Kau Ilhamku

Malay song. Meaningful lyrics. Excellent guitar performance. The title is "You're my inspiration"

This clip brings back many nostalgia memories of 8th College days. It was the unofficial "theme song" for many of 8th College programmes, thanks to Mr Liew. Remembered the song was being played non-stop as the background music throughout the camps, seminars and meetings that we attended. Great memories of university days!

I dedicate this to all 8th College Fellows and friends, as well as Ding who was a fan of this guitar performance.

The Last Interview

The last interview with Yasmin Ahmad, a few days before she passed away. In the interview, she talked about 1Malaysia and race-relations in the country. Indeed, a meaningful farewell message.



Video from Youtube, courtesy of The Star Online.

Childcare Services

Is childcare services related to pre-school education? It seems more than a coincidence that a few days ago, the Minister of Education talked about pre-school and, now, the Deputy Minister of Women, Family and Community is talking about childcare services.

Although both issues seem unrelated, but in reality, both politicians are commenting on the exact same issue. Simply, the connection lies in private pre-school centres are also childcare services. They are 2-in-1. It is a trend, especially in urban areas, that these childcare centres also provide pre-school education.

Therefore, on the one hand, the Minister of Education suggested absorbing pre-school into the national education, citing the improvement of English as the reason to do so; on the other hand, the Deputy Minister of Women, Family and Community is commenting about the different by-laws and regulation under different local authorities to administer and monitor childcare centres.

This is one sector of education that has a large proportion of private initiatives. In addition, pre-school education also involves at least three Federal ministries and other local authorities. So far, politicians in the two major ministries have proposed some changes and highlighted some problems. It seems to me, the Federal government is "eyeing" to "adopt" pre-school education fully into their jurisdiction.

However, the rationale and objective behind such a policy remain to be seen.

This post is also available in The Malaysian Education Debate

University Branding

A recent article in the Times Higher Education discuss about university branding. I shall quickly list the advantages as well as criticisms discussed in the article:

The advantages:
1) Branding is essential for telling the world what a university stands for and values
2) Brands exist wherever there is a competition, they help people to choose
3) Branding provides a consistent point of contact throughout the whole process
4) Brand is the sum total of ideas, emotions and associations attached to a given institution; branding is the effective expression and management of them
5) Branding is about communication

The criticisms:
1) Branding is unethical because it is intrinsically deceptive, either superficial spin or hollow deception
2) Branding is wasteful indulgence, squandering resources better invested in the core business of learning and research
3) Branding is alien to the culture of higher education
4) Branding is merely cosmetic
5) Universities have reputation, and so have no need for brands

Now, take a moment to ponder, "Do Malaysian universities have branding?"

If yes, what are our brands? Are they portraying and communicating the right values about the institution?

If no, should we have one? What sort of branding should be "the ideal" brand for Malaysian universities, both public and private?

This post is also available in The Malaysian Education Debate

Aims of Education

What are educational aims? What are the characteristics of a good educational aim?

According to John Dewey, the aim of education is to enable individuals to continue their education. He argues that an aim relates to results that implies an orderly and ordered sequence of activities. The results must be foreseeable and played a role in giving direction to the activities to reach the end. In other words, aim is a means of action.

More importantly, Dewey emphasises that educational aims should not be imposed externally. He argues that externally imposed aims are fixed and rigid, and they are not stimulus to intelligent, but merely dictating order to accomplish tasks. It was said that these externally imposed aims are responsible for the emphasis put upon the notion of preparation for a remote future and for rendering the work of both teacher and pupil mechanical and slavish.

Hence, do we have educational aims in Malaysian education system? (I guess schooling might be more appropriate word to substitute education). Almost the entire education system is externally dictated and without the flexiblity that enables individuals to be schooled at their own pace. It seems to me that the "aim" of the education system is strictly preparing students to sit for the various examinations, in which the results then indicate and reflect the "education" received.

This rigidity of educational aims is further complemented with the highly-structured curriculum, where teachers are expected to "deliver" to the pupils. Education is not about delivery, it is about educating. A Professor of Philosophy of Education that I knew, was extremely critical about this, where he argues that "deliver" or "delivery" are mechanical processes, like postman delivering letters, and education can never be delivered.

Therefore, the highly-structurised curriculum and examination-oriented education system, has not only restricts the flexibility of the teachers to teach, but indeed encourages the "delivery of education". I can't help but felt puzzled, "Where are the educational aims in the Malaysian education system?" or rather "Are there educational aims in Malaysian schooling system?"

