Tasha Henderson had had enough of her daughter's poor grades and bad attitude, so she made her teen stand out in the street with a sign.

It's not the sort of thing you see everyday, but desperate mom Tasha Henderson did something notable though - she stood out there by her daughter's side. Hmm. Bet mom didn't say, "This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you."

Talking about tees with messages, folks are all riled up with this one featuring a menacing snowman.  Popularised by ex-drug dealer turned rapper Young Jeezy, the snowman icon is getting a lot of heat from schools and parents.

Spotted a young teen today whose battle-green t-shirt was silkscreened with this message:

                  ARMY

                Our son protects the homeland

What's with the message, why is he wearing it, and what's it doing here in Malaysia?

AB Sulaiman makes a no-holds barred commentary on the state of education in Malaysia following our local universities' slide in international ranking. His frank and painful analysis leads him to admit that the unintended consequences of social engineering in the country is the 800-pound gorilla in the way of progress.

The unintended consequences are dire: teachers teach only whatever is necessary and become mediocre in their performance, and students do not shine because they do not see any further than the need to pass an exam. They seem to be taught thus: “This is how I want you to think. This is the book you can read. Those are books you cannot read.” Do not talk about achievement motivation and striving for excellence to the students when they are taught only to conform and to the protection of the status quo.

 

Teachers and students alike are reduced to conformists. Teachers have to conform to the wishes of the university management only in order not to jeopardize their career prospects. Students on the same token have to behave to help ensure their studies are not interrupted by dismissals. Teachers lecture in order to guarantee their monthly salary, and students study just to pass an exam and get a degree.

 

What has caused the country to lead to the development of these negative features in the UM? Who is accountable for this entire fiasco?

I picked the article from Malaysiakini (subscribers only) but follow this link to read the full piece.

As if Malaysia’s
education system is not in a bad enough shape, here’s more bad news. Human Resources Minister Datuk Dr Fong Chan Onn said the week-long census carried
out by the Economic Planning Unit of the Prime Minister’s Department uncovered 59,250 graduates looking for jobs.

The New Straits Times
reported Dr Fong saying 81 per cent of those jobless had attended public
universities and that the three main reasons the graduates cited for not getting jobs were:

• No job experience (49.7%)
• 
  Poor command of the English language and lacking in
  communication skills (33.3 per cent)
• 
  The courses they took in universities were not relevant to
  jobs available in the market (32.2%).
  

Another report in the Star had this to add
about unemployed graduates:

• They want only the easy jobs
• 
  They think they should not be inconvenienced by their work
• 
  They do not have social skills
• 
  They are just not hungry enough 

It appears one
reason for their poor
attitude is due to over-protective parents who spoilt junior rotten by
not giving him or her responsibilities at home. Of course there's the
over emphasis on scoring A's, and excessive tuition, but I can almost
hear parents complain that it's the system that's to blame. 
There's this confusion and parents can't tell schooling from education, and pity the kid who has to pay for the misapprehension. Something's seriously amiss with
education in the country and it’s a blight that’s tainted schools from primary to
university levels.  

A recent survey in
the World Universities Rankings compiled by Times Higher Education Supplement
(THES) revealed that Malaysia’s premier university Universiti Malaya (UM)  fell sharply from
89^th place in 2004 to 169^th place this year. That’s an 80-place plunge. Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) was in 111^th place last
year but this year it has been unceremoniously dropped from the Top 200
bracket.  Poor show all round. 

It’s a situation that should have invited soul-searching
but not for university administrators at UM. UM
vice-chancellor Hashim Yaacob instead made a boast of its Top 200
placing in a farcical display during a press interview. He was quoted in a
local daily that although UM may have slipped in its ranking, it nevertheless
is better than some 30,000 major institutions around the world, having made it to the Top 200! En. Hashim expressed "great happiness" that it even did better than last year (!) since UM made it to the top 100 in three sectors. That's an educator speaking here. What’s more
appalling, billboards (see pix) celebrating UM’s ‘achievements’ have appeared in the face
of public criticism and even agitation for the smug vice-chancellor’s removal. There’s
something comical about the whole business, but few people are laughing. 

