Category: Learning

Learning and commenting about Duke-Kunshan University

I have been a loyal student of Harvard University’s highly successful massive open online course (MOOC) on the history of China, ChinaX for the last 14 months. I have successfully completed 9 out of the 10 mini-courses and am now more than half way through the last mini-course.

In week 46 of ChinaX, we were introduced to the remarkable success of Kunshan, a formal agricultural region between Shanghai and Nanjing. We learned that present day Kunshan has a per capita income of over US$19,000 and if we exclude the internal migrants’ income, the per capita income of the population with household resident right (hu kou) is US$52,000. The local government, in the era of the late 1970s (after Mao’s passing) took an unilateral decision to develop the economy of this agricultural region and this gamble (which did not receive any endorsement from the central government) paid off.

This particular module focussed on education, in particular how Kunshan’s local government made the decision to work with one of the elite universities from the USA, Duke University which roped in Wuhan University to form the Duke-Kunshan University. It showed the farsighted leadership of Kunshan in investing in human capital development and innovation as the twin pillars for their residents to stay competitive amidst greater & greater competition from other Chinese cities & regions. But the key phrase IMHO is ” Location, location & location “. No other cities have the great location of Kunshan for being nested between China’s two great cities of Shanghai & Nanjing and having two high speed rail systems having stops at Kunshan!

We were asked the following question as a part of the discussion/ assessment for our course:

What are some challenges Duke University and Kunshan face moving forward? What advice would you give Chancellor Liu and Vice-chancellor Bullock?

I am honoured that my answer was one of the few (among thousands of MOOC learners) picked up for discussion in the weekly “Office Hour” where either Professor Bill Kirby or Professor Peter Bol will review last week’s module, further the discussion and answer questions post by the learners. This is the second time that my contributions get picked up and I am really thrilled to share this with you. I am impressed with Duku Kunshan University’s Vice Provost, Dr. Nora Bynum for her “deciphering” of my online moniker of “everboleh”!

The following is my answer to the question above which ‘earned” me a mention by Professor Kirby. My moniker as an MOOC learner is “everboleh”. The segment of Office Hour Week 46 which touched on my contribution is between 11:30 to 13:00 minutes of this video.

ChinaXOfficehour46

 everboleh

I think Kunshan will have to figure out why it did not involve the Taiwanese whose support was the cornerstone for its eventual success. Both Duke, Kunshan and Wuhan will need to ensure that there are significant landmark successes that DKU can score. Nothing of the prior successes that each of these three partners can guarantee the success of DKU. Being the two largest economies in the world China and the US need not only to engage with each other but the rest of the world, especially India. The challenge for DKU is to fulfill its mission to create human capital not only for Kunshan but which can bring in the kind of human interactions with the rest of the world.

For Duke, the challenge as related by Kunshan Party Secretary, Guan Aigo that the city needs more than just DKU to be successful. How Duke can secure the biggest part of this interaction before other big universities from the US and UK make a move on Kunshan is a relationship game that it must succeed in to ensure Duke’s investment in time and effort (and reputational risks) will pay off.

The departmental-less approach of DKU is new even to Duke, how the cross disciplinary approach in the face of fierce guarding of their respective turf by academics (which is a tradition that cut across all culture and national boundaries) is something Professors Liu and Bullock have to iron out fully. However as a practitioner in education management, I think the idea of a Masters in Management Science that cater to the needs of liberal arts and humanity graduates to take on business administration is a concept that may take hold in not only China but other regions. It is a concept that I will surely adopt for the new university that I am currently helping to establish in Malaysia. I shall watch the progress of DKU with great interest and hoping to learn and emulate its success.

(Source of feature photograph:  http://dku.edu.cn/sites/all/themes/kunshan/images/overview.jpg )

Life’s lessons learned from Harry Potter

What life’s lessons can you get from Harry Potter books? Read what a young fan, Potterhead got to say about this.

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Commentary about this article (revised –  Apr 19, 2018)

The author, Leland Chow was a junior reading Finance, minor in communication studies and economics at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln when he wrote this piece. This article originated as an assignment for one of the author’s classes and is presented here for our readers’ enjoyment.

