A Personal Reflection of the UK Student Protests

There had been a student protest in Oxford two weeks ago, followed by another massive national-level student protest in London. These protests were initiated after the release of the Browne Review, as well as the subsequent proposal to cut funding for higher education and increment of tuition fees for local students. As an international student, I did not see a need to be passionate about these development, but as someone who works in the area of higher education, this is one issue that I kept an eye on. As such, I did not participate in these protests, but I was physically present at the Oxford protest to observe from far and followed the news on the London protest.

I have several points to make after reflecting over these protests.

1) Could protest bring change? I agree that such massive protest had made clear the opinion of students on this matter. However, was the message only about students' dissatisfaction? What could be a better solution? Sadly, I only felt that these protests were just an opportunity for the majority of students to vent their anger in public. This was clearly reflected in the violence incidents during the protests, especially the London protest. Isn't critical and open engagement by students and their leaders with university administrators, politicians, Member of Parliaments and other stakeholders, a more mature and constructive avenue to discuss the matter?

2) Another point that I could not understand, "Why target the building that housed the Conservative Party?" While I understand this party along with the LibDems, is the government of the day, but isn't the Browne Review established by the previous government, which was the Labour Party? I wonder if the Labour was still in power today, would they have taken the recommendation of the Review and made the same decision? From an objective viewpoint, I see this development as a matter driven by economic imperatives rather than political ideology, but certainly, the students at the protest thought otherwise.

3) As I mentioned, these developments in higher education have been driven by economic imperatives. It is public knowledge that the UK economy is in a bad shape. Massive cuts have been expected, even before the general election in May. Did the students who participated in the protest thought about the economic consequences of their action? The obvious and short-term cost may be small. However, such massive protest that turned violence, will undoubtedly have a long-term economic consequences. For example, it is a fact that international students have been a major revenue to the higher education sector in the UK, as international students at the moment are paying 3-4 times more than local students. Following on to such violence protest, which had made it into the headlines of international news, I wonder, how many parents who are going to pay for their children's tertiary education, will want to send their kids to UK? I certainly would have hope my children will learn to be more mature and constructive in the university, rather than screaming and shouting and being violence on the streets. The tarnished image of higher education in the UK, may just be one of the long-term economic consequences, that may take years to recover.

4) One of the points advocated by the students at the protest was inequality of access due to the increment of fees. However, for a brief moment, I wish to suggest that we step into the shoes of the police personnel in front of the Millbank building that afternoon in London, who was nearly killed by the fire extinguisher threw down by the students from the roof. Imagine what would have happened to his or her children if the police was hit. Will access be more equal to the children of these police personnel if they were killed in the course of their duties by such irresponsible actions?

I admit the points I made were rather pessimistic about protest, especially the violence incidents, but I am certainly neutral about peaceful protest. I believe everyone has the rights to do so, although I was brought up in a rather repressive culture. However, while we respect the rights of individuals, I also believe that those who wishes to advocate their rights, should also bear in mind the rights of others in the society.

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The following is strictly a personal matter.

There was a "brainless" protestor in Oxford, carrying a placard to the protest with an upside down Malaysian flag hanging on the pole. If you do not know that this is a country's flag, then I don't even think he should be standing there as a university student. It would be much more beneficial for him to spend the 3-4 hours studying geography or general knowledge. If he indeed knew that this is the flag of another country, which has nothing to do with the protest, then I think he should be ashamed of himself that he can't even be respectful for such a simple thing. Don't try to run when you can even walk, don't fight for the future of the universities and students when you don't even have the basic civic etiquette to respect.

SPM History and Public Examinations

History is going to become a must-pass subject in SPM. I chose to use the term must-pass instead of compulsory, because history is already compulsory where every student have to sit for the history paper. A must-pass subject, on the other hand, means that a student cannot fail the subject, which otherwise, he or she will be deemed to have fail the entire SPM examination. At the moment, only BM (Bahasa Melayu or Bahasa Malaysia - I'm not sure) is a must-pass subject.

This decision by the Ministry of Education, has been inconsistent and to a large extent, strange. Just recently, the MOE has announced that UPSR and PMR examinations will soon be abolished and the reason behind this abolishment was that the Malaysian educational system has been overly examination-oriented. Therefore, instead of having public examinations like UPSR and PMR, students in Primary Year 6 and Secondary Year 3 will be assessed by their school teachers. Although I agree that Malaysians, in general, are obsessed with scoring A's in public examinations, I do not agree for public examinations to be substituted by informal assessments to be conducted by school teachers. To me, this change is just too extreme and drastic, and Malaysians in general and teachers and educationalists in specific, are just not ready for this.

