Punishing new student loan borrowers for the sins of their predecessors

Punishing new borrowers for the “sins” committed by their predecessors is akin to punishing a child for the crime committed by his father….unfortunately that’s what PTPTN is doing to new student loan borrowers.

On November 6, 2014, I received a phone call from David Lee, Editor-in-Chief of Focusweek, the sister publication of Focus Malaysia around noon. David was keen to have a full article written on the announcement made by the National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN) a day earlier where it had reduced the amount of loan that new borrowers would be getting from November 1st, 2014. Students from private institutions of higher learning will be hardest hit with a massive reduction of 15% in the maximum loan quantum, their public institutions of higher learning counterparts got a 5% corresponding reduction. The mean-testing criteria were further tightened so that only borrowers from low income families would stand to get the full loan.

I was very honoured by this request, but there was one caveat: I needed to get the story written and submitted by lunchtime the next Monday, November 11,2014. This gave me about 5 days to do the job. Luckily for me, being a avid follower of the PTPTN saga, I had in my “collections” a great deal of press articles and other data that would allow me to start the job. But I still had to do a lot of desk research and getting the relevant data was the most time-consuming.

Working frantically for the next few days and with the editorial inputs from David and his team, we managed to get this front cover story on the November 15, 2014 edition of Focusweek completed. The followings is an excerpt of the full article that was carried in Theantdaily.com on December 8, 2014.

The full article also covered the unfairness of reducing 3 times higher the reduction in maximum loan (at 15%) for borrowers in private institutions of higher learning compared to their counterparts in public institutions. Since the private and public institutions cater for just about equal number of students, why the heavier “punishment” on the private sector. What I could not find was the data from PTPTN which show who are the main loan defaulters. If the majority are from the private institutions then PTPTN might have justifications for the more severe treatment, but personally, I doubt this is the reason. I also covered the implications on the 15% maximum loan reduction on the private college and universities enrollments where I think those institutions struggling financially will see these austerity measures hitting them hardest. I think a further round of consolidation of the private higher education industry is going to take place in the next few months when the impact of this loan reduction is felt on the new students.

My key quotable quote: Punishing new borrowers for the “sins” committed by their predecessors is akin to punishing a child for the crime committed by his father.

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PTPTN punishing the wrong people

08/12/2014 – 10:00

Dr Chow Yong Neng

PETALING JAYA: The dire predictions have come to pass. Less than three months ago, The Heat newsweekly wrote of a looming student loan crisis at the National Higher Education Fund Corporation, marked by an almost RM50 billion outstanding student loan account and an alarmingly high level of graduate joblessness or underemployment.

The report referred to the situation as a “ticking financial time bomb” and questioned whether the PTPTN (the Bahasa acronym for the corporation) could continue to use kid gloves on the defaulters.

The warnings seem to have been heeded, although it’s far too late. On Nov 5, PTPTN chairman Datuk Shamsul Anuar Nasarah announced a measure that was once rejected by the Cabinet – listing loan defaulters in the Central Credit Reference Information System (CCRIS).

The first stage would involve 173,985 borrowers who had not started financing their loans totalling RM1.23 billion, three years after graduating. Other defaulters will follow in succeeding stages. Being listed under CCRIS would affect the borrowers’ credit worthiness and make it difficult for them to get bank loans.

While this falls within the ambit of natural justice, another announcement by the PTPTN has fast turned into an unpopular decision that invites controversy.

This has to do with the decision to tighten the eligibility criteria for borrowers and to reduce the loan percentage by 5% and 15% for borrowers from the public institutions of higher learning (IPTA in Bahasa) and private institutions of higher learning (IPTS) respectively.

Only borrowers whose families are receiving government handout in the form of 1Malaysia People’s Aid or BR1M would be eligible for 95% PTPTN loan. Borrowers coming from families which do not qualify for BR1M and with household income of below RM8,000 would be eligible for 75% PTPTN loan while those whose families earn more than RM8,000 will only be eligible for 50% PTPTN loan.

It was reported that 558,475 PTPTN borrowers did not make a single instalment payment, causing their collective debt to balloon to RM4.3 billion. Although the PTPTN is putting 173,985 of them into CCRIS, one wonders why the rest can’t be made to face the same fate as well. It is crucial to cast the net far and wide, to generate a payment schedule that would keep the fund afloat.

Other decisions taken beg some thought. The government has decided to convert the PTPTN loans of high achievers who scored first class honour degrees to scholarships and this would benefit 22,150 borrowers as at end September at a cost of RM603.1 million.

This is an excerpt of an article first published in the Nov 15, 2014 issue of Focusweek. The cover picture was an image taken from the front cover of Nov 12, 2014 edition of Focusweek.

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Comparing Malaysia’s student loan crisis with that of the USA

Malaysia has its own version of student loan crisis. This article gives an in-depth analysis of the crisis, identifies great gaps in data & compares Malaysia’s case with that of the USA.

My article entitled “Looming student loan crisis” was published on August 23, 2014 in the now defunct print weekly, The Heat. An edited version of the same article also appeared recently in Theantdaily which was also syndicated by Malaysia Today.

The idea for this article came to me in late June 2014 when I read about the news related to the National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN), especially related to defaulters and the fact that 50,000 new applicants to PTPTN loans may be turned down due to the lack of fund because of the high rate of defaults.

The first version of my article was deemed to be too “academic” with too many facts and figures and hence I went back to the drawing board to work on the second version which was accepted for publication. I have reviewed and edited the first version which is published here. I shall leave it to the wisdom of my readers to judge if this version (which differs substantially from the one published in The Heat) provides a deeper analysis of the issue of student loan crisis in Malaysia and its analogy with the same issue in the USA.

In November 2014, PTPTN announced a drastic reduction of loan amount to new applicants which trimmed 5% off the maximum loan quantum for borrowers from public institutions of higher learning but levied a massive 15% reduction in the maximum amount of loan for those studying in private institutions. The mean-testing criteria have also been tightened up further. These proved that my prediction in August 2014 was right on the bull’s eye!

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Malaysia’s looming student loan crisis

In 2012, USA’s outstanding student loan shot over the psychologically important US$1.0 trillion mark. In March 2014, US News reported that this figure has breached US$1.1 trillion. This is significant because by 2012, the total amount owed by United States’s student loan borrowers had exceeded the country’s citizens total credit card debt. Many financial experts are now saying that the US student loan crisis is getting to the dimension of the sub-prime mortgage crisis of 2008. With a total of over 37 million borrowers holding outstanding student loans, 6.8 million (or 18.4%) of whom being defaulters who collectively account for US$95.9 billion it is no wonder that alarm bells are ringing in the USA.

