January 10, 2013
What Value Our Degrees, asks Citizen Nades
by
R. Nadeswaran (01-08-13)@http://www.thesundaily.my
Citizen is a special status held by the people who have the right to be in a country. For example, people deserved to choose their own life such as individual freedom, freedom of workship, and citizenship through marriage. It was the important thing to be the advanced country and also decrease the poor people. Moreover, Malaysia is a wonderful city. People have to choose their own minister to be right choosed after ‘Pilihan Raya’. In Malaysia also they have no age limits to their want to get studies. It was a good thing to us and also to be the advanced city in 2020. Malaysia also have their own systems and also rules.
Malaysian Constitution is the most important things in Malaysia it is because Malaysia was the most beautiful country. Besides, the Yang DiPertuan Agong has the highest positions according to the constitution. Other than that, people in this country deserved to choose their own choice for example their Prime Minister. It is shown that Malaysian was a great city than others. In Malaysia also they have no war it is because Malaysia was a calm country. Moreover, Malaysia also trying to together with the other country to move forward to be the advanced city in the eyes of the world.
NO, the above are not the work of some foreign students trying to learn English. Neither are they of primary school pupils attempting their Standard Three English language test. No, they have not been edited and are reproduced as they were written and submitted.
The creators of the above are final year students of a multiple award-winning university. These are excerpts of their essay on Malaysian studies. Despite the poor language and content, they will be “passed” by the university and perhaps given an “A” for their efforts.
Will these students be able to word a job application? Will they be able to go through a job interview? Will employers want to give jobs to this category of students who cannot string two sentences without five mistakes? Will these students be prepared to face the outside world?
Later this year, they will “graduate” complete with gowns and mortars in front of proud parents and relatives. They will receive scrolls from a VVIP and pay a small fortune for the ceremony and photographs. They will join the thousands of young men and women who would fall under the category of unemployed or unemployable graduates. But the scroll is not worth the paper it is printed on.
In short, they are the end-products of production lines that have been set up to churn out graduates, irrespective of their skills, knowledge or ability. To enable these production lines to function, a whole load of people get licences or permits to set up “tertiary institutions”. There is no quality control and the end result is that some of them are absolutely useless and make money from the National Higher Education Loan (PTPTN).
As the government continues to provide more funds for education under the PTPTN scheme, more young people look forward to a tertiary education and a degree. But in the eagerness to create more graduates, some universities are closing an eye to the weaknesses and shortcomings of students.
In 1997, the PTPTN scheme was launched at a time when private colleges were starting to
bloom, and foreign universities such as Monash University and Nottingham University were invited to set up their campuses in Malaysia. The PTPTN was supposed to be a rolling fund to provide loans to students who could not afford tertiary education.
Today, the PTPTN scheme, as one observer remarked, is no different from or maybe worse than the “sub-prime” loan scandal in the US.You lend money to people (children) who are “not qualified” to “buy” a degree that is worth very little, on the belief that the value of the degree will keep increasing. When the value appreciates and there is a regular income, the loan can be settled and therefore everybody will be happy.
But the bitter truth is that the degree is not a guarantee of regular income and hence the loan defaulters. Under these circumstances, will the government be able to recover the loans or will they be written off?
R. Nadeswaran has met several “graduates” who cannot hold a simple conversation. –http://www.thesundaily.my/news/583979
Din Merican: the Malaysian DJ Blogger 
This is a tragedy. When graduates cannot write, they also cannot speak properly. All because our education system is kaput. Will the new Education Blueprint help to overcome this sad state of affairs? It cannot if the present crop of educationists is the product of that system. They will play politics and ruin the lives of our future generation –Din Merican
however many do get employed and also are visiting lecturers to some universities here in Malaysia. Seriously no joke. They are in high positions too but their deficiency is often aided by proof readers who will edit their reports and others working under them. Therefore the problem is swept under the carpet. Professionals with English problems also copy paste text from previous reports, google translate text from other countries and later edit them before sending it to the proof readers. Therefore most consultancy reports are merely reproduced text with latest data and a little juicy facts. This matter has not been looked into or written about.
Sad but true! I get goosebumps when I converse with our young people these days. They can’t string together a few words to construct a simple sentence, let alone a compound or a complex one.
The other disturbing thing is that our young people don’t read enough to widen their knowledge. So many of our people lack conversational skills. This can be due to their lack of general knowledge which, of course can be remedied by a love of reading of different genre.
It’s time our government gets serious about the use of English as a medium of instruction in our schools. Our people needs English to hook on to the international world where English is the language of knowledge and social interaction between people of different cultures!
Tragedy?
I thought it was due to rigor mortis?
40 years ago, when i was young, we had a maximum of 200 medical graduates per year from MU and UKM. Nowadays, we have have 200 Veterinarians and 2,500 medical graduates with questionable humanity and ability. That’s progress – when animals become more precious than humans.
In case Dato Din and Datin doesn’t come up with the music this week, this is my offering:
I have a young lady with an honours degree in mass comm stringing for me. Every time she submits her written piece for publication I have not only to edit extensively but, at times, to rewrite the whole piece. I’ll ask her to move on. Can’t afford to good money for shoddy work, girl or no girl.
It’s terrible having to put up with this mess. Our Umno-inspired Education system has gone to the dogs, literally.
Politicians politicised the country’s national education system to win votes. They then send their offsprings to attend the best colleges overseas and at taxpayer expense. What else is new??
Still all you have to do is sit at the next table at Deano’s on 33rd St. and eavesdrop on a conversation two young Malaysian diplomats are having. They are always conversing in Malay! The confidence is just not there.
