Rigged

How else would you describe a debate that has a sudden increase in the number of people supporting the Malaysian government's ideas? This shows that even in Australia, the long scary arm of Malaysia still lurks behind shadows.

The MASCA Annual Debate had a good motive behind it. Unfortunately when discussing motions involving government policies, a debate is not the best solution. People have varying views on the topic at hand; some fully support the policy, others fully oppose the policy, and there are many who fall somewhere in between the two extremes. A debate, being fully black and white in having "For" and "Against" teams, does not work well to support the full spectrum of views. Hence, I say that a good idea was tripped up by its execution.

I have other reasons to view the debate as flawed. Bad imagery on the program booklet and advertisements - are we really all monkeys living in trees? Not the best imagery I'd say. Furthermore, regarding the program booklet handed out, there is nothing inside regarding any of the 6 speakers or the moderator. No credentials, no photos, no details about what makes them suitable candidates for the debate. And why aren't there any engineers on either of the debating teams? Something to think about there, since some people say that "Engineers make the world go round, politicians come and stuff things up".

As for the handling of the debate itself, the moderator was not subtle when it came to reminding debaters about their time limits. Visual cues should have been given, or a less intrusive ringing bell would have worked.

On the debate itself, the participants had weak points overall. A single government policy does not always directly cause something, especially since you need to trace all the policies to get to the root cause of something. How do you know that the NEP directly assisted the progress of Malaysia?

Also, when it came to defining progress, I feel that the speakers could have used the following analogy: Progress is an upward-sloping line. It's not a flat line.
Thus, if you're anywhere below that line, then there is not enough progress. Really, we should be looking at natural progress as well as assisted progress. None of the speakers took into account natural progress, which would have been more meaningful.

Overall, I feel that the opposition speakers of the day are still making excuses for the Malaysian government, such as "We are still a young nation" [Young? Pfft.], "We don't want to be lapdogs of the USA" [Um. How do you progress if you don't want learn from the best?] and "If you aim for the stars and you miss, at least you still land on the moon" [Very comforting, I know, but useless when you look at the "cold hard facts", as their own speakers put it].

NB: The topic of the debate was "Malaysia has failed to progress since the inception of the NEP". Opposition speakers on the topic think that we have progressed, government speakers think that we have failed to progress.

Random thoughts

It's coming to the end of January. One thing that surprises me is that summer here in Melbourne is kinda idyllic. It's not as hot most days, unlike what some people think.

So.. the first month of 2010 ending. Why the sudden focus on politics, you might ask? Well it all started with a court ruling on religion, which then inflated into a political as well as a race issue. And then there was the influence of the missing jet engines. In short, a lot of fishy things were going on, mostly attributed to the ruling coalition's mischief. Whether that is true is still open to debate. So, adding the thoughts of an observer too far away to directly probe things, it should prove interesting to see how I'm thinking about the problems.

42

If only the darned supercomputers we have now could tell us that.

Anyway back to reality for a while. Dr M has decided to say that 9/11 was staged. "If they can make Avatar, they can make anything," he said.

Well Dr M, sorry to jostle your brain, but you had a heart attack. Your family decided to bring you here to the States for expert medical treatment. Unfortunately you were slipping into a vegetative state, so we had to pull your brain out, transferring it into a vat. Everything you've heard so far is a fantasy, cooked up by one of our major supercomputers. Hmm? Did you say something? Oh yes, we definitely staged 9/11. Someone had to put the Muslims in their place after all.

Sarcasm wins when people start spouting their brand of nonsense.

Things...

...just aren't the way they seem. I think it's time the youth started speaking their mind. After all, we are the future generation. Let the future generation have more say in what sort of a country we want to inherit.

We don't want a country plagued by infighting. We don't want a country ruled and divided along religious lines. We might want some measure of equality. But we sure as hell don't need the nonsense passed down from you guys in power right now.

Contemplations

I once had a discussion with a friend of mine regarding the existence of God. My friend pointed out that there were several reasons why we can safely discount the existence of a creator for the universe.

Later on, I started reading books on philosophy. One of the major questions they had in common was "Does God exist?" Many thought experiments were suggested to the readers, and some solutions were proposed, amongst which Occam's Razor stood out to me.

So.. if there is a good reason not to believe that God exists,
then.. why all the fighting over which name we should call him by?

inb4 religious people start hating on me

What some Malaysian academicians do during their free time

>>Link<<

My take: The person writing this so happens to be a Chinese-Muslim, and appears to be a convert by marriage. I do not have any preconceptions about his political leanings, or his religion leaning either. Hence I do not know anything about why he decides to write such an article - an article which may, and probably has, inflamed a number of people.