	Table 1: Comparison of student loan data between Malaysia and the USA
		Malaysia	USA
1	Total amount of student loan disbursed (1997 to 2014)	RM54,510,000,000	N/A
2	Total amount of outstanding student loan (2014)	RM49,390,000,000	$1,100,000,000,000
3	Amount of student loan in default	RM1,300,000,000	$95,900,000,000
4	% of total loan in default [(No. 5 / No. 4)*100%]	2.63%	8.72%
5	Total number of borrowers (1997/2013)	2,390,000	N/A
6	Total number of borrowers still with outstanding loan (2013)	1,240,000	37,000,000
7	No. of defaulters (2014)	183,000	6,800,000
8	% of borrowers who defaulted (2014) [(No. 7/ No. 6)*100%]	14.8%	18.4%
9	Underemployment rate of graduates	40%	44%
10	Repayment rate (2012) (RM7.83 billion due, RM3.48 collected)	49.07%	N/A
11	Amount of total loan recovered (Mar 2014)	RM5,120,000,000	N/A
12	Repayment collected (2011)	RM737,000,000	N/A
13	Repayment collected (2012)	RM800,470,000	N/A
14	Repayment collected (2013)	RM1,200,000,000	N/A
15	Average debt owed per defaulter (No. 3 / No. 7)	RM7,104	$14,103
16	Average amount of loan taken by each borrower (No. 1 / No. 5) for Malaysia; (No. 2 / No. 6) for USA	RM22,808	$29,730
17	Total National Debt (July 2014)	RM543,236,000,000	$17,806,000,000,000
18	% of PTPTN outstanding loan as national debt [(No. 2 / No. 17)*100%]	9.09%	6.18%

If we take a look at the statistics for Malaysia’s National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN) loans and compared these with the equivalents in the USA (Table 1), there are worrying indications that Malaysia is heading the same path as the USA towards student loan crisis. Between 1997 and 2013, PTPTN had provided RM54.51 billion loan to 2.39 million borrowers. To put things into perspective, the total amount of outstanding PTPTN loan currently is around RM49.39 billion and every year PTPTN disburses around RM5.0 billion to over 200,000 borrowers. The best year of loan repayment that PTPTN has recorded was 2013 at RM1.2 billion. In simple arithmetic, discounting defaulting loans, the total outstanding PTPTN loan will grow at least RM3.8 billion each year. In comparison, the dividend paid by Petronas to the Malaysian Government has been around RM30.0 billion each year (for 2013 it paid RM27.0 billion). Thus what is owed to PTPTN is about RM20.0 billion more than what the Government of Malaysia receives each year from Petronas.

The average amount owed by undergraduate borrowers in Malaysia, at RM22,808 is comparable to the USA’s figure of US$29,400 if one takes into consideration of the much lower cost of higher education in Malaysia.

	Table 2: Statistics of PTPTN Borrowers: the unexplained reduction in numbers
	Item	Number

1	Total number of borrowers (between 1997/2013)	2,390,000
2	Total number of borrowers still with outstanding loan in 2014	1,240,000
3	Number of borrowers who have settled their loans (based on calculation: No. 1 minus No. 2)	1,150,000
4	No. of defaulters (2013)	412,245
5	No. of defaulters (2014)	183,000
6	Reduction of defaulters between 2013 & 2014 (No. 4 minus No. 5)	229,245
7	Number of borrowers actively servicing their loans (2014)	956,018
8	Number of borrowers unaccounted for in 2014 (after deducting no. of known defaulters, active borrowers from total no. of borrowers with outstanding loans) (No. 2 minus No. 5 minus No.7)	100,982

9	Amount of loan repaid by borrowers in 2013	RM1,200,000,000
10	Total amount of loan recovered (up to 2014)	RM5,120,000,000

11	Amount of loan attributed to the reduction in number of defaulter between 2013 & 2014, assuming the average owed is the same for the 2014 defaulters, RM7,104. (No. 6 * RM7,104)	RM1,628,516,393
12	Estimated amount owed by the unaccounted borrowers, assuming the average owed is the same for the 2014 defaulters, RM7,104 (No. 8 * RM7,104)	RM717,358,470
13	Total amount of loan from unaccounted borrowers (based on average default amount per defaulter in 2014) (No. 11 + No. 12)	RM2,345,874,863

14	Amount of loan attributed to the reduction in number of defaulter between 2013 & 2014, assuming the average owed iby individual borrowers in 2014, RM22,808. (No. 6 * RM22,808)	RM5,228,512,531
15	Estimated amount owed by the unaccounted borrowers, assuming the average owed by individual borrowers in 2014, RM22,808. (No. 8 * RM22,808)	RM2,303,150,134
16	Total amount of loan from unaccounted borrowers (based on average owed per borrower in 2014) (No. 14 + No. 15)	RM7,531,662,665

With 14.8% (or 183,000) of the 1.24 PTPTN borrowers holding outstanding loan being defaulters (a higher figure of 19% was reported recently), the default rate is fast approaching the US level. Although only 2.63% of PTPTN’s outstanding loans (or RM1.3 billion) are in default, which is about three times less than that of the USA (at 8.72%) the confusing data provided by the relevant authorities in Malaysia at different times points to a possibility of a much higher default figure (as shown in Table 2). Based on data released to the press in April 2014, there was a dramatic reduction in the number of defaulters from 412,245 in 2013 to 183,000 in 2014, a staggering fall of 229,245 borrowers. No explanation has been given to this fall in defaulters. Basing on the average amount owed by defaulters in 2014 of RM7,104, these 229,245 “rehabilitated” borrowers should account for around RM1.63 billion of outstanding loan and the collected amount (assuming that each borrower opted for the 10 years tenure, excluding interest) should be at least RM163 million. If we base our calculation on the average amount owed by a borrower in 2014 of RM22,808, these figures shall change to RM5.23 billion and RM523 million respectively.

Accordingly, there is also another discrepancy in the figures given relating to the number of borrowers actively servicing their loans. In April 2014, it was revealed that there were 956,018 borrowers active in repaying their PTPTN loans and the total number of borrowers with outstanding loans was given as 1.24 million. If we take away from this 1.24 million people the number of defaulters and the recorded number of borrowers actively repaying, there are strikingly 100,982 borrowers unaccounted for. Granted some of these people could have been the top students with first class honours degrees whose loan have been converted to scholarships, in reality producing over 100,000 first class honours graduates who are also borrowers in one year is stretching one’s imagination a bit too far. These 100,982 unaccounted borrowers could be responsible for between RM717 million to RM2.30 billion of loan, if we assume they owe an average of between RM7,104 to RM22,808 (based on the borrowers data for 2014 in Table 1).

Hence the total unaccounted borrowers collectively could owe PTPTN between RM2.35 billion to RM7.53 billion, either of which is a very huge number that dwarf the loan repayment collected in 2013 of RM1.2 billion. Somehow this fact has escaped the attention of the Auditor General office which has uncovered system problems in PTPTN but this alone could not explain the huge number of borrowers unaccounted for.

The amount of student loan owed and the default rate are tied fully to the employment status of the borrowers. In the USA, it was estimated that around 44% of graduates are underemployed which means that they are not in jobs that are relevant to their training and thus not earning sufficiently. In Malaysia, the figure of 40% underemployment has been given for fresh graduates. Hence being underemployed and therefore not earning one’s full potential is the most crucial factor leading to student loan default. Will this lower pay affect the repayment of PTPTN loans? Will this be the trigger to higher level of PTPTN loan default?

PTPTN will need at least RM5.0 billion per year to cover the loan demand of Malaysian students. Assuming that the collection of repayment stays at least RM1.2 billion as per 2013 data, and the default amount stays at 2014 level of RM1.3 billion, the RM5.0 billion will not be enough to cover the needs of new students. Will we see a cap to the amount of PTPTN loans?* Will the private higher education sector bear the brunt of the cut in PTPTN loan funding? How will the private institutions, especially those with high reliance on PTPTN funding for their students fare?