Let's return to the topic of SPM History. The de-tour into the topic of public examinations is necessary, because I want to point out an inconsistency in our educational policy decisions. While the idea behind the abolishments of UPSR and PMR was to reduce the emphasis on examinations, on the contrary, the decision to turn History into a must-pass subject in SPM is not only emphasising the importance of History but also the importance of SPM and public examinations.

In my personal opinion, the Malaysian educational system should continue to have UPSR, PMR and SPM. However, some changes are needed to make the examinations more relevant to the students as a useful evaluation for their learning and education. For example, while UPSR is the primary school-leaving examination, the focus of evaluation should be on the basic aspects such as languages and mathematics. As PMR results are generally used to stream students for upper secondary, this examination therefore should focus on evaluating and helping students to identify the latent skills needed for future education in the science, commerce or arts stream.

SPM, as the school-leaving certificate, should provide students with the flexibility to choose any 10 or 12 subjects. In addition, there shouldn't be any must-pass conditions, simply because the SPM examination as a whole is the certification that this student has completed formal schooling and SPM is by no means, a certification of expertise in any particular subjects. If the government strongly feels that BM or History are essential and important, perhaps, the must-pass condition of these subjects could be imposed upon entry into public universities or the civil service, but certainly, this should not be the reason to deny a student of a school-leaving certification.

In this issue about public examinations, we should think more universally. A student might be brilliant in mathematics and science, but fail History and/or BM. He or she will be without a SPM certificate, and therefore not only that he or she will not be able to enter tertiary education, the chances of finding a decent job are extremely slim. Perhaps he or she might just end up as a factory operator, labourer or cleaner, all because of a subject called BM or History. What a sad ending to education!

Two Down, One More to Go

Tomorrow is the Matriculation Day for the academic term 2010/2011. Matriculation Day is the official event where a new student is officially and ceremonially enrolled to be a member of the university.

I arrived in the UK exactly two years ago, a day before the 2008 Michaelmas Term Matriculation. These two years have been an interesting and exceptional journey. There have been many "ups and downs". I have encountered frustrations where ideas were rejected, lived with a terrible amount of uncertainties, and grappled around the literature searching for a research gap or question.

However, on the bright side, in these two years, I have also learned many important lessons:
One, a PhD is a test of persistence. It is not so much about the intellectual abilities, but more about the persistence and emotional "stamina" to run this awful long journey.
Two, I have also learned to value and appreciate criticisms. Increasingly, I realised I actually enjoy being criticised and challenged rather than being praised, especially with my work and writings.
Three, I performed better under pressure. Although I knew about this many years ago while in university doing an undergraduate degree, I reaffirmed this finding about myself that I tend to be more efficient when I am busy and therefore will perform better. That is why I have been, and will continue to, keep myself busy.

Two down, one more year to go. Hopefully, and with God's grace, I will have more interesting things to share about this journey.

Internal Security Act

This is not an article about Internal Security Act. Just a thought about an issue related to this act.

There was a recent incident in the United States where a Christian Pastor planned to burn the Koran. I was having a conversation with a Singaporean, an American and a Danish, and we began to dwell into this topic. Then my Singaporean friend said, "I guess this will never happen in Singapore and the issue won't even get out of hand, simply because, when such a plan is revealed to the public, the Singaporean government is likely to arrest him under the Internal Security Act".

Although I do not agree to the principles of ISA to detain without trial, this could be a case where the ISA can be useful. This led me to think further about the ISA in Malaysia. I am very sure if this US-incident is to happen in Malaysia, the government will without much doubt use the ISA to arrest the person who instigated such provoking act.

However, let us assume hypothetically, there is a Buddhist monk burning the Bible and a Muslim cleric burning the Tipitaka (the sacred book of Buddhism), I wonder will the same ISA principles be applied in all hypothetical cases?

Where It All Began

A compilation of photographs taken at the west end of Glasgow, tracing the historical roots of the Boys' Brigade and following the footsteps of the Founder, Sir William Alexander Smith.

Mandarin and Tamil compulsory in Malaysian schools?