In late 2012 Leland Chow took the Malaysian Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) which is a national high school diploma equivalent examination that most Malaysian school leavers will take. My wife and I were very worried for Leland. Instead of burying himself with SPM study guides, textbooks etc., he was reading Harry Potter books during most of this month-long examination. We joked that if Harry Potter books are included in his examination, he would score grade A+ hands down. Leland simply smiled and told us that it (reading J.K, Rowling’s books) was his way of relaxing. He claimed that reading Harry Potter calmed his nerves as well. Well, Leland might have a point there. He did extremely well in his SPM to win a full scholarship at SEGi University. But after reading what he wrote, I think Leland gets more than just a calming of his nerves! I also learned two things from this piece, (i) Leland was a victim of bullying at high school (& wish I knew earlier to help him to tackle this),  and (ii) the meaning of a new term, “Potterheads”! ————–> Chow Yong Neng, PhD.

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This was the third and final essay of my English: Rhetoric as Inquiry. My instructor, Ms. Maria Nazos has asked me to write an essay regarding a person or a group of people who I admire. Instead of choosing a real-life person or a group of real-life people, I decided to choose my favorite characters from my favorite childhood series, Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series. I utilized textual evidences from the book to support the characteristics of the three unlikely best friends. —————–> Leland Chow

Introduction

He was an orphan as his parents were brutally murdered by a horrendous man. He lived with his maternal aunt and uncle since he was born. His aunt and uncle treated him as if he was their servant. He did not feel loved, happy, cared for. His cousin also did not help to the fact that he was literally neglected and bullied by his aunt and uncle, as his cousin was spoiled by his aunt and uncle, giving his cousin new gifts and toys, while he could only get hand-me-down, second-handed gifts and toys. His room was worse, as he literally lived in a small storage closet, barely enough to fit his small body. His life was basically miserable for the past 11 years, until a letter was written to him, telling him that he was accepted into a prestigious school, a magical school, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

It was not until 2005 when I started noticing the world of Harry Potter. People usually read the books before watching the film. I, on the other hand, took notice of the first film, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I really liked how magical it was, and immediately bought the second film, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and watched it. I felt that Harry Potter was in a way, sad, but very inspiring to me. Then, I persuaded my parents to buy the three books that came after the first two films. I loved reading books as well, and hence I read the three books quite quickly. Suddenly, I realized that I was actually really enjoying all of the Harry Potter books and films, I was a Potterhead.

Background

Harry Potter was created by a British author named J. K. Rowling, in a delayed train from Manchester to London in 1990. She used that name as she had no middle name, borrowing Kathleen as K. from her grandmother, and this made J. K. Rowling’s initial identity to be more anonymous. She wrote the first few ideas of Harry Potter on a napkin, and in later times, used a typewriter to type the first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. When she was writing, she usually wrote in cafes in Edinburgh, and her then baby daughter would be around with her (Farr). I found it to be quite ironic that J. K. Rowling got her ideas of Harry Potter in a train, as in her books, a platform in King’s Cross Station, Platform Nine and Three Quarters, is used as the platform for the official school train, Hogwarts Express, which is used to transport students to Hogwarts (Rowling, “Sorcerer’s Stone”, 87). This coincided her writing with her true experience in the train. Her way of writing this type of transportation used in all books of Harry Potter resembled a relation between the land of magic and the land without magic. It served as a bridge between the wizards and witches, and the normal non-magical people, the Muggles (Rowling, “Sorcerer’s Stone”, 53). A bridge whereby there were quite a few similarities between the magical world and the non-magical world, which was quite fascinating because to me, I would not have expected wizards and witches to use just the same mode of transportation: a train. Even though it may be a magical train, but still, it was the same type of transport, using a similar type of train tracks.

The younger me at that time read books pretty quickly, so in a month or two, I have already finished reading the three books, ranging from a thin Prisoner of Azkaban, to a very thick Order of the Phoenix. But, unlike now, where I take my time to read and understand carefully about the books, I was just reading and not understanding the plot of the books. Somewhat, this old habit of mine reflected on my personality that I did not understand deeply enough about the true nature of things. I was technically bullied at that age, but I did not know that I was bullied, nor did I know why I was being picked on. I was just too immature at that time to understand things from a different perspective.