The percentage of national debt accounted for by student loan debt is about 6.18% for the USA. For Malaysia, the figure is about 9.09% of total national debt. Thus if the USA, at 6.18% of national debt is close to having a financial crisis, how will Malaysia fare with closer to 10% of national debt accounted for by outstanding PTPTN loan?

With all these indicators, one cannot help but surmise that there is indeed a looming PTPTN loan crisis in the same dimension as that of the USA. The sooner that every stakeholder recognizes this as a pressing issue, the faster can a plethora of solutions be implemented.

*This article was written in mid July 2014. In fact in early November 2014, PTPTN has announced a 5% reduction in loan amount for borrowers from public institutions of higher learning while their private institutions counterparts have to endure a massive 15% reduction in loan amount. More stringent mean-testing measure was also announced.

The profile of student loan borrowers

US News reported in March 2014 that although the bulk of the loan in the US (60%) are for borrowers taking undergraduate courses, a worrying trend is that the remaining 40% is owed by graduate students who account for only 16% of the number of borrowers. The average owed by 70% of those graduating with an undergraduate degree in 2012 was US$29,400, in contrast the amount owed by the average graduate student was US$57,600 with many facing debts of US$100,000 or above.

In contrast, most Malaysian graduate students are only eligible to apply for PTPTN loans if they enroll in public universities and a handful of private universities. In addition, different levels of financial support ranging from full scholarships at public and private universities, various government scholarship schemes and jobs as research assistants have diminished the reliance of graduate students on PTPTN. It can be assumed that the bulk of the borrowers of PTPTN loans are for undergraduate studies. An attempt to obtain the percentage and amount owed by borrowers pursuing graduate studies has not been successful. The financing of graduate studies by working adults in Malaysia also traditionally rely on EPF withdrawal, commercial bank loans or own savings. Only those enrolled for part-time studies at public universities and a limited number of for-profit institutions are eligible for PTPTN loans.

What the US experts have predicted regarding student loan crisis

There might be a cap to student loan guarantee by the US government. This would spark off a crisis mirroring the sub-prime mortgage financial crisis of 2008. With difficult availability of student loans, colleges, especially the for-profit institutions will find it hard to fill up seats, collapse of the higher education industry could occur.
There will be diminished economic productivity from young graduates in the long run as they are spending higher percentage of their income to service student loan debt. This coupled with the 44% US graduate underemployment rate means that the income level of a significant number of borrowers may not be sufficient to cover their student loan repayment fully.
The spiraling US college tuition fees over the period between 2001/2 to 2011/12 have seen public universities tuition and other fees rose by 40% and that of private institutions rose by 28%. This coupled with the ready availability of student loan have increased the amount of debt held by each US borrower.
For-profit US institutions have only 13% of the total population of students but account collectively for 31% of student loan. Their students also have higher default rate of 22% compared to those studied public institutions. 72% of for-profit institutions produced graduates who earn less than the average high school dropouts. This is a reflection on the market perception of the quality of some of these US for-profit colleges. Many have significant reliance on government-backed student loans to sustain their operation. Corinthian Colleges which has 72,000 students received US$1.4 billion of its US$1.6 billion revenue in 2013 from government funded student loans. It has to sell off all its 85 of its campuses and closing down 12 because of the trouble with government funded student loan issues.

The majority of the predictions above regarding US higher education institutions, especially for-profit colleges may have similar reflections in Malaysia. A PTPTN loan crisis will definitely result in the tightening of the rules regarding the eligibility criteria of borrowers. A squeeze of funding source of PTPTN (coupled with high default rate and relatively low repayment collection) may also curtail the number of for-profit institutions and the type of study programmes that qualify for PTPTN loan. This will lead to a second wave of consolidation of not only the number of for-profit institutions but the types of programmes (as did the tightening of the funding rules regarding nursing programmes a few years ago which resulted in the collapse of a number of smaller private nursing colleges). There is no indication that graduate from for-profit institutions in Malaysia are more prone to defaulting their PTPTN loan. This could be due to the cap in the amount that PTPTN imposes on each type of study programme. There is also no indication that graduates of for-profit institutions earning less than their public university counterparts as shown in the US.

One aspect of the US higher education scene that may not play out in Malaysia is the spiralling of tuition fees. This is a combination of market condition and the way the regulatory authorities and funding bodies exerting tight control over the tuition fees that for-profit institutions are allowed to charge in Malaysia. Additionally, public institutions’ tuition fees level is determined by the Malaysian Government with most degree programmes receiving 90% or more in subsidies to keep these fees low. With PTPTN having a cap on funding for different degree programmes at for-profit institutions coupled with the fierce competition in the private higher education sector means that most private players (with the exception of the market leaders such as Taylor’s University and Sunway University which can command higher than market rates) will price their tuition fees around the PTPTN capped levels to stay competitive.Thus dramatic rise in tuition fees is not an issue in Malaysia.

Comparison of some effects on student loan defaulters in the USA & Malaysia:

US education debt cannot be eased even if one dies or files for bankruptcy. In contrast, PTPTN loan scheme includes loan insurance to cover the loan in the event of the death of the borrower but bankruptcy may not be covered by insurance. PTPTN in 2011 declared that although it has the right to declare defaulters with loan that is over RM30,000 as bankrupts, it has decided not to pursue this route to recover its fund.
Since 2004, student debts in the US has increased by 56.8% per person on average but the average salary for young people in USA has in fact dipped by 10%. Fresh graduate salary in Malaysia actually grew by 8% in 2013 but the starting salary is still low at RM2,400 to RM2,800. A fresh medical graduate from a for-profit medical school with a RM300,000 loan for tuition fees will find it hard to pay off the study loan with a starting salary of around RM3,000. But PTPTN’s cap for medical degree programme is RM30,000 per year or RM150,000 for the programme. However, most PTPTN loan borrowers, especially those who have graduated from public universities who are employed should be able to service their study loans. These salary data from Malaysia was collected for fresh graduates entering jobs relevant to their fields of study. The 40% and 44% underemployment of fresh graduates in Malaysia and the USA respectively may limit those trapped in this circumstance to service their student loans adequately.
The 6.8 million student loan defaulters in the USA will find that their credit rating drops drastically, they may not be eligible for government jobs. They may not even get their transcripts (which are increasingly being demanded by employers) for them to apply for jobs. While Malaysian for-profit institutions practice the same withholding of transcripts for graduates who have outstanding bills, they are not bound by any regulation to do the same on behalf of PTPTN to make loan defaulters pay up. PTPTN has been directed not to blacklist a large proportion of the defaulters with credit agencies but it is interesting to see if more defaulters do not pay up will this be one of the measures implemented. [In November 2014 PTPTN did announce the listing of loan defaulters in the credit agency’s blacklist which have since saw an increase in repayment rates by borrowers]
Some states in the USA will disqualify student loan defaulters from professional licences such as nursing, some will voke driving licences of defaulters. In Malaysia, PTPTN may not have the power to do likewise but it can work with professional organisations such as the Malaysian Medical Association, The Nursing Board, Institute of Accountants, etc. to come to some arrangements to bar loan defaulters from registering with the relevant boards.