I cannot believe what I read and hear from the Deputy Prime Minister cum Education Minister about making Mandarin and Tamil compulsory in schools. Such a proposal would mean every Malaysian student would have to learn four languages: Malay, English, Mandarin and Tamil.

Personally, I strongly feel the idea is pointless and downright ridiculous. Malaysia, it seems, is aspiring to be a nation of linguists!

First, what is the educational value of Malaysian students learning four languages? Is there any educational research that supports the argument that learning more languages will enhance the intellectual capacity of students? Perhaps, there is other research that rebuts such a proposition. I'm sure the saying, "jack of all trades, master of none", best describe the idea that learning more languages may become a barrier to mastering one language. Anyone who is familiar with the current Malaysian education system will certainly agree that language proficiency among university graduates, particularly in the English language, is far from satisfactory. Even the "cream of the crop" of the education system, have been frequently and openly criticised for not being able to master the English language - as a second or third language. What else to expect when all the students have to learn four languages?

Second, in talking about the proposal, the Education Minister gave some indications that this initiative may have been driven by the idea to unite the country further or instil a sense of patriotism. If unity or patriotism is the driving force behind this proposal, then perhaps it is time to evaluate the role of the National Language - the Malay Language. Isn't the national language supposed to be the uniting language for all Malaysians regardless of ethnicity? Do we really need to teach our children four languages to help them become true Malaysians?

Third, as also mentioned by the Deputy PM, the proposal to teach four languages could also been driven by the need for Malaysians of different ethnicity to better understand each other. Personally, I would agree that if we want to understand each other better, then learning languages may help. However, is ethnicity the greatest barrier to unity in Malaysia? I do not believe so, and would argue that, in fact, religion is the a stronger factor segregating Malaysians, as evidenced by the recent tensions in the country. Therefore, if religion is the real problem that keeps Malaysians from uniting, perhaps, we do not need to teach our children four languages, but instead, introduce "Religious Education" in our schools. My idea of "religious education" is not about a particular religion, but an objective teaching about all the religions in our society or around the world. As such, students are able to learn about each other's religion and thus have a better understanding about religions as well as a greater tolerance towards one another.

I have argued that it makes no educational, nationalistic or cultural sense to teach four languages in Malaysian schools. To have such a proposal studied and considered by the government is worrying, as our future generations are not white mice for educational experiments. I sincerely hope educational ideas in Malaysia will be well-thought through and properly researched, before being formulated into policies.

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Extracted from The Star Online. I have copied the original article here, as the subsequent report has been re-written with a major shift of direction. (URL: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/6/13/nation/20100613162904&sec=nation)

Published: Sunday June 13, 2010 MYT 4:24:00 PM
Updated: Sunday June 13, 2010 MYT 5:58:14 PM

Govt to study proposal to make Mandarin and Tamil compulsory in schools (Updated)

By TEH ENG HOCK

KUALA LUMPUR: The Education Ministry will study a proposal to make Mandarin and Tamil compulsory in schools.

Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddn Yassin said the policy for teaching people own’s language was already in existence in the Education Ministry but it was not fully implemented.

In his opening speech at the Federal Territory PPP convention at the Putra World Trade Centre here, he said it would be good for all races to know more than two languages to help foster racial unity and expand knowledge.

"The people, regardless if they are of Indian or Chinese ancestry, or other ethnic groups, can learn more than two languages.

"The national language and English are important, but other languages such as Mandarin and Tamil should also be learnt," he said.

Muhyiddin said by understanding the languages, Malaysians could appreciate the way of life, values and cultures of the country's various races better.

He added that the people could also garner more knowledge by mastering more languages.

Earlier, PPP president Datuk M. Kayveas had proposed to Muhyiddin to make Mandarin and Tamil compulsory subjects in schools.

"It is long overdue. We should make mother-tongue subjects examination subjects," Kayveas said.

10th Malaysia Plan: Higher Education

The 10th Malaysia Plan (10MP) was tabled in Parliament today. From reading the report in The Star, two aspects of higher education was mentioned. First, research and development (R&D), and second, the employability of university graduates as well as university's autonomy.

In terms of the R&D, first and foremost, a word of congratulation to Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) becoming a research university. While increasing the number of research university could arguably enhance the R&D activity in the country, it is equally important for the mid-term and end-of-term reviews of 10MP to critically evaluate the R&D performance of these five public universities. This is to ensure that not only the number of research universities increased, but the quality of R&D as a whole will also improve.