Harry’s Love

Love was one of the themes in the Harry Potter book series, and it was evident in Harry himself. Unlike his nemesis, Voldemort, Harry Potter had been loved by his parents. He was born into a dangerous world, and was bullied by his aunt and uncle, but when he was in school, he was loved by his friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, Ron’s parents, the headmaster, Professor Albus Dumbledore, and even the deputy headmistress at that time, Professor Minerva McGonagall. Molly Weasley, Ron’s mother, in fact claimed that Harry can be her son, and even gave Harry her brother’s watch as Harry’s 17th birthday present (Rowling, “Order of Phoenix”, 90; “Deathly Hallows”, 114). Harry’s love for his friends was also evident when he saved them in the Chamber of Secrets, where he successfully slayed the Basilisk, a dangerous monster, faced many Dementors, which were soulless creatures, and as mentioned in the previous paragraphs, sacrificed himself for the safety of his friends (Rowling, “Order of Phoenix, 527; “Deathly Hallows”, 703).

If he did not love any of the people mentioned, I believe that he would not have sacrificed himself because the existence of love in him was one of the key reasons he did not join the evil side. The darkness that was present in the society was growing more than ever, but his love for everyone and vice versa kept him grounded. Voldemort utilized his followers as if they were his tools, and when his followers were useless or dead, he did not shed a single drop of tear, nor did he show any signs of remorse (Rowling, “Deathly Hallows”, 656). Harry, on the other hand, showed his emotions clearly. He was sad and cried for the death of his loved ones, even in the case of a death of a non-human creature, Dobby the elf! He manually dug a grave and engraved “Here lies Dobby, a free elf” on top of the gravestone (Rowling, “Deathly Hallows”, 478-481). Would Harry be less emotional, and worse, less likeable, if he cannot feel love? In my opinion, definitely! This is what sets Harry and Voldemort apart, as Harry understood the ability to love someone, while Voldemort, unfortunately, could not feel love, and did not love anyone, as he was born under a concoction of a love potion made by his mother for his father (“J. K. Rowling Web Chat”).

Hermione’s Logical Intelligence

Of course, the adventures of Harry Potter would not be as great if Harry was not accompanied by his friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Hermione Granger possessed a trait that many people would seem to admire and hate, all at the same time: logical intelligence. It was because of her logical intelligence that she solved the Potion Riddle to help Harry to defeat the professor who had Voldemort stuck at the back of his head (Rowling, “Sorcerer’s Stone”, 286). However, it was also because of that intelligence that Harry and Ron were not fond at her at first. She was described as a know-it-all, having read and studied every book in detail even before the semester has started (Rowling, “Sorcerer’s Stone”, 105). Her intelligence came from the fact that she was outspoken, and because of her outspokenness, the two boys did not like her (Jusino). She proved herself worthy though, and through her kindness towards everyone, she has won many people’s hearts, including Harry’s and Ron’s, and they eventually became good friends. To me, she has also won my heart, as she resembles me in some ways. I am considered an outspoken person. Because of this though, many people think that I am intelligent, especially when it comes to getting good grades in my exams. Unlike Hermione, however, I am the one who works hard, pay my fullest attention in classes, and try my best to get the grades I want. Unfortunately, when it comes to house chores and other life skills, I am the worst person to ask. I cannot cook, I cannot assemble a shelf properly, and I definitely cannot fix a car. Hence, Hermione possesses a trait that is somewhat relatable to me and I admire her because of this.

Soon, as I grew older, I started rereading the Harry Potter books. I now had four books, including Half-Blood Prince. I slowly began to understand more about the struggles Harry, Ron and Hermione faced in the books. I understood the pain the trio faced, especially Harry, after rereading those books. I have slowly started to change my habit of reading, preferring to read slowly and understand more about the plot development. At the same time, I started to realize that I was not very happy in life. I realized that I was being bullied, and I did not dare to tell my parents about it. I just kept everything to myself, like what Harry did by hiding his pain from Ron and Hermione.