Across the causeway, Singapore's national university took a tumble too,
from 18 to 22nd place. That's cause for a ruckus for anyone who has any
sense of pride in their public institutions, although 4 places down is
nothing compared to UM's abysmal drop. Curiously, someone wrote
to the Straits Times online wondering if the slip may be attributed to
insufficient 'branding.' You know, wrong perception of strengths and
leadership, etc. Now isn't that something?

I don’t want to go into
an “I-told-you-so” slanging match but what’s happened can only be a sort of  vindication
for homeschoolers. You won’t believe how many people have asked if by
homeschooling, our two boys would be able to find a place in local
universities.  Do you think they will see the light now?

Links to other views:
Education in Malaysia
Lim Kit Siang

 
After
two years (!), my heliconia bloomed. Out on our small deck, I spotted the
first sign of a flower, and what a gratifying sight it was. Weeks later, it was in full blossom. Yes, leaves
are a little brown on the edge - just goes to show I'm not so good with flowers
since I wasn't born with a green thumb. I usually water them in the
morning, but Elliot gives the plants another bath in the afternoon (it's the heat and this plant drinks).

It's easy to complain about how little we have compared to wealthier
relatives and neighbours. There's the classic story of the boy who
whined about not having a new pair of shoes - until he met someone who
did not have any feet. It's apocryphal but the lesson is clear. 
Now here's a simple test to change your mind about how 'poor' you are.
Click on the box above and follow instructions. My guess is, you'll discover you are probably  among 5% of the world's richest people.

After you're done (and if you're not among the world's deprived), try to make an effort to help make poverty history.

Tsunamis in Asia.
Hurricanes in New Orleans.
Mudslides in Guatemala.
And now
a devastating earthquake in Pakistan.

According to a report in Guardian,
the International Red Cross says more people are being killed and
affected by disasters. 2.54 billion people - almost half the people
alive - have been through one disaster or another in the past decade,
compared with 1.7 billion in the previous 10 years. Percentage wise,
that's  46% up since the last decade.

Following the 7.6 magnitude earthquake that killed up to 30,000 October 8,
Pakistanis wait desperately for aid. 240,000 victims are in urgent need of emergency supplies in what President Musharraf
calls “the worst disaster in Pakistan’s history.” As the international
community rush rescue workers and medical personnel into the country,  it appears politics,
race, and religion have taken a back seat. Former rivals Pakistan and India are
cooperating in relief effort. Well almost. Israel has extended aid, but
Pakistan - its harshest critic in the Muslim world - has been cool to the
offer. 

I don’t know whether to applaud their audacity or their creativity but
these Nigerian scammers simply won’t give up. Often called the 419 Nigerian Advance
Fee Fraud, poor sods get ripped off (either out of greed or ignorance but I
much prefer to think it’s the former) every year resulting in hundreds of
millions of dollars lost. Authorities around the world are saying these scams
aren’t slowing down and you just have to wonder what the Nigerian government is
doing about it.

There have also been some reports
of lives lost and persons
missing with regards to the scams, and there is every indication that
these
scams have escalated thanks to the accessibility of the internet. That
it's still around after so many years is evidence that this clever con
simply works. There was a
time when I received variations of the scams via snail mail, but here’s
one of
several that arrived in my email box recently (note tsunami reference): 

Related links:
The 4-1-9 Coalition Website
claims it is fighting scammers through education. Includes country
specific guidelines to help victims from the countries cited.
United States Secret Service Website pretty much covers similar grounds except that it carries a stamp of authority.
Another version of the above con  is called the Black Money
scam (in Malaysia, the con is frequently associated with Africans).
Unsuspecting victims are shown a pile of blackened banknotes. Victims
who pay for chemical dye removers end up with useless bundles of paper
and an expensive lesson about greed. South African police warn about
Black Money in this news report.

What next for converts?

Freedom
of religious expression in Malaysia continues to be dogged by issues
such as this. I have blogged about Lina
Joy previously, and this latest development is upsetting. It
does not help that religious sensitivity in a country that is
predominantly muslim makes comments and discourse almost impossible.

Read transcripts of case and  judgment here on Malaysian Bar website dated 24 Sept 2005. 

See also: Malaysian Bishops on living in the shodow of Sha'aria