Malaysia’s future will be much brighter if the thousands of UiTM students are as enthusiastic in their studies as of their recent demonstrations to protest against Selangor MB Tan Sri Abdul Khalid Ibrahim for his suggestion to open a 10% quota for non-bumi students.
I couldn’t care much about the 10% quota for non-bumi students… but thanks for showing how deep the Ketuanan Melayu mindset is still rooted even among some younger generations.
Fear not about having others eating your pie UiTM students… most are not interested to enter the institution anyway. The real thing that you should fear is finding jobs when graduated; you know how good (or bad) you are… and you can’t rely on the government forever.
Oooppsss… should have written this article in BM instead; I wonder how many UiTM students can understand this… whatever.
We should abolish the quota system of the Public Services Department (PSD) scholarships once and for all. Well, maybe not now… but it should be made as a goal that should be achieved in near future.
Why should racial issue came into questions when deciding who is more fitting to accept a government scholarship for further education? It should be based on their academic achievement, the economic background, and to some extend their co-curricular achievements.
Lots of fuss have been created since the government decided to increase the non-bumi quotas from 10% to 45%. The most recent argument came from Umno Youth Education Bureau that it’s not a good idea because increasing the quota for non-bumiputras without increasing the actual number of scholarships has drastically affected the bumiputras.
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A friend of mine who is doing his PhD research at one of the local universities is chosen to attend a prestigious international scientific conference in June, fully sponsored by the government.
My friend is a smart guy, I have no doubt about that. The only problem is that lots of his time is spent on watching porns and downloading anime torrents… yes, that’s how easy it is to study PhD in our universities (or perhaps my friend is really a genius lol).
Can’t imagine how our government has managed to choose this fella to represent our country to meet with the best scientists around the world… well, have a nice trip regardless, my dear friend.
The National Islamic Students Association of Malaysia is calling for a review of uniform policy, saying that the current uniform is too transparent for girls and it becomes a source of (unwanted) attraction which encouraged rape and pre-marital sex. [Thestar]
The association is probably referring to the baju kurung style school uniform, and I won’t deny the fact that it could become a bit transparent when the cloth is getting thin.
Whether it’s sexy or not, it’s leave to personal implementation… there are people who could be turned on by nurses’ uniforms, stewardesses’ uniforms, school uniforms etc. and there are people who are more attracted to other attires, bikini for example (btw, does that mean that ladies shouldn’t wear bikini to beaches as well?) and there are those who like ladies who cover their whole body.
Point is, attires play the least factor in rape and pre-marital sex cases… it’s about the moral values and criminal minds that are embedded within the inner soul of human beings. Rapists won’t bother much about what their victims were wearing but looking for easy preys instead.
Frankly, how to tackle depleting moral values is something that I am always hopeless in… but blaming it on school uniforms and sexy attires is just meaningless.
The Higher Education Minister has released Setara, the first-ever local rating system for higher education institutions in Malaysia. University of Malaya (UM) is the only public higher education institution to obtain a five-star (out of six) rating.
Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin said that “the purpose of Setara is to enable universities to measure their quality and see where they stand in relation to one another.” [Thestar]
Thing is, the comparison is meaningless if we don’t have any university that is on par with the world’s best universities. There is no point being the best among the worst.
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Perbadanan Tabung Pendidikan Tinggi Nasional Malaysia (PTPTN) has submitted the names of the 200,000 loan defaulters to the Immigration Department to stop them from leaving the country.
The move to ban loan defaulters from travelling abroad was taken after PTPTN’s previous measures to recover the loans including publishing their names, blacklisting them, taking them to court and imposing higher penalties brought little success.
This action should work against defaulters that want to travel (because of work or vacation), but I am not sure how many people are actually affected with this new rule… perhaps just 10-20% of the total numbers.
Frankly, PTPTN should up their ante to tackle this issue. Taking the loan defaulters to court should work well, and it should be enforced systematically… making sure that nobody would escape from the hook. The defaulters will start to take the matter (repaying loan) seriously if they know that they would be in deep trouble if they failed to do so.
PTPTN can also work with other agencies to snap the defaulters. This travel-barred is a good start; they should also cooperate with EPF, LHDN and private banks etc. to make life difficult for the loan defaulters… the defaulters could (and should) be barred from taking other loans (house, cars, credit cards) and having their EPF deducted as loan repayment.
Most of these people do have a job and can afford to repay the loan; if they are indeed unemployed or for some reason could not make the payment at the moment… they should apply for a postponement of repayment or other options depending on the circumstances.
There is no point trying to raise the conscience of the loan defaulters… they probably don’t care or else they would have started paying their loans at the first place. Stern actions would work much better.
A letter from reader Hafiz Ismail…
Bogus University Operated by Malaysian on BBC
Everyday the Malaysian image to the world are tainted by works of con artists and the people holding office in our country are not doing anything to stop these people from operating. It is a sad day for higher education in Malaysia, and the lobbying to make Malaysia a centre of global educational excellence.
Just like setitik nila merosakkan susu sebelanga, these fraudsters are mockering the genuine degree holders and legitimate institutes of higher learning in our country.
Uncle Lim had wrote in his blog about these bogus universities not long ago. Now the BBC and other medias in the UK are carrying news and investigative reports on bogus universities, including the one Uncle Lim pointed out. These reports did mention the fraudster’s name, where he comes from (Malaysia). Anyone who reads these news may have second thoughts about education in Malaysia.
I for one, is truly ashamed.
Feel free to surf to the websites below. The one on BBC is particularly interesting as the investigation was carried out by a BBC reporter who went undercover. A 2 part video are included on the website.
BBC ll Guardian ll Accountancyage ll Timnesonline ll Personneltoday
These blog entries were written by fellow Malaysian individuals and educationists, Tony and Idlan, who did their own investigation:
link 1 ll link 2 ll link 3 ll link 4
These educationists have done their investigation long before BBC did theirs, as Uncle Lim had written his entry as well, but no one takes serious action on the fraudsters. It is ironic that rather than taking action, some people (artists, millionaires, attention seekers, and politicians) are glorifying these fake degree mills.
And the media to promote them further.
A very sad day for Malaysia.
Kind regards,
Hafiz Ismail.
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Malaysia crime rates are rising in an alarming rate… there was a dramatic 13.4% increase in violent crimes last year, of which rape cases were up by about 30% and gang robbery by a whopping 160%. [Malaysiakini]
We need to act fast to cope with this problem; it is a matter that concerned every Malaysian citizens, and quite often it’s a matter of life and death.
I don’t quite understand how the crime rates could be soaring sky high in the past few years. Set the crime fighting and prevention efforts aside… I couldn’t figure out how on earth did we managed to produce so many criminals in Malaysia.
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