The second aspect of higher education mentioned in 10MP is disappointing. The Star reported:

"To improve the competence of graduates, their employability will be one of the KPIs of universities. Financial allocation to universities will depend on the achievement of their KPI targets. In addition, the Government will grant gradual autonomy to the universities to improve their performance."

I have to admit that I have not read the actual 10MP report. However, if The Star reports accurately, the above statement illustrates a gloomy future for Malaysian universities. This will perhaps be a "first", whereby the university will have to be openly held accountable for the employability of their graduates. This sounds to me like the Chinese saying, "you married a wife with a promise of getting a son".

Such a statement reflects a highly distorted understanding about education and university. First, the business of university is about education, and certainly not about vocational or job training. Second, it is also be a known fact that public universities in Malaysia have limited authority and autonomy to select students for admission at the undergraduate level, with the exception of USM being the APEX university. While universities have to accept whatever given to them at the admission process, it would be rather unfair to impose such a condition pertaining the quality of the graduates, after merely educating them for a relatively short period of three to four years. As a whole, this statement seems to me more like an attempt to shift the responsibility, from the government to universities, in solving the apparently insolvable problem of graduates unemployment in Malaysia.

At the end of the same quote reported in The Star, the point about university autonomy was mentioned. This statement, on the one hand, is much welcome as this is an open acknowledgement by the government that granting autonomy to universities will improve their performance. However, on the other hand, there has been no further indication whatsoever about how and when this autonomy will be granted, and equally important, what it meant by "gradual". It could perhaps remain a rhetorical statement about university autonomy in Malaysia.

The Dragon Boat Tragedy

I extend my deepest condolences to the families and friends of the students and teacher killed in the dragon boat tragedy in Penang.

I remembered back in 2007 while I was in Singapore, there was a similar tragedy that happened to the Singaporean Dragon Boat Team competing in Cambodia. Again, five young rowers were killed in that incident. However, following that incident, there was a Safety Inquiry Panel to look into the incident by the Singaporean authority.

Perhaps these two incidents will provide us many valuable lessons about safety in water sports. Such lessons are much more important for schools and youth organisations like the Boys' Brigade which occasionally conducts water sports activity. My greatest worry is that unnecessary hinderance and bureaucratic measures will be taken to stop our young people to participate in these events. Instead, I hope that those who conducts these activities will keep ourselves abreast with the latest safety measures and hold firm to the principle that do not compromise safety.

In both occasions, it has been reported that the rowers were not wearing life jacket. Apparently, it's quite usual for dragon boat rowers not to wear them as life jacket is bulky and obstructing. I guess, safety should not be substituted for any other consideration, when it comes to safety in an open sea. Another student in the Penang incident, who missed that morning's tragedy, is also said not to know how to swim. I wonder, how many of those on the boat did not know how to swim and actually wore the life jacket? There should be no compromise in this respect and no exception.

According to the Singaporean Safety Inquiry Panel following the incident with the Singaporean team, there has been a lack of safety measures in terms of drills for contingencies. In other words, people who participate in water sports such as dragon boat, are not expose to safety measures such as capsize drill. I recalled, this has been the most important part in the course I took about canoeing. We were taught how to capsize and react accordingly in such circumstances. Perhaps such stimulation exercise should also be extended to dragon boat and other water sports.

I guess, by not compromising the safety and providing preventive "education", could be the step forward for schools and youth organisations in dealing with the future extra-curricular activities, especially in water sports. I sincerely hope that this tragedy will not turn into a political issue, as politicians seem to be coming forward to comment and "show" their concern, or rather as an excuse to add more bureaucratic and hindrance measures to discourage the participation of our young people in such healthy activities, but rather, served as a precious lesson for all by reminding ourselves about the importance of safety and preventive education.

Looking back: 2009

"Better late than never". We are now a fortnight into the new year. Perhaps as the new year excitement evaporates, it would be more appropriate to review some of the events in 2009 that had played a part to the development of the Malaysian education system.

To me, 2009 had been a year of mixed-signs without any sense of directionality in the development of Malaysian education system. There were changes and policies implemented without "educational" consideration. Malaysians debated and argued about various educational issues from many aspects and viewpoints, yet strangely but true, we do not consider the educational part of the story. I will attempt to illustrate my point using the events that had taken place in 2009.