Remedies for treating the problem of student loan defaults:

There have been many diverse opinion on what should be done to alleviate the problem of student loans default in the USA. Student loan “forgiveness” is one of the remedial actions taken in the USA. This has been implemented since 2007 where if a borrower fulfills certain conditions he/she pays back the loan according to how much he/she earns and not how much he/she owes. There is a cap of US$57,500 that can be forgiven in this way but those taking up graduate studies are not subjected to any cap. The cost of this “loan forgiven” scheme initially cost the US Government US$1.7 billion but has since ballooned to US$7.6 billion by April 2014.

Since 1965, the US Federal government have been providing Pell Grant to needy student to enable them to pay for college education. The amount of Pell grant that an eligible person can obtain in 2014 is US$5,730 for a maximum lifetime value for 6 years (i.e. US$34,380). In 2014, Pell grant benefited 9 millions US citizens at a cost of US$33.0 billion. Some believe that extending the Pell grant by relaxing some of the mean-tested qualifying criteria may be one of the remedies.

In comparison Malaysia’s PTPTN does have a “loan forgiven” scheme for borrowers who scored first class degrees to convert their entire loan to scholarships. ~~What this scheme costs so far and how many have been benefited are not available at present.~~ [as of September 2014, PTPTN has converted the loans of 22,150 high achieving borrowers to scholarships, costing the fund RM603.1 million]. However there has not been any other criteria set that will trigger “loan forgiven” by PTPTN. Perhaps “loan forgiven” can be considered for cases whereby certain categories of borrowers for instance those with medical, allied health science or teaching qualifications can be enticed to serve for an extended period in remote areas of Sabah or Sarawak in return for full or partial “loan forgiven” scheme.

There is also an equivalent of Pell grant in Malaysia in the form of Majlis Amanah Rakyat (MARA) bursary and scholarships that it has been disbursing for decades. However MARA scholarships and bursary are provided only for the bumiputera community and are not universally available depending on the financial neediness of the applicants as in Pell grant’s case. Perhaps the Malaysian Government should take a look at Pell grant to ensure the very poor have equal access to higher education?

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Compact Calendar for 2015 specifically for Malaysia

Get a full-year view from this compact calendar to help you plan events without worry of clashing with public or school holidays!

I have adopted David Seah’s creation, a one-page-view-all compact calendar since 2008. Every year, when the public and school holidays for the following year are announced, I will try to spend some time to update David Seah’s spreadsheet and come up with my own version, incorporating Malaysian school holidays as well as public holidays (National & Selangor, where I live).

This planning aid has been great for me whenever I needed to plan work. When I was the deputy principal of a private college, this compact calendar came handy for me to plan out the academic schedules etc. The week number on the first column and the public and school holidays (and we have lots of both in Malaysia) let you look at one view the issues etc. that will cloud anyone planning events, both private and officials.

For the benefit of my readers, I have done up two file format of the Compact Calender for 2015, a PDF version for those who live in Malaysia (especially Selangor state) where you can use the calendar as it is. The other version is .xlsx (Excel) which allows users to edit the file as they want. If you live in another state in Malaysia or if you want to create your own version (if you live in another country), the Excel version is there for you. Be prepare to fiddle with the sheets a little and read the instructions on the 1st sheet before doing any changes. Basically, if you are say, living in Singapore, you just have to edit the “Holiday Look Up Table”, the last sheet, making sure that the dates you put in are in fact 2015! The formulae/macro from David Seah will take care of updating the calendar automatically. You then just have to remove the highlight (in grey to facilitate printing on black and white printers) I made on Malaysian school holidays and cover the dates relevant to Singapore.

Don’t try to re-size the sheets, these have been optimized by Seah to print on one page. If you have a colour printer, it will be best. For wall-mounted version it will be best if you can print the compact calendar out on A3 paper and in colour. I find it just as good (for I have only a cheap b & w laser printer) to use a highlighter pen to go over the holidays which were shaded a bit too light when printed on b & w printer.

These files were in fact edited and created using LibreOffice, but it created issues when the file was saved in Excel file format. Hence you do need Microsoft Excel to open and edit the .xlsx version. I had tried uploading the file Google Docs, it also had some formula issues. It looks like we cannot do away with Microsoft Excel as yet!. However, my LibreOffice file format version works just fine if opened in LibreOffice!

I hope this Compact Calendar will take some pains out of your planning tasks! Please let me know if this compact calendar proofs to be useful to you.

Please click this link to download Compact Calender 2015 for Malaysia – PDF version.

For the more adventurous, here is the Compact Calendar 2015 for Malaysia – Excel version.

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The “cheap” in cheap hosting can be costly!

Don’t buy any web hosting or domain name registration till you have read this! You’ve been advised!

I have been playing around with pre-loaded scripts for various applications from my web hosting services for the last 3 years. One of the applications I use a lot is which is powering this blog is in fact WordPress. I also installed the e-learning platform, Moodle for me to put some of the courses I created or obtained from open source sites.

In fact, I was attracted to having my website and applications hosted by the promotion of Mochahosting which gave me 3 years of hosting for US$88.20 (RM299.88). The speed, performance and support provided by Mochahosting however leave much to be desired. Since I was paying something like US$2.45 (RM8.33) per month (and the price was guaranteed for the lifetime of my account), and I was just using it for playing around with the various applications that it has bundled, I was not too bothered by Mochahosting’s shortcomings. I have just renewed the subscription to Mochahosting for another 3 years, setting me back by US$88.20.

There are however many hosting service providers out there which are supposedly better in performance, speed and support. Many do give a very good deal that is similar to Mochahosting. I was attracted to one of these providers, Godaddy about 1 year ago. I was given a free domain name registration (for 1 year) with the hosting cost of US$72.06 (RM237.78). Imagine my shock when the next bill came a few weeks back, to carry on for another year, my hosting cost would be RM359.88 and add to it a domain name registration at full price of US$15.29 (RM51.99), the whole package would cost me US$121.14 (RM411.87)! This is 173.32% of my initial package! This makes the cranky Mochahosting look decidedly low cost in comparison, if I can tolerate living with its quirky service level. To make things worst, WordPress was the only active application I ran using the expensive Godaddy web hosting service.

My aim all along is to have my blog, “As I was Learning” easily found and always available to my followers. That rules out Mochahosting and I am not willing to be “suckered” by Godaddy’s comparatively high cost for my simple WordPress powered blog. I began searching and reading about alternatives and I found one, sort of.

It turns out that WordPress, via WordPress.com (as opposed to WordPress.org) provides a blog hosting service. It will, if you want to use your own domain name registered elsewhere (i.e. not via WordPress.com) allow you the option to map this domain to its free hosting for US$13.00 (RM44.20) a year. However, since I have not invested too much resources in promoting my blog’s domain name, this could be a bit expensive too as I would need to spend at least another US$15.29 (RM51.99) to renew registration of this domain name with Godaddy, making a yearly cost of around US$28.29 (RM96.19).

When I looked further into the various deals provided by WordPress.com, one was very attractive indeed. For US$18.00 (RM61.20) per year, I would be given a year of domain name registration plus the free hosting of WordPress.com. This is the very deal that this blog is sitting on. It did mean I had to abandon the initial domain name of my blog and use a new domain name, theplantcloner.com .

