Politics 101 Malaysia

by Chua Sue-Ann, malaysiakini, Nov 9.

It isn’t hard to see why DAP leader Lim Kit Siang calls it a ‘national shame’ - for the first time, Malaysian public universities are not ranked among the world’s top 200 tertiary institutions.

The Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) World University Rankings released yesterday, the fourth to date, is based on a survey conducted by Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd (QS).

The highest-ranked Malaysian university this year is Universiti Malaya (UM) at 246, followed by Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) at 307, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) at 309 and Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM) at 364.

Last year, two universities - UKM (185) and UM (192) - had made it to the list. ”Continued”

WoOo0OoHo0Oo… Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is gonna excite many in the country with its release.

According to the shopping guru, Lulu, Tesco and Carrefour have joined the Potter-mania, and are offering the book at RM69.90!

The Education Ministry should seriously consider making the seven Harry Potter books and The Lord of the Rings trilogy compulsory reading for primary as well as secondary school hobbits.

Who cares what sort of fatwa that Sméagol-like Perak Mufti will give. He can go French kiss some artsy-fartsy ass.

by Bede Hong & Ngu Ik Ying, malaysiakini, June 12.

Chinese education movement Dong Jiao Zong (DJZ) has described the National Education Blueprint as homogenous and unfavourable to vernacular schools.

To correct this, DJZ, also known as the United School Committees Association, wants more funds allocated for the construction of Chinese and Tamil schools.

DJZ also wants greater transparency in the disbursement of funds, in particular to Malay-medium schools, according to its 31-page report released today

The report, which took five months to complete, was in response to a call for feedback on the blueprint by the education ministry early this year.

The blueprint will set the direction on education policy under the Ninth Malaysia Plan (2006-2010).

DJZ president Yap Sin Tian said the blueprint “continues to ignore vernacular schools” while emphasising national schools.

“Malay-medium schools are still the main priority of this blueprint. This is very narrow minded of the government,” he told a press conference at the DJZ office in Kajang today. ”Continued”

by Bede Hong, malaysiakini, April 27.

Several Christian leaders in the country have proposed a revival of mission schools. The reason - to arrest the declining education standards.

The group of leaders, at a recent congregation in Johor of non-Catholic sects, agreed that current education policies are out of step with reality and have resulted in jobless graduates.

“We want to bring back the good old days,” Prof Dr Tarcisius Chin told a gathering of over 50 leaders at the Council of Churches Malaysia (CCM) 12th triennial general assembly held at Pulai Springs on Tuesday.

Representatives from Peninsular-based Anglican, Protestant, Methodist and Lutheran churches were in attendance.

“We should take a serious look into the revival of mission schools, considering the decline of education standards,” said the former chief executive officer of De La Salle Institute.

Tarcisius, also a former Universiti Malaya academician, said the proposed mission-style schools would not preach Christianity to its students.

He said the schools would emphasis character development and extra-curricular activities. Such schools would be funded by a congregation of several non-Catholic sects. ”Continued”

Studential.com provides information on personal statements, interviews and guides on various universities plus a whole lot more of in-depth information about going to university and the application process.

A study published this week by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) found that five per cent of the 50,000 personal statements surveyed at random contained “borrowed material”, lifted mostly from this free, informative website.

Malaysia has revised a controversial ethnic relations textbook after criticism from ethnic Chinese and Indian groups over its portrayal of race riots and other sensitive issues.

The Higher Education Ministry, which withdrew the first guidebook for the university-level ethnic relations course last July, said the cabinet had approved the new version after extensive reworking.

“This module is balanced. I’m confident it will be accepted by the Malaysian society,” Higher Education Minister Mustapa Mohamed said.

Mustapa said the new version took into account the views of various groups in Malaysia, where the majority Muslim Malays live alongside large minority Indian and Chinese communities.

“I hope through this module the students will have a clear awareness on the importance to preserve racial harmony and unity and the need for more concerted efforts to forge closer ties among the various races and religions,” he said. ”Continued”

Story from BBC NEWS, Jan 9.

In just five years, the number of non-Chinese people learning Mandarin Chinese has soared to 30 million. What is fuelling this expansion, and will it change the status of English as a global language?

Shanghai-born lawyer Kailan Shu Lucas of Chinese Learning Centre organises lessons in Mandarin, the main Chinese language, for pupils in London - and she is very busy.

She now co-ordinates lessons for 12 London schools. She believes that in most cases, having their children study the language is a career calculation made by the parents.

“Parents nowadays think that in 10-20 years’ time, when their children are in adulthood, China will be even bigger - and so learning Chinese will be a very helpful tool,” she told BBC World Service’s Analysis programme.

“This will be a very useful, important language to learn.” ”Continued”

Teresa Kok quoted some education ministry stats showing 80.3% of standard three students passing Science and 53.1% of them scoring in Maths, the passing mark being 40%.

She concluded, hysterically: “This low passing rate shows that the use of English as a medium to teach Science and Maths has badly affected the learning of our primary school students, it is indeed a FAILURE!!“

Babe, quoting sad figures from just one set of students does not reflect the overall gain of the language switch benefiting primary and secondary classes.

It is unrealistic to call for a u-turn at this stage.

My understanding is the vast majority of students in Chinese schools welcome the change and see it as just another challenge. It’s just that some parents are being too vocal, too emotional — the sort that can never be satisfied. At the end of the day, these are the same parents who will be exporting their sons and daughters to a foreign education. In a English-speaking country.

A student at the UPM campus in Bintulu wrote to say many students are angry the campus’ wifi network has been far from satisfactory since, at least, July.

In at least five of the 10 student blocks (maybe all), she says, the connection drops after a few minutes and sometimes stays dead for more than a day.

This is really unacceptable as finals are round the corner and they could not go online to do research.

It seems UPM Bintulu has been made aware of the situation months ago and students were told it’s a problem with the campus’ satellite dish.

So how?