This post is also available in The Malaysian Education Debate

What is next after PPSMI?

The fiasco about Teaching Science and Mathematics in English (TSME, or in Malay known as PPSMI) is finally over. Although opinions in the country remained divided over this issue, it is highly unlikely that a flip-flop will happen and it is safe to infer that TSME is now a part of history. So what is next for the Malaysian education system?

Certainly, in this recent fiasco, it is heartening to see the Minister of Education publicly recognising our weakness in the proficiency of the English Language. Is the government really serious about improving the English language, or merely, just to divert the criticisms of reverting TSME? Anyway, giving politicians the benefit of doubt, I shall presume that this is a genuine effort to tackle the problem.

As this is a long article, I will summarise it here for those who read "efficiently":
First half - just critically "dissecting" some proposals;
Second half - constructively discussing other proposals.

The Minister of Education has outlined some proposals to strengthen the learning and teaching of English language in schools. Among those initiatives were: increasing time allocation for English, setting up laboratories for English, emphasising the grammar component, introducing the Contemporary English Literature Programme For Children (CELPFC), having English Day and summer camp during holidays. Are these initiatives going to improve our English proficiency?

First and foremost, the grammar component has always been part of the English Language curriculum. How are we going to further emphasise? Does that mean doing more grammar exercise of filling-in the blanks? Shamefully, I am a living testimony that 13-years of grammar exercises and scoring distinction in all public exams, do not equate to having proper understanding about the usage of grammar. I'm sure one can easily identify this weakness in my writing.

Second, English Day has always been part of the school's calendar. My primary and secondary school used to have English Week, but my English proficiency remains terrible. What else do we expect from just a day?

Third, what is the different between Contemporary English Literature Programme for Children (CELPFC) and the current literature component in the secondary school English curriculum?

Fourth, I am terribly surprised by the idea of setting up laboratories for the English language. How is the laboratory going to improve English proficiency? The Language Laboratory in the University of Oxford Language Centre is merely a computer lab that is equipped with more advance technology for teaching and learning of languages. Is it really necessary to be building another laboratory in schools just for English language, where most schools in Malaysia already have a big "white elephant" in the form of a computer lab?

Last, increasing the time allocation for English language. Is this going to help? Is the declining proficiency a result of the constrain in the timetable? Without any significant improvement to the curriculum, teaching method and teaching quality, increasing the time allocation is just a waste of time.

Well, it's half time. Enough of being overly critical. From here onwards, I will attempt to look at the issue more constructively. Second Half

While discussing this topic with a friend, he asked me this question, "If you were in the position of the Minister, what is the best initiative to improve English proficiency?".

The Minister of Education proposed to "import" 1000 teachers from overseas, hiring 600 retired teachers and producing additional 12,333 teachers. To be fair, this initiative is the most logical of all the initiatives suggested and I have kept this idea for discussion here. However, it is still far from perfect.

Firstly, how did the figure 12,333 teachers come about? Is it another "guesstimation", like what the Deputy Minister did a few weeks ago? Nonetheless, regardless of the figures, the idea of producing additional teachers does not tackle the core problem. We ought to remember that the core problem at stake is quality, not a shortage of English teachers. The more we emphasises the quantity, the more we are going to compromise the quality. Therefore, what the education system needs are more competent and qualified English teachers.

Secondly, it is also highly unlikely to improve English proficiency with the current stock of "human resources" that the country possess. It is important to note that the Malaysian education system has neglected the English language since mid-70s, which has been more than 30 years. Within this period, the quality of English language in our education system has continuously declined. A large majority of Malaysians, myself included, have been "taught English in Bahasa Malaysia" (a quote from RPK). Therefore, to produce more local teachers to teach proper English is a near-impossible task.

Similarly, even if we are to employ retired teachers, a large majority of them might not have the capability to restore the quality of English language, simply because, if they were capable of doing so, our standard would not have deteriorated over the years. To put it bluntly, Malaysia does not have the necessary resources to improve our English proficiency.

On the other hand, there are some positive aspects in this idea, which is acknowledging that we need external assistance. In answering to my friend's question, I felt that in order to impact the system throughout the country, the most practical initiative is hiring foreigners. Therefore, it left us with only one possible aspect of the Minister's initiative, which is to "import" English teachers.