First, the issue about national schools and vernacular schools, serves as a perfect example to illustrate why "education is not about education". The debate was much more concerned about racial identity and politics, but nothing substantive about students' learning and their educational development in school. Just to illustrate an example. In the midst of this debate, a prominent academician commented that the Chinese-educated students were "copy-cats". I have to admit, this comment is harsh and insensitive, but at the same time, I would also argue that, this comment, to a certain extent, is valid and true from a learning perspective. This is due to the fact that the learning principles and styles between the different types of school in Malaysia differ remarkably. On the one hand, the learning style in Chinese schools is more devoted to memorisation, as the basic skills to learn Chinese characters. On the other hand, students in national schools are not taught to memorise extensively. In a nutshell, we have schools in the system that have significantly different learning styles and principles. However, such educational elements did not feature in this debate, but instead, became a racial and political subject. This is exactly why “education is not about education”.

Second, the issue about teaching of science and mathematics in English. Again, the entire debate was concerned about racial and cultural identity as well as politics. Although students’ ability to learn science and mathematics seemed to be the prime concern in this matter, however, there was an absent of prove from educational research to argue the case for either the effectiveness of using English or the respective mother tongue to learn science and mathematics. Instead, politicians and policy-makers, in arguing the case to revert the policy, cited statistics indicating the low level of English proficiency among teachers. In other words, teachers were blamed for the failure of the policy, but the most important question remain unsolved, “what should the best medium for students to learn science and mathematics?”.

Third, there was also a considerable amount of debate about the SPM examination. Personally, the decision to limit the number of subjects a student is allow to sit for in the examination, was a sensible decision. This limitation, has in a way, reduce the emphasis of examination and scoring A’s in our education system. However, from the education perspective, there remain rooms for more positive development. The ideal case of examination should provide students with more freedom to choose what they want to learn and pick their subject accordingly. Despite the limitation to only 10+2 subjects, the SPM examination remains rigid in terms of the flexibility to mix-and-match subjects and the unchanged requirement that students will have to sit for six compulsory subjects.

Fourth, which is closely related to the third, was the issue about JPA (Public Service) Scholarship. This scholarship has attracted vast amount of debate, which overflowed into debate about ethnic-distribution and equality in awarding of the scholarship under the quota system. However, the debate failed to question some of the fundamental issues associated with the scholarship. The JPA scholarship is for university education. However, the criteria used to award the scholarship was based upon the SPM results, which is the O-levels result that only serve as the qualification into pre-university. Therefore, there was this paradox of awarding a university scholarship, based on examination that has no bearing whatsoever to the students’ performance in university. Furthermore, in the debate, it was also not clear as to whether the JPA scholarship is a need-based financial aid or it is a scholarship fro the brightest student in the country. Strangely but true, despite the confusion in these fundamental questions, Malaysians were contended to continue debating about the provision of the scholarship.

In the higher education part of the education system, there was one significant event in 2009, where for the first time in many years, a public university was allowed to autonomously select their students. In other words, students applied directly for admission into this public university. This was clearly a shift away from the centrally-controlled admission mechanism for public universities in the country. Personally, I guess this is a way forward, which ultimately, allows all public universities to openly compete among themselves for the best and brightest students. Only with such competition, public universities will have the incentive to provide quality education for the students. In a way, such direct application also allows for greater transparency in the selection and admission process to public universities

The second issue about university that took place in 2009 was the introduction of the Postgraduate Scholarships under the Economic Stimulus Package. The government offered postgraduate scholarship, as a way to tackle graduate unemployment, which presumably had gotten worse with the current economic situation. The concern to this initiative from the educational viewpoint was, while the policy aimed to tackle an economic problem, on the other hand, it is creating another educational problem in the form of credential inflation. While during the time when the economy was still performing, graduate unemployment was already a concern. Therefore, it was a concern that with this provision of the Postgraduate Scholarship, the education systems will be producing more specialised graduates with higher qualification. As such, it would be extremely hard to envisioned how the economy in this near future is going to absorb such a high number of graduates with Masters and Doctorate qualification, when in reality, these graduates might in the first place have difficulties securing an entry-level position in the graduate job market. In essence, this scholarship has hasten the Diploma Disease in the Malaysian education system.

In my humble opinion, 2009 had been a year where development had taken place without a sense of directionality. Through understanding these critical events that had played a part to shape the educational landscape of the country, I would argue that most of the changes and policies were implemented without much "educational" consideration, and more importantly, our education system as a whole had not progressed in 2009 in order to provide a better education for all Malaysians.

This post is also available in The Malaysian Education Debate