UMNO Baru-BN still fails to realise that masses of unemployed (unemployable)
university graduates will translate into masses of anti-regime dissidents ?
Excise me Miss, can I have some mayonnaise?
Apa tu?
Mayonnaise….
Takde lah sori
Macamana saya makan fish and chips saya kalau takde mayonnaise?
Apa tu mayo….
Sos tomato berwarna putih….?
Oh ketchup putih katalah ketchup putih, apa di panggil mayonis pulak….
The flaws were intended since mak kutty was the education minister. It is intended for the malaysian to remain under their (elite groups) dumb for generations to come.
Graduates of all field are having poor or no quality. In time to come, we either pay expatriates to build stable (not collapse) buildings, seek medical treatment overseas, get foreign lawyers to defend internation cases, and so on. And our gov have actually engaged foreign PR co, not local one to promote their propaganda, what a shame. And the ones loosing are the masses of mid to low income groups.
Are we not reminded of whom was that EM who topsied the Ed Policy in the 70s and since then Spore simply kept parring each holes just as we kept trying to get out of the rough. The world is not short of jobs; just short right people for the jobs. As economies changed so must pedagogy be market-driven. The arrogance of universities are themselves to be blamed. Univ teaches to listen to the market. Does it practice what it preaches? Gomory and Shapiro (2003, p. 36) mentioned “where the limits of universities lie and where industry must pick up the reins where great science literacy is needed”. This happen not just in Malaysia. It happened less in some nations and more in others. Who are we to blame? Ourselves really, for appointing legislators who have no qualifications to debate contents or rather, their priorities came first for themselves.
Nothing to be surprised about on the deteriorating quality of our education system. Years ago it was already talked about by the leading educationists and now they are proven right. The fish rots at the top. I dont believe the current leaders have the political will to rectify the situation.
When graduates cannot write, they also cannot speak or read properly. Hence they are unable to resolve problems because they are not able to read books to search for solution or ask another person for answers as they are unable to describe their problems.
so where does that put the graduates and their employers, colleagues and customers?
so where does that put the nation?
Posted on 24 March 2013 – 06:43pm
R. Nadeswaran
Print
TWO weeks ago, the New York Times reported that Malaysia is among 25 countries using off-the-shelf spyware to keep tabs on citizens by secretly grabbing images off computer screens, recording video chats, turning on cameras and microphones, and logging keystrokes.
The Malaysian Insider news portal published the story which quoted security researcher Morgan Marquis-Boire in the NYT report as saying: “Rather than catching kidnappers and drug dealers, it looks more likely that it is being used for politically motivated surveillance.”
Martin J. Muench, managing director of Gamma Group – a British company that sells the software – FinSpy – has reportedly said that the company sold its technology to governments solely to monitor criminals, and that it was most often used against “paedophiles, terrorists, organised crime, kidnapping and human trafficking”.
Marquis-Boire, however, pointed out that the software was open to abuse, saying: “If you look at the list of countries that Gamma is selling to, many do not have a robust rule of law.”
What followed was expected. The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) began investigating the online news portal and at the outset declared that the report is “speculative and ill-researched”.
“The online portal appears to have failed to verify the veracity of the report from the New York Times, nor checked the facts which are available online and had made its own conclusions on the matter,” MCMC said in a statement.
At this stage of the investigations, the statement said, MCMC would like to remind the public not to simply believe everything that they read online and to verify all the information that they receive before forming any views or conclusions on the issue.
Last Friday, fellow columnist Natalie Shobana Ambrose wrote: “If you own a cell phone, you most probably received a few text messages asking who your vote will go to, or which party will win. Not only did a local politician (whom I’m not acquainted with) send me a generic birthday greeting, I even received one for Mother’s Day, though I don’t qualify.
“Short from feeling irked by my privacy being violated, maybe this is how our politicians think they can win an election.”
In January, a friend from Klang wrote on his blog that he had received an SMS from one Dato Dr. Teh Kim Poo. It read: “Selamat Lahir. (Happy Birth) Semoga, panjang umur. Murah rezeki dan sihatselalu. Dengan ingatan tulus ikhlas daripada Dato Dr. Teh Kim Poo – Penyelaras BN Parlimen Klang.”
The friend managed to get Teh on the line and asked if he had sent that birthday greeting, the reply he got was: “Yes I did, in fact every day I send out thousands of birthday greetings, New Year greetings, and festival greetings to people in Klang, via SMS.”
And the friend pointedly asked: Why would this Datuk want to go to all that trouble to get my personal details and send me an unsolicited SMS? He has infringed on my privacy – from where did he get my personal particulars?
Does he not know that he has infringed my privacy? I wonder what the other particulars he has about me.
Almost every week, I am asked the same question: “How did this politician get my details to send me the SMS?” As for the birth date, our identity card numbers reveal the details. Such details are on the voters’ register.
But as for phone numbers, I can only guess that some unscrupulous people have gathered the data and are selling them. It is estimated that there are about 40 research companies in Malaysia, offering a complete range of research services and methodologies.
With the enforcement of the Personal Data Protection Act in January, it became an offence to reveal data of private individuals without their consent.
So, will the MCMC investigate these instances where two individuals received unsolicited messages from unknown parties? Both, I am sure, will be able to assist in the investigations and bring to fore the litany of abuses by some sectors of our society.
As much as MCMC was quick to react (and rightly so) by asking the public “not to simply believe everything that they read online”, it surely owes a duty to the citizens by assuring them that no one is in possession of private details of himself or herself. Is that asking too much?
Spot the Errors in the critics own writings:
R. Nadeswaran has received unwanted calls from direct marketers but the call never goes further if the question of “where did you get my number from” is not addressed appropriately. Comments: citizen-nades@thesundaily.com