Those people who, like me have got used to having our own WordPress powered blog hosted ourselves would need to adjust a little bit when we switch over to the free hosting of WordPress.com. You will lose the use of all those wonderful WordPress plugin that make the platform a very customizable blog platform. You also no longer be able to use Google Analytics to do the deep probe into the performance of your blog. But WordPress.com’s in-built statistical analytical tool does give a broad analytics of your visitors, but it is far too crude for my liking. Limited customization is possible depending on which free theme that you have chosen. Then again there are paid themes that grant you more customization and features but these come with price tags that can range from US$18 – $150 (RM61.20 – RM510) making it probably worth your while hosting the WordPress blog elsewhere. But if you are like me, have a modest features demand, the US$18.00 (RM61.20) cost per year for having one’s own domain plus hosting is hard to beat.

Transitioning from an externally hosted WordPress blog to one that is hosted by WordPress.com is very simple. It is just a matter of backing up your content from the old site and reloading the content into WordPress.com hosting.

So the next time you are tempted by a “cheap” promotion on web hosting or domain name registration, you should look into the fine print to see how much the service provider will charge you from the time your contract is up (usually one year later). “Cheap” could turn out to be “expensive”! Remember, there is no free lunch in this world!

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Studying in America: a young Malaysian’s story

Although I am very “British” in my academic “pedigree”, having spent nearly twelve years studying in the United Kingdom, the most enjoyable teaching experience I encountered as an academic was when I taught American Degree Program (ADP) in different colleges in Malaysia. The breadth of knowledge, relatively flexible learning paths and the communication skills of ADP students were the key influencing factors for me to advise my son, Leland to choose to study in the USA.

Leland started to prepare for his Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) when he started his Form 4, at the age of 16. We went to major bookstores in town to buy four SAT preparatory books which formed Leland’s main learning sources. He studied diligently on his own and by December 2011 he was ready to take his SAT. He managed to achieve a respectable SAT score which was well above the cut off point of many reputable US state universities.

When he was in Form 5 (the last year of senior high school), Leland and I started to plan his studies with various alternatives in accordance to our modest budget. We knew that our budget would not be able to fund him for a full four-years studies in the US despite the fact that many top ranking US universities give variable amount of financial aids to international students based on merits. Even if one could secure a full tuition fees waiver, the living expenses for full four years in the US would still be a substantial sum. We decided that Leland should enroll in a ADP at a local private college in Malaysia and we opted for the credit transfer route.

With a reasonably satisfactory Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) examination performance (a public examination all high school students in Malaysia will take at their graduation year), Leland was fortunate enough to be granted a full scholarship by SEGi University to enroll in its ADP. Right into his second semester in ADP, we started our search for universities that were high enough in the various rankings but with total fees that we could afford. However when Leland wanted to apply to some of the “shortlisted” universities, we encountered our first hurdle. Our SPM certificate being written fully in Bahasa Malaysia would be required to be translated by officials in the Ministry of Education (MoE). Off we went to Putrajaya, (the Malaysian Government’s administrative city where the MoE is located) to get this done, a simple enough process especially if there have been many requests over the years for this translation service, but it took the MoE about 1 month to complete. Because of this, Leland had missed the deadline to complete his application to one of the universities he had applied to and forfeited the US$60 (RM194) application fee. Luckily we still managed to beat the deadline of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). However, UNL’s total fees was above our budget and we decided that if he was not successful in securing a scholarship, Leland would apply to another US university with a lower expenditure. In late May 2013 Leland received his official acceptance by UNL with a Global Laureate Scholarship that would cover about 60% of his tuition fees and our budget is just enough to cover the rest of the cost.

The next step was for Leland to secure his US student visa. A very important document called “I20” would have to be issued by UNL and couriered to us. But before this could happen, I as the sponsor would need to show UNL the evidence that I had the fund which could cover Leland’s entire first year cost of US$39,343 (RM127,078). He also needed to register to pay for the visa application fees of US$200 (RM646) as well as visa processing fees of RM528 (US$160, to be deposited in Standard Chartered Bank in Malaysia). It was another two weeks before an appointment with the US Embassy in Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur could be secured. In the mean time, we had decided on the choice and booked Leland’s accommodation at UNL. Leland had to fill in the bulk of the information for his student visa application online which was a good thing as it took him just a couple of hours (including waiting time) to secure his student visa. Only then did we contemplate sorting out his flights to Lincoln, Nebraska.

Although as a former deputy principal of a private college in Malaysia I had been personally involved in sending many of my students to the US, little of that prepared me to the kind of complicated processes, procedures and decisions which parents of US-bound students have to make with their children.

My advice to all students (and their parents) who are planning to study in the USA is to:

Plan at least one year in advance, watch for the deadlines for applications,
Plan to take tests like the SAT, Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) as early as the student is prepared. This will give the student time to re-take these tests if he/she needs a better score and lastly,
Have your funds ready.

If a student decides to take the ADP/credit transfer route via a local Malaysian college, he/she should make sure that the credit hours that he/she plans to study in Malaysia are transferable and he/she may need to adjust the timing of his/her transfer to the US accordingly. Thus I would strongly advise students and parents demand to see evidence of such credit transfer arrangements when they are on the “college hunting” trail.

Leland survived his arduous thirty two hours Journey to the West with 2 layovers and is adapting to life as a sophomore like ducks to the water. I hope he adapts to his studies just as well.

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With so many decisions that students aspiring to study in the USA have to make, Dr. Chow’s advice is for them to plan with their parents very early on, preferably by the time they start senior high school (Form 4 in the Malaysian system). If any student or parent requires unbiased advising, Dr. Chow will be most happy to oblige, please click here for more details.

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Low completion: a killer of MOOCs?

The New York Times reported recently that the University of Texas System may be having second thoughts about its foray into the realm of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC).

There are three major concerns that were raised:

The completion rate of MOOCs offered has been languishing between one to 13 %;
Majority of the learners were not from the home state;
Of those few learners who have completed, the bulk of them were people who have already college education.

I think the decision makers need to think strategically about the objectives for their institutions being involved in MOOC.

Low completion rate: look at the total number of learners that passed

The nature of MOOC needs to be understood and we need to avoid comparing apples with oranges. MOOCs, unlike regular on-campus or traditional online courses are “Opened” in its enrollment. This means that anyone with the basic internet access will be able to enroll and un-enroll as they please. Many who enrolled may also choose (for whatever reason(s)) not to be active in the MOOC they have signed up for. Thus if we measure the completion rate of MOOCs based on the number of people signing up we will get a very low figure. If the completion rate is computed from the number of people who have “attended” at least 50% of the online courseware, I think this will be a better and fairer measurement of the completion rate. After all in traditional bricks and mortar setting, you do not count the number of students based on the number who applied to take the course but the number who have paid. Thus a even closer analogy for MOOC should be the number of learners who intended to complete the MOOC versus the actual number who passed. Professor Owen Youngman of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism provided a great insight into this issue in following the completion of the first run of his highly successful MOOC, “Understanding media by understanding Google“.

Analysis of passing rates of Owen Youngman’s maiden MOOC, “Understanding media by understanding Google” in Nov 2013. (Image source: http://qz.com/149406/how-two-thirds-of-my-students-never-showed-up-but-half-of-them-passed/)

In Youngman’s maiden foray into MOOC, which incidentally I was one of the 1,196 successful learners, if we measure the passing rate as the number of learner that pass versus the number who complete their homework (qualifying them to take the final examination), the passing rate was actually 50.1% instead of the 2.2% that the conventional calculation would provide. The fact that should be remembered is not the passing rate but the number of people who have successfully passing the MOOC, which in this case, at 1,196 is a great achievement by Youngman’s team in whichever way you measure it.