However, three questions remain, "Who to employ?", "How many?" and "How long?" The most straight-forward answer to the first question is to hire teachers from countries where English is the native language - US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. However, we might only be able to hire "a handful" of English teachers from these countries, as we are taking into account the amount of English teachers needed for several thousand schools throughout the country. As such, perhaps it is more sensible to hire foreigners from countries like the Philippines or India, considering the cost-efficiency.

Therefore the next question is "how many?". In order to strengthen the impact nationally, at least one foreigner per level in a school is needed. Only 1,000 foreigners as the Minister proposed, is not even sufficient to distribute them in every school. (What the Minister proposes is teachers; not trainers or instructors in teachers' training). It is way too small to impact the system. Moreover, this proposal should not be short-term. We need at least one whole cycle of students to have the slightest chance of improving the overall standard of English, that is at least 10 years. Therefore, such a short-term initiative is merely educational gimmick with no hope of success.

What other initiatives could we have?

My friend suggested to send all potential English teachers overseas to pursue a degree in English, as part of the teacher's training, after which bond these teachers for 10 years. The suggestion to send these teachers overseas is to enable them to immerse themselves in the culture to enhance their learning. This could be one possible ways of strengthening teaching and learning. In fact, to my understanding, there is already such a scheme within the Ministry of Education. Still, will such an initiative have sufficient impact to improve the entire system? The English language problem has become a national issue. Probably a five to ten-fold increment to the existing programme is needed.

Another possible suggestion is to enhance teachers' training and provide continuous professional development. This suggestion will work, provided there is a concurrent revamp to the assessment in the education system. Currently, teachers already have numerous trainings and workshops to enhance their professional development. However, after attending all the courses, who actually assess the teachers and ensure that what they learn were implemented in the classrooms?

The more we think about what could be done, the more pessimistic the situation seems to be; without even taking into account the expected costs.

Simply, all that is left in me after this long article is this question: "Is it really possible for the quality of English language in Malaysia to improve?" I am doubtful!

Bottom-up Approach

Subsequent to DAP's proposal of introducing flexibility for bottom-up approach in the debate about Teaching of Science and Mathematics in English (TSME or PPSMI), could we try to stretch the argument a little further and relates that to the bigger question about quality in schools and education in Malaysia?

Basically what DAP suggests is to allow schools and parents to decide which is the best language for their students/children to learn Science and Mathematics. Such flexibility to the policy could be regarded as bottom-up approach.

Now, the Malaysian education system is not only facing the dilemma of choosing between English or Malay in teaching of Science and Mathematics (which Malay has already been chosen), but other more pressing and important problems, such as quality of education, teacher's quality, and the question about what it meant by educating our children. I would argue that a significant portion of Malaysia's educational problems have been due to the "one size fits all" approach in policy-making.

I will attempt to discuss only of them, teacher's quality and curriculum.

First, teachers in Malaysia are all assume to be homogeneous. When we have shortage of teachers, the policy dictates recruiting simply anyone who is interested to teach will become a teacher. However, as teachers are considered civil servant and employed by the government, it would be almost impossible to sack or terminate teachers who do not performed. Therefore, the system is stuck with the chicken-and-egg dilemma; choosing between quality or quantity.

In my sincere opinion, in order to get out of this dilemma, perhaps schools should be allow to make decision which is the best teacher to hire. In other words, government gives up their monopolistic rights as the sole employer and allows the teaching profession to function in a free market. As such, the role of the government is not to provide teachers for schools, but rather, takes a regulatory role to ensure the teaching market do not fail. In addition, the government would subsidise or allocate educational funding to schools according to the number of students, and if the government is serious about closing the disparity between urban and rural schools, this is the change to allocate more to the rural school where the additional could be regarded as developmental fund. Therefore, the schools will have incentive to do their best as a way to uphold their reputation and increase their students; at the same time, teachers will have more incentive to teach effectively, as their wage and salary will be more deterministic of their performance and workload. Certainly, not a "one size fits all" policy, and indeed very much needed one in Malaysia.

Second, our education system emphasises on delivering the education to students for them to score in examination. Our curriculum has been rigidly structured and examination questions focus on testing the facts and figures, rather then their ability to think and analyse. A recent education review in the UK, the Nuffield 14-19 Review, made 31 recommendations. In one of their recommendation about the curriculum, the Review suggests, "Curriculum should be developed cooperatively and locally between schools, colleges and other providers, albeit within a broad national framework". In other words, there should be room for flexibility in curriculum to adjust and accommodate teaching and learning to the local context. Again, we should not "one size fits all" for education policy.

The essential idea about education is fundamentally related to individuals. Hence, it is important to question whether is it possible for these "one size fits all" educational policies to achieve any education purposes and aims.

