“the migration of talent across
borders touches the core of Malaysia’s aspiration to become a high –
income nation. Human capital is the bedrock of the high – income
economy. Sustained and skill – intensive growth will require talent
going forward. For Malaysia to stand success in its journey to high
income, it will need to develop, attract and retain talent. Brain drain
does not appear to square with this objective: Malaysia needs talent,
but talent seems to be leaving.”
But right after the published of the report, our Prime Minister came out and claim:-
“I don’t think that is quite correct,
but in terms of the brain drain, of course we have identified it as one
of the problems that must be resolved… That is why we have set up the
‘Talent Corp’, and the first step was my announcement on the matter at
Invest Malaysia recently, the provision of the income tax incentive at
the rate of 15 per cent for a period of five years if they (Malaysian
professionals) return to Malaysia… This is one of the main initiatives,
and there are other initiatives which had been agreed upon and we will
take subsequent measures,”
While our Prime Minister denied, our
legendary entrepreneur, Koon Yew Yin has long highlighted 2 years
before, yes, 2 years before:-
Written by Koon Yew Yin
Friday, 10 July 2009 11:37
There is a boy I know who scored 10
A1s. His mother is a primary school teacher and Andrew has two younger
brothers. His father, a civil servant, had already passed on by the time
the son sat SPM in 2006.
Armed with his excellent result,
Andrew applied for a scholarship to study mechanical engineering. The
government rejected his application. Petronas rejected his application
too. Can you imagine how disappointed and frustrated he was?
As soon as I learned of Andrew’s
difficulty, I offered him financial assistance to do accountancy in
Utar. He has been scoring top marks in every exam to earn a scholarship
from the university. Although Andrew is now exempted from paying fees, I
still bank him RM400 a month to cover cost of living.
I have given assistance and allowances
to more than 40 poor students to study in Utar in Kampar, Perak. Andrew
is typical of their calibre; he prefers to get what is his due on
merit, and his university has deservingly waived his fees.
On my part, I expect nothing from
those that I’ve supported except for them in future to help young people
in similar circumstances, and to hope that they will all stay back in
Malaysia so that they can lend their talents to building up our nation.
Asean (mainly M’sian!) Scholarships: Our brains, their gain
There are others that have deeper
pockets who have extended a helping hand to our youngsters. One of them
offers the cost of school and exam fees, hostel accommodation, RM5,800 a
year for expenses, RM1,200 settling-in allowance, and transport/air
ticket. Furthermore, the recipient is not bonded. Or in other words, the
giver asks for nothing back.
I’m talking about the pre-university Asean scholarship extended to Malaysians by ‘the little red dot’ Singapore.
Of course, Singapore is not doing it
for purely altruistic reasons. The country is giving these much coveted
Asean scholarships to build up her national bank of talent. Some
Malaysians accuse them of ‘poaching’ the creme de la creme of our
youngsters. I don’t look at it as poaching. Their far-sighted government
is doing it in their national interest.
And why not? Singapore can afford it.
It has three times our GDP per capita. On another comparative note, the
GDP per capita of Taiwan and South Korea are 2.5 times and double ours
respectively. Before the NEP’s introduction in 1970, the four countries
were at parity.
The big question is why are we surrendering our assets which Malaysian parents have nurtured but the state neglected?
Tens of thousands of young Malaysians
have left our shores on the Asean scholarship. I am not sure if
Singapore is willing to give out the figure. But I am pretty sure the
Malaysian authorities do not give two hoots about this, whatever number
they may have arrive at. If they do, there seems to be no policy change
to stem the outflow.
Malaysia is optimistically indifferent
to the continuous brain drain, little caring that it is detrimental to
our aspiration of becoming a developed country (I hate to say this) like
Singapore.
Behaving like a failed state
Consider this startling statistic:
There are more Sierra Leonean doctors working in hospitals in the city
of Chicago than in their own homeland. More Malawian nurses in
Manchester than in Malawi. Africa’s most significant export to Europe
and the United States is trained professionals, not petroleum, gold and
diamond.
The educated African migration is
definitely retarding the progress of every country in Africa. Today, one
in three African university graduates, and 50,000 doctoral holders now
live and work outside Africa. Sixty-four percent of Nigerians in the USA
has one or more university degrees.
If we carry out a study, we are likely
to find a very large number of non-Malay graduates emigrating to
Singapore, Australia and other countries that is proportionately similar
to the African exodus. However the compulsion is different, seeing as
how some African countries are war-torn and famished which is certainly
not the case with Malaysia.
The push factors for our own brain drain lie in NEP policy and this needs to be addressed with urgency.
State Ideology: Be grateful you’re Malaysian
Try putting yourself in the shoes of
an 18-year-old. This young Malaysian born in 1991 is told that Umno was
very generous in granting citizenship to his non-Malay forefathers in
1957. Thus as a descendant of an immigrant community – one should be
forever grateful and respect the ‘social contract’.
Gratitude is demanded by the state
while little is reciprocated. Under the NEP – and some say this policy
represents the de factosocial contract – every single Vice Chancellor of
every single Malaysian public university is Malay.