But I still do have a couple of questions regarding his article.
1. Why does Dr Tee choose to use a census that is almost a decade old? Should he not have used an updated version of our national census?

2. Related to question 1, why does Dr Tee think that the non-Muslims have "taken over"? Are there relevant statistics to show for the claims he makes in the post/article?

It is a baffling article. And I feel that it has the potential to incite the very things that he may have sought to quell in the first place.

Teach Radical Malaysian History in our Schools

>>Link<<

My take: About time. It's been talked about to death already. Especially on History. Why are we fed one side of the story and not allowed to ask or comment on the other side? And the current system does not encourage thinking. Questions asked are quashed by using the rhetoric "non-examinable questions".

Time for change. Change, which will not come unless we have a revolution [and we lack leaders for that].

My favourite question returns to haunt readers:
Q: Should he have rebelled against the Sultan?

And my answer will still be:
A: Yes he should.

Racial politics and Brain Drain

>>Link<<

My take:
There are two things worth reading here, the first being the blog post itself, and the second is the long comment beneath.
Brain drain is an ongoing process, amplified by the sheer amount of racist talk some of the leaders have been spouting in the last few years. The article highlights the main reasons why we'd want to get out of Malaysia, which all hint at racism practised within the government forces. [Which is all rather true, and most Malaysians will admit this happens.]

Literate Goons and Well-trained Zombies

>>Link<<

My take: Some measure of rote learning helps us ace exams, but to gauge the true depth of our students you need to get them thinking in detail. As the article points out, one of the ways would be to make students "change" the past through visualising concepts. This has been done in the Singaporean schooling system, and it should be done in our system as well. In many ways it will help us along, although if the implementation is done in the same way as our present method of teaching Literature, the system will fail horribly.

Q: Should he rebel against the Sultan?
A: Why of course he should.

A+ way to get the best of the best in SPM

>>Link<<

I'm sorry, I still don't see how this will help. I foresee a lot of students falling into that A+ category. Unless you're going to use something like a scaled normal distribution graph, this is not going to bode well at all. It's just dressing the salad with a different oil, the taste is more or less the same.

News updates

RM42k for a laptop: >>Link<<

Well, once again the great toilet seat story strikes again, this time in the form of super expensive laptops. If they were inlaid with Swarovski crystals and had the equivalent processing power of Deep Blue, I'd warrant that price. But obviously it doesn't, which means someone is fiddling with the accounts. Nice job wasting taxpayers' money.

97% of parents in 7 schools want teaching in English to continue aka the Maths and Science debacle: >>Link<<

What can they really do? I'll be waiting for updates, but till then, it's still going to be a case of government reversing decent policies.

UPM lecturers hauled up over plagiarism

>>Link<<

Comments: I remember doing basic research during SAM, and also now in uni. Since when did we not have to cite Internet articles?

Conclusion: UPM fails at finding quality researchers.

Malaysian is top English student at London varsity

>>Link here<<

Hmm. Biased as I may be, this is something that we should be proud of. And it should very well be something for all of us to strive for - rebranding Malaysia as much as possible.

In other words - CHANGE.

People with too much time on their hands

197 students caught for khalwat in schools

So. It looks like religious people have too much time on their hands, I think. Why else would they bother with teenagers with raging hormones when there are bigger fish to catch?

Once again, the people with too much time on their hands have struck again. *sigh*

Survey: Students have no qualms about bribes

For original article go here: link

This tells us how badly society affects us students nowadays. It is an old adage that tells us, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
And now even university students don't mind taking bribes. Really, so many things have failed in Malaysia, and now the latest failure is the concept of integrity. It has mysteriously disappeared. Good luck with Vision 2020.

Regarding the policy reversal

[Disclaimer: the author is a product of the Malaysian education system. Any comments he makes here are true and not embellished in any way.]

After 6 years of implementation, 6 long years, now the policy has been reversed. I will tell you the same thing proponents of the policy say: Don't waste our money on changing plans back and forth. And now a quick shoutout to all those blithering idiots supporting the reversal.

To the Malay nationalists:

No, teaching Science and Maths in English is a good concept. It will not weaken the position of Malay, seeing that the standard of SPM Bahasa Malaysia questions are extremely high compared to the parody of an exam you call the SPM English 1119 paper. And there are already so many subjects taught in Malay, so there is no need to teach every non-language subject in Malay.