Majority of learners are not from the home state: does this matter?

People who evaluate MOOCs must bear in mind that MOOCs are, as the word “Massive” indicates, huge in number. While those who have approved the investments would want to see benefits shown for the institutions’ home state, these cannot be measured just on the number of “home” state learners who have enrolled or passed. MOOCs are meant for institutions to showcase their academic delivery expertise to not only those learners who come on campus but to the world at large. It should be catching learners in the “long tail” of the global learning community. It is meant to reach out to those who, under normal circumstances, never have the chance to attend on-campus courses due to many circumstances (financial, time or career constraints). If a course is meant to benefit only home state’s learners, then MOOC may be a wrong platform for it. Conventional e-learning delivery via learning management systems such as Moodle or BlackBoard would have been better. Thus the expectations of the decision makers and funding authorities must be realistic. MOOCs can be used to as a very effective means to project the brand of an institution, especially to the “long tail” end of the learner’s domain. Those who may not have heard of or know about your institution will, after taking a good MOOC from your institution, be impressed by the brand and which will have a positive effect when these people (or their offspring) are looking for a good college education. Thus I think many of the institutions on the MOOC trails are thinking along the same line.

In the time of great competition for the overseas students’ attention, the colleges with a good spread of MOOCs will gain reputationally in leaps and bounce to put them in a better position in the mind of these overseas students. The proof of the pudding is in its eating, so if a college’s MOOC is well delivered and the learners gain great knowledge, it gives those wishing (and thus may have the means) to study on campus a greater confidence to apply. The benefits to the home state will be in attracting good overseas students to their on-campus or traditionally delivered online courses. This is the under-valued payoff for MOOCs. So does it still matter if the bulk of an MOOC’s learners are not from the home state? I do not think so.

The bulk of the learners scoring a pass have college education: why?

If the bulk of an MOOC’s successful learners are those with some college education or higher, it could mean that the level of this particular MOOC is pitched at senior undergraduate or even graduate levels. It is not the fault of the concept of MOOC. In fact it is an issue of academic standard not the delivery system of concept. Thus if the MOOC is intended to attract mainly high school graduates or freshmen level students, it should have been designed as such. Sometimes the delivery of a course and its learning materials may both appear to be at undergraduate level, but when the assessment system is converted to MOOC level, it may appear too difficult (with lots of discussions, short essays type of questions and complex multiple choice questions) for freshmen but it would have been fine for those who have had degree level education.

To take MOOC successfully requires one to be very disciplined. This may also be one of the reasons that some of these MOOCs show a low number of freshmen learners who passed. Adult learners are much more motivated and are usually more focused. Full-time students may also have a full load of classes already and thus may be spreading themselves too thinly.

One other aspect of MOOCs that those funding authorities and decision makers must take into consideration is the “flipped classroom” concept that MOOC confers. In this context, on-campus students are directed to view the MOOC lectures prior to coming to class. In every class, instead of the instructor repeating the content covered in the MOOC’s video lectures, will use the contact hours to discuss, to further explain and to engage the students accordingly. I have attended one such MOOC by Stanford University (“Technology Entrepreneurship 1) where “flipped classroom” was reported by Assistant Professor Chuck Eesley to have benefited his on-campus students. In this case the class was run about the same time for both the MOOC and on-campus learners. So any decision on the effectiveness and benefits of MOOCs should not be evaluated in isolation. The number of people benefiting from an MOOC could be substantially more than the first run of an MOOC.

I think the disruptive effects of MOOCs to academic institutions have surely been over-exaggerated. This could be due to the lack of an holistic understanding of what MOOC can do and ignorant of the interaction between MOOCs and conventional delivery of learning.

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Dr. Chow YN is a “veteran” MOOC learner. He has already completed over 20 MOOCs and is currently pursuing two more. Dr. Chow provides consultancy in education management and technology commercialization. He also provides regular advising to parents and students seeking an unbiased advice on tertiary education.

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The trouble with input-centric education system

Input-centric education decisions have been hampering the advance of Malaysian learners.

The move in September 2014 by the Malaysian Ministry of Education to disallow private higher education institutions (PHEI) to use forecast results for the national high school examination, Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) as a provisional entrance qualification for high school graduates to enter college caused a big row.

The key justification cited by the power that be was that there were abuses by PHEIs and students who did not score the required SPM grades (5 credits for Foundation Studies and 3 credits for diploma, along with specific requirements such as credit in Mathematics etc.) were found to be allowed to continue their studies by some institutions. What was never mentioned in fact was the statistics of such non compliance and what was done to these affected students and PHEIs.

In my column in the first edition of Focusweek (October 17, 2014) I highlighted the issue of Malaysia’s obsession with inputs in all education policies and neglected to evaluate learners’ output, that is, what they have learned and can applied in policy decisions.

Using input-centric policy to be the sole deciding factor on learners’ suitability to be admitted to college is just but one of the idiosyncrasies of Malaysia’s education system. In this system, there is no provision for learners who marginally missed a cutting point for admission into college to have the opportunity for a “second” chance in proving their academic ability. While I was working for Pearson plc as its Regional Quality Manager, I was exposed to the concept of the “Challenge Route” practised by UK’s university for its very popular MBA programme. Anyone, regardless of their academic credentials, if he or she wishes, is given the chance to study for the MBA. Those who did not have the prescribed academic credentials would be given the opportunity to pass three of the 9 required modules as a condition for acceptance. The “Challenge Route” measures the output of these learners. The idea is, if anyone could pass these three MBA modules demonstrate that they have acquired the core knowledge to undertake the remainder of their studies. I think this is a better way to foster a learning culture and pulling down barriers to academic attainment for many people.

Another area I covered in my column is the other grouses of the PHIEs: the insistence of the approving and accreditation authorities on strictly prescribing the input-centric policy of the teaching staff must have a qualification higher than the level of the class that they are teaching. This doctrine of education policy shows that those policy designers really could not tell the difference between academic qualifications, teaching abilities and the value of industrial experience. The policy, at one stroke disallows the great contributions of master craftsmen, artists and designers from imparting their great skills, experiences and insights to younger generations of learners.

Having a PhD does not make one a great teacher. In fact when I started my career in Malaysia’s academia after my postdoctoral stint in Singapore, I did not have any training to be a lecturer. The only teaching I had done was when I served as a demonstrator in laboratory classes and later tutor for undergraduate students. I think the same goes for many PhD holders. People like me, learned quickly on the job and observed how experienced lecturers teach and emulated them.