Promotion prospects for non-Malay
lecturers to full professorship or head of department are very dim,
hence we have the dichotomy of non-Malays predominant in private
colleges while correspondingly, the academic staff of public
institutions proliferate with Malays.
The civil service is staffed
predominantly by Malays too, and overwhelmingly in the top echelons. The
government-linked corporations have been turned into a single race
monopoly. Hence is it any surprise that almost all the scholarships
offered by government and GLCs seem to be reserved for Malays?
Youngsters from the minority
communities see that Malays are the chosen ones regardless of their
scholastic achievement and financial position. Some are offered to do a
Master even though they did not even apply (but the quota is there to be
filled, so these disinterested Malays are approached).
Our lesson today is …
How the government apparatus conducts
itself and the consequences of its policy implementation will upset an
individual’s innate sense of justice.
The government pays about RM1.8
billion in annual salaries to teachers. A child is taught moral studies
in class but he learns in life that adults condone and conspire to
immorality by perpetuating the unfairness and injustice which impacts on
Malaysia’s young.
On the other hand, the favoured group
is given more than their just desserts without either merit or need.
When one is bred to think that privilege is only his rightful
entitlement, we would not expect this young person to pay back to
society in return.
Our Malaysian education system has
been flip-flopped, pushed and pulled this way and that until standards
dropped to alarming levels. The passing mark for subjects in public
exams have fallen notoriously low while the increasing number of
distinctions have risen fatuously high with SPM students notching 14As,
17As and 21As.
With top scorers aplenty, there will
not be enough scholarships to go around now that the Education Ministry
has decided to put a cap on the SPM, limiting takers to 10 subjects.
The human factor
It’s unrealistic that the education
system can be effectively overhauled. Even tweaking one aspect of it,
such as the language switch for Math and English, created havoc.
It’s not that our educational
framework is so bad as after all, a lot of study and planning did go
into it. It’s only when the politicians dictate from on high and
overrule the better judgment of the educationists – Dr Mahathir Mohamad
being case in point – that we slide deeper into the doldrums.
The politicization of education and
the hijacking of the country’s educational agenda has clearly cost us
heavily in terms of policy flip flops and plummeting standards, and the
loss of a good part of our young and talented human resources.
Matters become worse when Little
Napoleons too take it upon themselves to interfere with teachers. For
instance, the serial number assigned candidates when they sit public
exams. Why is a student’s race encoded in the number? What does his
ethnicity have to do with his answer script?
There is further suspicion that the
stacks of SPM papers are not distributed to examiners entirely at random
(meaning ideally examiners should be blind to which exam centres the
scripts they’re marking have originated from).
A longstanding complaint from
lecturers is that they are pressured to pass undergrads who are not up
to the mark, and having to put up with mediocre ones who believe they
are ‘A’ material after being spoilt in mono-racial schools.
Letting teachers do their job properly
and allowing them to grade their students honestly would arrest the
steep erosion of standards. And unless we are willing to be honest
brokers in seeking a compromise and adjustment, the renewed demonizing
of vernacular schools is merely mischievous. Either accept their
existence or integrate the various types of schools.
But are UiTM and its many branch
campuses throughout the length and breadth of the country, Mara Junior
Science Colleges and the residential schools willing to open their doors
to all on the basis of meritocracy if Chinese, Tamil, and not
forgetting religious schools, were abolished? Not open to a token few
non-Bumiputera but genuinely open up and with the admission numbers
posted in a transparent manner.
Finally, there are teachers genuinely
passionate about their profession. There are promising teachers fresh
out of training college who are creative and capable of inspiring their
students. It’s not only Form 5 students who have been demoralized.
Teachers are human capital that we seem to have overlooked in the
present controversy.
Conclusion: Ensuring fairness for the future well-being of our young
A segment of Johoreans cross the
Causeway daily to attend school in Singapore. Many continue their
tertiary education in Singapore which has among the top universities in
the world. Eventually, they work in Singapore and benefit Singapore.
Ask around among your friends and see who hasn’t got a child or a sibling who is now living abroad as a permanent resident.
I can’t really blame them for packing
up and packing it in, can you? It’s simply critical at this juncture
that we don’t let our kids lose hope and throw in the towel. The system
might be slower to reform but mindsets at least can be changed easier.
It starts with the teachers, the
educationists and the people running the education departments and
implementing the policies. Please help Malaysian youngsters realise
their full potential. Just try a little fairness first.
Personal Note:
Readers may be interested to know that
I have four children all of whom are accomplished in their respective
fields. Three of them are part of the brain drain and have elected to
settle down abroad; only one is back in Malaysia.
My son who has double degrees in civil
engineering and chartered accountancy is an investor in Canada. He
could be here to create hundreds of jobs to enrich Malaysia but he has
been so disgusted with our policies and their implementation that he has
chosen not to return.
I am sure that there are tens, if not
hundreds of thousands of similar young Malaysians that our country has
lost, no thanks to our short-sighted education and NEP policies. And yet
the Government is so keen to attract foreign investors. Where is the
logic and rationality?
No comments:
Post a Comment