To the Chinese traditionalists:

If you enjoy Chinese so much, go. Just leave Malaysia. I have seen with my eyes how the Chinese in Australia adapt to using English in schools. Yes, I know they are forced to do it because of the system. But they are adapting to the system, not forcing the system to change every few years. Besides, Chinese students have been beating the crap out of the Malaysian education system, consistently scoring many A1's in SPM. So if our students have been able to do it when the mode of instruction was in Malay, and they did it again when Science and Maths were taught in English, why not let them continue? Why the resistance? Why can't we prove that the Chinese are flexible? Besides, why do you even support Malay at secondary school levels? Shouldn't you campaign for Chinese education to be available at all levels?

Mixed feelings over switch, eh? Go screw yourself, says the wise one

Yet another change to the education system, yet another way of wasting taxpayers' money.

Define "mother tongue". Is it:

a) the language you first spoke at home?
or
b) the language of your race?

I remember some of us trying to debate this question with a lecturer last year. Sadly, to some people, as long as:

a) you aren't white,
b) you don't have a white parent,
c) you weren't born in an English speaking country, and lived there for more than 3 weeks,

you automatically don't qualify to say English is your mother tongue. Which is really unfair for those of us who've spoken English more than any other language since young. Hey, in case anyone high up reads blogs from the masses, understand this: we demand our rights too. Don't leave us out just because we aren't the majority. Our parents still pay you taxes, and I simply hate to see their hard-earned money going down the drain caused by the government changing plans every decade or so.

And why do the politicians need to come out to welcome the move? This seems like a sign that political pressures still rule this country of ours, that students are just pawns in the chess game of politics. So, in future, if you really want to change the lives of people, don't be an engineer or architect or scientist. Go and be a POLITICIAN. Even though you'll be cursed by everyone for failing them, you get to see your stuff implemented. You'll be happy, your supporters will be happy, your enemies will be happy, it's all a win-win situation, eh?

English is, and will be, the language for disseminating information throughout the world. General English is for communication purposes only. If you can't read and write technical terms in English, don't dream of going to any white man's land. Stay at home. Do your degree locally, feed the local education industry, earn lots of ringgit and make Malaysia proud. UTAR needs students. UiTM needs students. Go make them happy. Stay at home and make more champs. Then at international meetings, the only Malaysians you'll be seeing will be those who fit any one of these categories:

a) went to international schools
b) were born overseas, educated overseas since young
c) were through some distant relative, linked back to Malaysia

In short, the ones who will make us proud are the ones who ran away from the hopelessly failing education system. They will carry our flag, hidden in the shadows of another bigger flag.


To Muhyiddin, I don't know whether you enjoy this switch, but have fun facing criticism. To the Cabinet ministers who voted "Nay" to the change, I'm with you. To those who voted "Aye" for the change, I hope that your next trip in a bus ends up over a cliff. Hopefully while your contingent goes up to Genting, your driver fucks up. Good luck with facing rotten eggs anyway. Don't forget, the ones who understand more will end up with the world. Like Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, Buddha. Not politicians.

Math and Science back to Bahasa, mother tongues

The Star
Published: Wednesday July 8, 2009 MYT 2:42:00 PM
Updated: Wednesday July 8, 2009 MYT 3:55:24 PM
Math and Science back to Bahasa, mother tongues

KUALA LUMPUR: The Cabinet has decided that the medium of instruction for Maths and Science will revert to Bahasa Malaysia in national schools and mother-tongue languages in national-type schools from 2012 onwards.

The reversal of the Teaching of Math and Science in English (PPSMI) policy will be done in stages, Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said on Wednesday.

He however added that there will be greater emphasis on learning the English language.

English literature will be re-introduced, as will subjects on grammar and composition.

Beginning 2012, students in Year One and Year Four in primary schools, and Form One and Form Four in secondary schools, will learn Math and Science in Bahasa Malaysia.

The change will not affect those in Form Six and Matriculation.

The two subjects will be taught in two languages until 2014 for other students, he said.

“The gap between rural and urban students has widened since PPSMI started.

“Only 19.2% of secondary teachers and 9.96% of primary teachers were sufficiently proficient in English,” he said, explaining the Government’s decision to revert to the old system.

On efforts to emphasise the learning of English, the number of English teachers would be increased by 13,933 -- retirees would be hired, as well as foreigners if need be.

Primary schools will also increase English classes by 90 minutes a week.

There have been calls from various groups for the policy to revert to before 2003, when the subjects were taught in Bahasa Malaysia in national schools, and either in Chinese or Tamil in national-type schools.

The issue has seen a rare alliance between Malay and Chinese educationists, who are against the switch, although there are also calls by many parents and entrepreneurs for English to be maintained.

Thank goodness my brother and sister escape the horrors of reverting to BM and mother tongues for Science and Maths. They're just one year ahead of this epic reversal stunt pulled off by the Cabinet.