In 1979 when I was studying for my G.C.E “O” levels at South Shields Marine and Technical College, UK, we had a very good pure mathematics lecturer by the name of Morris Gowland. Gowland did not have a degree. He went to a teacher training school. Yet, compared to other pure mathematics lecturers with Master’s and PhDs, Gowland was far superior in his teaching skills. One look at a struggling student’s work on a pure mathematics question, Gowland would say, “There, you have miscalculated this step,” As a results, most of us, 4 Malaysians and 5 Hong Kongers passed our mathematics with flying colours. On the other hand, when we were working on our G.C. E. “A” levels, our head of Department Dr. Croucher who holds a PhD in nuclear physics was struggling to teach us nuclear physics in our Physics class. Thus measuring a person’s teaching ability by solely judging if his/her has a degree, Master’s or PhDs is like measuring the size of one’s waist when buying shoes. Thus solely measuring the input (in this case the kind of qualification a teaching staff has) to determine a person’s suitability to teach is a very inaccurate way to reach a crucial decision. It is much better to have an evaluation of a teaching stuff “live” teaching ability rather than his/her having an academic qualification a level higher than the class he/she is teaching as the only gauge. Sadly this is what happens in practice in Malaysian PHEIs.

So why should we be alarmed every year when world university ranking by various systems are published with Malaysian institutions either languishing at the rear end or being “no shows” on the list.

We are not tapping into the vast expertise of our own people. Who would be best to teach business subjects especially entrepreneurships (even as guest lecturers for a few sessions each) than the captains of the respective industries? Yet unless these high flyers have the requisite academic credentials (at Master’s level at least!), the PHEIs would not be allowed to engage them. What a waste of talents! What a loss to the younger learners in Malaysia!

As I said in my column, unless we as Malaysians break free from our shackles of input-centric mentality, we will always be chasing the tail wind of our competitors.

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Knowledge: use it or risk losing it

No matter how much of an expert you are in an area, if you do not make use of the knowledge and skills acquired for a prolong period of time, sooner or later, as I had discovered about my knowledge of interpreting statistical analysis, you will find that you have lost these skills.

The best way to re-gain your knowledge is in re-learning and using this knowledge. You may, as I did, not only regain your old skills but pick up new skills (in using PSPP) as well!

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In late September 2014 I was chatting with a former colleague, WC who is a young chap working on his MBA project. Our Facebook conversation revolved around WC’s studies which led to his asking me to help him with the statistical analysis of his MBA project which I consented.

One thing I knew I would not be any better than WC. That is the use of the statistical package SPSS to do the number crunching. I have never used SPSS in my life. When I was a doctoral student back in the late 1980s, we had a rudimentary statistical analysis software that ran from the PC but for “serious” number crunching, we would need to key in the raw data into the minicomputer, the VAX.

In the world of the blind, the guy with one-eye is the king!

It was the early days of the PC era and we just saw these funny looking “typewriters” in the university library. It was the IBM XT personal computer, with 5 and a quarter inch magnetic disk drive. Ever the inquisitive soul that I was, through trials and many errors (including many attempts to learn how to save my work!) I managed to learn enough to use the PC for word processing and later data capturing using Lotus 1-2-3. By then more PC would be made available including one in my department. With some reading from a guidebook (that was the period before the era of Internet) I managed to learn how to export data from Lotus 1-2-3 delimited by commas which the VAX could understand. I no longer had to spend hours at the VAX terminal (and having to queue for it) but to do my raw data transcribing using the PC’s spreadsheet programme. When it came to analyzing these data, it would be just a matter of minutes for me to load in the pre-crunched raw data and obtain my statistical analysis within a few minutes. In the world of the “PC semi-literates” I was the “king” of the faculty. Even the computer technicians did not know how to export Lotus 1-2-3 data in comma-delimited text file and they referred many fellow researchers to me.

I was a sought after person for a while! Analysis of variance, T-test, Chi-square etc which I learned as an undergraduate in 1982 was something I understood well throughout my Master’s and doctoral studies. I even helped many fellow postgraduate students in analysing their research data. I also shared my knowledge with some of these guys who in turn were able to pass this skill along to others.

Learning to use PSPP, SPSS’s Open Source equivalent

Fast forward 25 years, when I thought of helping WC, I realised that learning to use PC-based statistical analytical software like SPSS would not be difficult. In fact I found an Open Source version called PSPP that works very well under my Linux-Ubuntu operated 7-years-old hand-me-down laptop from my son.

I used about 2 days to learn how to use PSPP and by the third day, I had familiarized myself enough of the basics to be able to import raw data from WC. I was also able to carry out most of the required statistical analysis using PSPP.

Losing knowledge that’s not used for a long time

However when I tried to make sense of the analysis churned out by PSPP, I suddenly realised that, after over 20 years of not using my core statistical analysis knowledge, I had to relearn how to interpret these results. My previous career as a commercial research scientist in Singapore in the early to mid 1990s did not necessitate the use of much in terms of statistical analysis. We were interested in finding out if a particular treatment work in multiplying good quality plants inside our test-tubes. We would have to move on without much resources to carry out statistically verifiable experiments on these studies. We were worried about the bottom-line. I was not allowed to publish any proprietary research work which had commercial implications. Thus for 20 odd years, I did not have the chance to use my knowledge of statistical analysis, hence my “losing” much of my former flair in this area!

Luckily, together with WC (plus the help of Google Search), I was able to regain the bulk of my knowledge in this area. WC was happy with the discussion we had which I hope will lead to his getting a good grade for his MBA project. [footnote: WC passed his MBA shortly after this article was written]

Key lessons learned

There are two key take home lessons from this story:

No matter how much of an expert you are in an area, if you do not make use of the knowledge and skills acquired for a prolong period of time, sooner or later, as I had discovered about my knowledge of interpreting statistical analysis, you will find that you have lost these skills.
“Old dog” (a.k.a. yours truly) can still learn new tricks. In my case, I learned as much from WC as he did from me during our long discussion on how he should be analyzing his MBA project data and how he could interpret the statistical analysis.

The best way to re-gain your knowledge is in re-learning and using this knowledge. You may, as I did, not only regain your old skills but pick up new skills (in using PSPP) as well!

Why people are hesitant in registering for GST

Any one looking at the issue of the impending implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) will notice the glaring lack of participation by the business community. In April 2014 there were reports about the low registration rate of 3.33%or 10,000 out of the potential 300,000 businesses that fall into the GST realm. As of September 27, 2014, this figures was raised to 56,000 or 18.7%, but it is still fall short of expectations. With only less than four months to the December 31, 2014 deadline, there has been reports that the authorities have indeed scaled down their expectation to less than 200,000 registrants only.

The topic of why people are not registering for GST in Malaysia is the cover story of the last print edition of The Heat.I wrote a supporting article to cover this story, bringing to attention the frivolous details demanded by the GST registration process and the many ambiguities which are made complicated by few and cryptic clues. Irrelevant details were asked from the registrants. This is made worse by the requirement for registrants to know the kind of inputs (called “Supply”) that they need to classify in order to compute their turnovers.

According to published reports, 90% of the businesses that fall into the realm of GST are small and medium enterprises (SME). The RM1,000 government grant given to companies to upgrade their accounting systems to incorporate the GST saw only 10% of the GST registrants claiming this benefit. It seems that the majority of business owners are adopting the “wait and see” attitude. It is obvious that both the “carrot” and the “stick” are not working.

Based on the various ambiguities, cryptic requirements, lack of instructions on where to obtain further information such as codes etc., one can conclude that it is a big challenge for the average small business owners to register for GST unless they or their staff has experience in accounting or tax filing work.

