questions.
One also needs to remember that not all kids have internet access at home or in schools and hence the ability to do the necessary online research to find out more about these course, especially kids from rural areas and from less fortunate backgrounds. These education fairs are a great opportunity for them to find out more about different schools and programs.
3) Education fairs are not only useful for potential students but also for the parents of these students. I know that sometimes parents can be overbearing and some even try to dictate the course which their kid or kids should take. Nonetheless, if parents and their kids have a good understanding in terms of expectations on both sides, education fairs can be very helpful venues where parents as well as their children find out more about the courses of interest.
4) Education fairs are also a good venue for students and parents to find out more about schools and colleges which they would otherwise not know about. Most students and parents are aware of the 'big names' like Sunway and HELP and INTI and so on but there may be smaller schools which offer programs that are more suitable for certain students or be more affordable to some students. Of course, one needs to do the proper due diligence when looking at some of the smaller schools but I won't prejudge small and not so well known schools because some of them may actually have very dedicated lecturers in certain niche fields.
5) Education fairs should also be a place where students get to interact with former alumni and current students of some of these schools. Ideally, the exhibitors should not only send out marketing people to 'man' their booths but also include former and current students in their marketing strategy. After all, who better to give first hand information to potential students than former and current students? I particularly like what Chen Chow and his team have done in the past to promote US universities by encouraging former and current students to 'man' the exhibition booths representing their respective universities.
In light of these benefits of education fairs, I'd like to draw attention to an upcoming post-grad education fair that I was asked to plug. Most of us are aware of undergraduate fairs but fewer of us are aware of postgraduate or graduate education fairs. I was made aware that there was such a fair that took place in January of this year at the Mid Valley Exhibition Center and that there will be such a fair taking place again in September 2009. This event is organized by AIC, an exhibition and events organizer in Malaysia and for the January event, it was co-located with jobstreet.com, one of the leading job search sites in South East Asia.
I think this is a good time for potential students to think about postgraduate / graduate education in Malaysia as well as overseas. Some people may want to take a break from work, some people may want to take advantage of the fact that the economy is slowing to do a postgrad / grad degree, some people may want to increase their expertise in certain fields of study etc...
It's probably a good time for universities, both local and overseas, to recruit potential students as well given the current economic conditions as well as some of the recent financial incentives for students to further their education in a local public institution.
Of course, students and parents should attend these fairs with their eyes wide open and do as much background research as possible before attending these fairs. It will make the experience a much more beneficial one.
P.S. Just to reiterate again, none of us (Tony, John or myself) receive any 'benefits' in return for promoting these education fairs.
Science and Math in English - Writing on the Wall
Minggu, 15 Maret 2009
I wrote this in December of last year - "I suspect that a compromise decision may be made. Either continue teaching S&M in English at the secondary school level or start after Primary 3."
A recent piece by the Malaysian Insider - written by Leslie Lau, who has strong links to BN leaders, had this to say - The government is likely to scrap the policy of using English to teach science and mathematics in primary schools while maintaining it for secondary schools. Education Ministry sources told The Malaysian Insider today that the compromise in policy will be recommended to the Cabinet for a final decision soon in an effort to resolve a controversy which has been brewing for months.
Frankly, I would have liked the policy to continue and improve on its implementation. Now we are in a half way house where neither side is really happy and students and teachers continue to be confused. No one wins.
A recent piece by the Malaysian Insider - written by Leslie Lau, who has strong links to BN leaders, had this to say - The government is likely to scrap the policy of using English to teach science and mathematics in primary schools while maintaining it for secondary schools. Education Ministry sources told The Malaysian Insider today that the compromise in policy will be recommended to the Cabinet for a final decision soon in an effort to resolve a controversy which has been brewing for months.
Frankly, I would have liked the policy to continue and improve on its implementation. Now we are in a half way house where neither side is really happy and students and teachers continue to be confused. No one wins.
Langganan:
Postingan (Atom)