This post is also available in The Malaysian Education Debate

The "Expected" Outcome

The long-awaited decision about Teaching of Mathematics and Science in English (TSME) has been announced. After implementing the policy for the past six years, the policy will be revert back to the usage of Malay language and vernacular languages respectively in teaching of Science and Mathematics. I share my observation about this "expected outcome" from several perspectives.

Firstly, the U-turn in the policy, without much doubt, has been driven largely by political influence. Retrospectively, TSME was one of the last legacy of the longest serving Prime Minister of Malaysia. The revert is certainly a way to dismantle that legacy, to make way for new legacies of the current government. On top of that, with the rating of the current government at an all-time low, it came as no surprise to adopt this decision, simply because the voices to abolish have been more vocal and even took to the streets in protest. Without much doubt, political influence has been one of the major forces to change.

Secondly, from policy implementation perspective, it seems to me there isn't much implemented for the past six years. Looking at the UPSR 2008 statistics, the policy has certainly failed in terms of implementation, especially in Chinese schools. No wonder, the Chinese educationalists have been advocating the abolishment of TSME, or rather, it seems like the policy has not been implemented at all.

The Minister of Education in explaining the decision to revert to the old system revealed that only 19.2% and 9.96% of secondary and primary teachers respectively who were sufficiently proficient in English. Again, this relevation came as no surprise, due to the fact that the implementation of TSME six years ago was carried out in a rather haphazard way. However, is this a good reason to revert?

Today we realise that less than 20% of our teachers are proficient in English and therefore we abolish TSME. What if tomorrow, we realise that less than 20% of our teachers are proficient in Mathematics? Will the government, then, propose to scrap Mathematics in the schools? To me, such reasoning should not be used as an excuse for poor implementation and abolishment of the policy, but rather look at the positiveness, that more initiatives should now be targetted towards the remaining 80% of teachers.

Thirdly, is it ethical that this change will only be implemented from 2012 onwards. In other words, another 3 batches of students will have to undergo this "flawed" policy. Isn't that unethical? If the government is so certain that TSME has failed, why not immediately revert the policy?

Fourthly, I strongly felt that the educational perspective in the policy has been severely neglected. Many quarters have been using the policy as a "proxy war" to fight for their respective interests, but sadly, the core educational issue in the policy has not been addressed accordingly. What have both governments, the one in 2002/3 and now, based their decision on? Were the decisions to implement or abolish TSME based on solid educational research or merely based on "pre-conceived" ideas and hearsay.

There is a huge amount of educational research, especially in the teaching of Science and Mathematics as well as linguistic application, both in Malaysia and overseas, that have vast potentials to inform policy-making. However, not much attention has been given to understand these research, or at least cite a few of them, in consideration of implementing or abolishing this education policy. Sadly, TSME is an educational policy that has no educational aim and inputs!

Lastly, a fellow colleague and Professor in Linguistics once told me, after the implementation of TSME in 2003, our neighbouring country, Indonesia, has been inviting Malaysian linguistic experts over to help with a similar initiative. Six years down the road, Indonesia's initiative is flourishing, but Malaysia has just abolished the policy.

This post is also available in The Malaysian Education Debate

An Insult to UM

What is wrong having a non-Indian to be the Head of Indian Studies Department in the University of Malaya? Some fundamental questions need to be asked regarding this fiasco:

What is the rational that only Indian can be the Head of Indian Studies Department?

Are Indians the only people who are scholars of Indian cultural?
What about other Indian Studies in other universities, both in Malaysia and overseas?
Are they all only for Indians?

What if the best Indian studies scholars in Malaysia are Malays, Chinese, Ibans, Kadazans or Orang Asli?
Does that mean they are disqualified simply because they are not Indian? Shouldn't the most qualified academician be appointed the Head of Department?

Where is the spirit of meritocracy?
Is our university moving in the right direction?

Isn't such proposal racist?

Sadly, this incident left an ugly impression on Malaysian public universities. It reflects the narrow-minded and racist mindset. Most worrying, it questions Malaysian public universities' readiness to compete with other international universities. What our institutions need are not figure-head leaders who are there because of their ethnicity or even political affiliations; but genuine academic leaders that are able to provide scholastic leadership to lead our institutions forward.

In the world of academia, scholastic ability is paramount. Neither nationality nor citizenship are being questioned. Otherwise, London School of Economics would not have appointed a Malaysian Chinese to become the Head of Economics Department in this world-renown institution.