From this one can surmise that the printed version of the GST registration form is an “imperfect clone” of its online counterpart. It is also clear that the printed version (to a certain extent the online version as well) lacks usability and not at all user-friendly. The design and “transformation” from the online version to the printed version was not well thought through. A lot of the explanations and choices of codes etc. that appear on the online version were not incorporated in the printed version nor were these put in the GST Guide.

In view of the need to engage all businesses with or anticipating an annual turnover of RM500,000 to register for GST, Royal Malaysian Customs Department should:

link up the GST registration system with that of the Inland Revenue Board and Company Commission of Malaysia so that there is a chance to streamline the GST registration process.
re-evaluate the design of the printed version of the GST registration form to make it user-friendly with additional instructions and information as highlighted in this article.
take a leaf from the IRB’s success with the e-filing of tax returns by conducting workshops and creating labs to guide business owners to have a painless GST registrations.
give as much flexibilities and allowance for errors to GST registrants so that they do not have to worry about giving wrong estimations and specifically mention this fact in the form.

Finally, the power that be could also think less about using the “stick” but more about providing more appropriate “carrots” in the form of financial incentives for business owners who complied with the deadline for GST registration for example giving the first RM500 GST waiver to those who complied. The provision of a modest grant, say RM300 per small business owner to engage professionals to help them to register for GST could also be a good move to ensure compliance and adhering to the deadline which may allow the target 300,000 registrants to be reached.

Experts are made, geniuses are born

Anyone can be an expert. You need not be a Nobel Prize winner to be one. You just have to be very good at what your are doing and keep on learning and improving. We have experts in every field of work: electricians, air-conditioning technicians, pest-control technicians, auto mechanics, plumbers, writers, teachers, bankers, managers etc. The only difference between experts in a field and the “so-so” practitioners is that experts have conditioned themselves to continuously learn about their field. Remember, there is an expert in every field and anyone can be an expert.

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(Revised: Apr 20, 2018)

This article was first published on Jun 22, 2013 under Dr. Chow’s moniker of “Plantcloner” in Focus Malaysia. The title of the published article was “Gaining expertise through learning”. However, I feel that my original title, pitched to the editor is a better representation of what I wanted to say: Experts are made, but geniuses are born!

Parents’ aspiration for their offspring – realistic?

Every parent’s dream is for his/her offsprings to be experts of some measure. This is especially true among Asians and Malaysian parents are of no exception. I know of plenty a “tiger mum” and “lion father”. The social norm is for parents to push their children to read medicine, dentistry, engineering, pharmacy, law etc. etc. at universities. Often the interest of the young high school graduate is ignored. “Mum / dad knows best” seems to be the favourite answer, when challenged by their respective offsprings. However, the reality is, not all young learners turn out to be experts in studying and many would disappoint their parents. There is an old Chinese saying, “Háng háng chū zhuàng yuán” (行行出状元) which literally means experts / masters / maestros are found in every profession. It seems that most parents have not registered this.

Any difference between genius and experts?

So what is the key difference between two experts, one a genius and the other an “ordinary” person in any profession or field of work?

I think both the genius and the ordinary person have to learn a lot in their field before they could attain “expert status”. It is just that the amount of time needed by the ordinary person to learn to be an expert may be a bit longer than the genius.

Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours of practice?

Malcolm Gladwell in his book, “Outlier” cited research which showed that experts usually require at least 10,000 hours of learning where continuous improvements during this period have to occur for them to attain “expert” status. The 10,000 hours figure is not absolute, but I think 10 – 20% either way is the norm. There are lots of examples on expertise attained through learning.

When I was diagnosed with having 2 large stones in my left kidney in 2013, my trust placed upon my urologist was not formed by the many testamurs that hang on his clinic’s wall. It was because he told me that he had done over 1,500 times the procedure which he wanted to perform on me, with only 5% having complications. Let us calculate the hours of working (and learning, as each patient’s case was different) for this urologist. A “normal” procedure takes about 2 hours in the operating theatre. Add in 4 hours of various preoperative and postoperative diagnosis and consultation sessions, thus each case needs about 6 hours of the urologist’s time. 1,500 procedures entail at least 9,000 hours of working and learning by the urologist. I am glad I did this quick calculation and my urologist did a good job on me. Of course the fact that he holds two F.R.C.Ss (Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons) gave me added confidence in his ability. But the two F.R.C.Ss were not included in my calculation!

Experts and the fried noodles hawker

Let us look at another profession. Your favourite “char koay teow” or fried noodles hawker. If he picks up his trade working as a fried noodles stall’s assistant, how long will he take to be an expert fried noodles hawker?

Assuming that he has already picked up the basics in frying noodles and is ready to set up his own stall. If he works 8 hours per day for 6 days a week, it would have taken him just about 4 years to clock in 10,000 hours to be an expert “char koay teow” hawker. That is assuming that he gets feedback from his clients and keeps on improving. Of course, if he did not learn enough in the first place and his fried noodles taste like rubber bands with seasoning there is no question of him attaining the “expert” status! His business would probably have folded within a short while.

Plantcloner’s own experience

So what about my own experience in attaining my expertise?

My master’s and doctoral studies at the Queen’s University of Belfast, Northern Ireland took me 5 years to complete. At 40 hours a week of laboratory work and studies and 50 working weeks per year, in theory, when I completed my doctoral studies, I had clocked in about 10,000 hours. I should have been an expert in my field as a fresh PhD holder.

But I am no genius, in fact it took me another year, working in the National University of Singapore’s research laboratory as a postdoctoral researcher before I dared to hold my head up a little among experts in my field. Later, when I got a job as a commercial laboratory’s research scientist, I had to re-learn a lot of my trade in this profit-driven establishment. My biggest culture shock was having to scale up my work from research laboratory to production scale. It was another year of learning before I “graduated” as a commercial scientist. So it took me at least 14,000 hours of learning to be an expert in my field of commercial plant tissue culture.

Geniuses are born, but experts are made

Thus geniuses are born, but experts are made. The two are not synonymous. It does not matter if you are a genius or not, to be an expert, you need to put in a lot of hard work and perseverance. You need to have the attitude to learn and improve and do so continually.

Anyone can be an expert. You need not be a Nobel Prize winner to be one. You just have to be very good at what your are doing and keep on learning and improving. We have experts in every field of work: electricians, air-conditioning technicians, pest-control technicians, auto mechanics, plumbers, writers, teachers, bankers, managers etc. etc. and of course those in the “in” professional fields like doctors, dentists, engineers, lawyers and scientists.

The only difference between experts in a field and the “so-so” practitioners is the fact that experts have conditioned themselves to continuously learn about developments, new technologies, market demand, regulatory environment etc.. about their field. Thus Continuous Professional Development (CPD) and lifelong learning (LL) are two inescapable commitments that professional bodies have levied on their members. All self respecting experts of any field that worth their salt will tell you how much of CPD or LL they have committed to each year.

Give the kid a chance!

So the next time a child tells you that when she/he grows up she/he wants to be a baker, a plumber, an electrician or a “char koay teow” hawker, do not belittle him/her or the job. Instead, you should tell him/her more about the job, the industry, and the work involved in that industry. Plumbers and electricians are some of the richest trade professionals in the West!

Remember, there is an expert in every field and anyone can be an expert.

Footnote: Plantcloner declares that he has never been a “lion dad”, though he exerted a lot of influence on his son, the young learner has chosen his major for his college studies independently.