Let's look at something I find interesting:

The issue has seen a rare alliance between Malay and Chinese educationists, who are against the switch...

Do you really think that they are allied against the teaching of Science and Maths in English for the same reasons? I don't think so. The two groups may be allied in their stand, but one thing has been clear from the start: They each have their own agendas. As far as I understand [and this understanding may be biased or flawed], the Malays feel that the "superiority" of their language is being threatened by English. On the other hand, the Chinese educationists believe that the majority of Chinese students are not making much headway with Science and Maths taught in English. It's basically two different groups of people, with different reasons for uniting against a common problem. What they plan after that is another point entirely. Which worries me. Will another different group of people demand something else again later on? And how will the Cabinet decide this time round?

Conspiracy theories aside, all I can say regarding this piece of news is that the education system in Malaysia is just another step towards generating failures. "Malaysisa", one of the most common spelling mistakes for "Malaysia", might soon become fact rather than fiction, if we keep spewing out "sisa" like the person writing the letter in the post below this.

Malaysian English

Malaysia-Today
Why English should not be taught in Bahasa Malaysia
Posted by admin
Tuesday, 07 July 2009 15:20

There is currently a brouhaha going on about the proposed teaching of Science and Maths in English. Some would like these two subjects to be taught in Bahasa Malaysia. I am not too concerned about Science and Maths. I am more worried about English. I feel English should no longer be taught in Bahasa Malaysia.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

And why do I think that English should not be taught in Bahasa Malaysia? Well, maybe this circular from one of Malaysia’s leading universities would explain everything.
*************************************************

4th UiTM INTERNATIONAL SPORTS FIESTA
19 – 23 November 2009 FUTSAL-RUGBY 7- TENPIN BOWLING-BADMINTON

Dear Sport Friends,

Regarding about the global issue H1N1 happens around the world, sadly to be informing that our UiTM International Sports Fiesta will be postponing to 19-23 November 2009.

For all teams which have been confirm to participate in our events, we have to say sorry for this announcements and our Ministry of Higher Education and Ministry of Health also advise to us to change the date for this current situation.

By the date have been confirm incoming this November hopefully your teams still can participate in our event and don’t hesitate to contact us for further information.

And again, we would like to say sorry about the date change for the sake of our health among us.

See you in this November at UiTM Malaysia!!

Regards,

Mr. Mustaza Ahmad
Director
Sports Centre
Universiti Teknologi MARA
Malaysia

I have nothing more to say about this other than:

EPIC FAIL

Government monitoring blogs closely, says Rais

Tuesday July 7, 2009 MYT 7:27:00 PM
Government monitoring blogs closely says Rais

KUALA LUMPUR: Special units have been set up under both the Home, and the Information, Communications and Culture Ministries to monitor blogs and ensure that the content adheres to local laws.

Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim, who is in charge of the communications portfolio, said both ministries would also exchange information between themselves to ensure maximum monitoring.

Besides monitoring, Dr Rais said his ministry also held meetings and dialogues with bloggers and website operators to inform them about government policies.

“We inform them about the various laws that they should be aware of when they blog, especially those relating to racial harmony and national security.

“We also remind them about the existence of legislation such as the Sedition Act, Defamation Act and Internal Security Act,” he said.

Earlier, he told both Shamsudin Mehat and Datuk Dr Yeow Chai Thiam that the Government would adopt an “open approach” towards the new media.

“The Government encourages people to use the internet to search for information and knowledge as this helps to increase the broadband usage in the country,” he said.

Dr Rais said the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission also organised programmes to promote awareness on proper usage of internet, such as cyberspace security, publication of articles, interviews in electronic media and in advertisments.

To a question from Ahmad Hussin whether the Government intended to draw up a code of ethics for bloggers as they had the power either to unite or wreck society, Dr Rais said the Home Ministry would monitor the bloggers under the Printing and Publications Act.

“My ministry will monitor these blogs under the Communications and Multimedia Act,” he said.

Hmm. Seems like we kids won't be in much trouble over these sort of acts. But thinking about it, do we really need police in the Net? [I refer, of course, to the Net policing and monitoring Rais refers to.]

I don't think that all of us are that naive to assume that everything on the Net is true.

Do not trust Wikipedia 100%.
-Ray Dagastine-

Although you do have one or two mishaps, not all of us will believe that there is a Father somewhere in Malaysia attempting to convert Muslims. What more to stories of slaughter and bloodshed. For that, we need more than one reliable source to actually start thinking that something real has happened/is happening.
As for politics, I will not delve into that deeply, since that is beyond the normal, politically unconnected Malaysian. We can only speculate. We can't say anything. Anything we say is, really, hot air until it's confirmed by someone in the right areas.