Ron’s Humor and Maturity

Ron Weasley, Harry’s male best friend, on the other hand, was not as smart as Hermione, nor as skilled as Harry, but he had a trait that the both of them lack: His sense of humor. He was a character that provided some comic relief in the books, making sure that the books were not dark and sad at all times. At the beginning where Hermione was not on Ron’s good shoes, he kept on mocking her, saying that she was scary. When Harry and he were stuck in a plant and Hermione was freaking out, he questioned by shouting at her if she was a witch. He also joked that Harry had to get his Inner Eye tested during a class when Harry tried to read the tea leaves from Ron’s cup but failed miserably. When the fake Professor Moody Transfigured Malfoy into a ferret, Ron told Hermione to not say a word, as he was trying to remember that scene forever (Rowling, “Sorcerer’s Stone”, 172, 278; “Prisoner of Azkaban, 105; “Goblet of Fire”, 207). In the first two cases, although he was mean to Hermione, he was funny and in a way, was a joker to the other two of his friends. Rowling has said that the reason why Ron had a good sense of humor was because he was immature as well (Ferreol). He, however, became more mature where he came back to Harry and Hermione after leaving them. At the end, when he married Hermione and had kids, he said to his children that he’s extremely famous, prompting them to laugh, showing that he still had his sense of humor (Rowling, “Deathly Hallows”, 380, 759). In my opinion, Ron was one of those people that no one could hate, as he was hilarious in many situations. Rowling wrote such a contrasting character to accompany Harry and Hermione, but because of what she wrote, Ron was easily likeable by Harry Potter fans, or commonly known as Potterheads. He was the type of guy that every guy would want to be when dating with a girl, as he knew what to say to make the girls laugh.

When the last book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released, I was delighted and requested my parents to buy the book for me. As it was quite expensive, they were initially reluctant to buy the book for me. After several plead from me though, they decided to buy for me as they knew I liked books. A few years after owning the last book, after many times of rereading, I finally realized that I had changed after reading Harry Potter, somewhat quite a lot. I learned to look things at a different perspective. When I realized I was being bullied at first, I kept on wondering why I was picked to be the victim, why other people would not be the victims. Then, I realized that maybe it was because of some misunderstanding with them, or they had a huge issue on me that even I did not realize.

The Trio’s Bravery

Harry, Ron, and Hermione, however, possessed one of the few traits that no one else in this real world could compare: Their immense bravery. Lord Voldemort tried to kill Harry many times after he killed Harry’s parents, including the night where his parents died, the time where he was fighting for his life in the Triwizard Tournament, and the time when he was a legal magical adult, facing Voldemort, and came to accept his apparent death (Rowling, “Sorcerer’s Stone”, 12; “Goblet of Fire”, 663; “Deathly Hallows”, 703). He was not alone, as Ron and Hermione bravely stood beside him in nearly all occasions, trying to help him to defeat Voldemort once and for all. They were not cowards, and they did not bother running away. Even until the end, the trio did not surrender, even though Harry sacrificed himself to his death. In fact, Harry knew that he had to do so because that was the only way to defeat Voldemort. He knew that a part of Voldemort’s soul was attached to him, and as long as he lives, Voldemort cannot be defeated. Ron and Hermione did not know about that, but when they found out about it, they were sad and continued fighting against Voldemort and his followers (Rowling, “Deathly Hallows”, 686, 731).  Harry chose to die, and not live, as if he chose to live, everything that has done for by his parents and everyone else he loved will be betrayed (Deyoung).

The trio’s bravery was the main reason why Potterheads, including me, admire him. In my opinion, bravery was something lost in the whole of Harry Potter book series. There were too many characters who were afraid of losing something, including losing Harry’s life. These characters then decided to stay silent and be passive in the general public, unlike Harry, Ron and Hermione. They were one of the only few who decided to take action against Voldemort. They were the one of the few who sought light against all the darkness. They were the ones who stood up against all evil, never giving up, and bravely assumed their roles that they must defeat Lord Voldemort in order to successfully vanquish the evil, and restoring peace in the world.

2012 was the year when the final film adaptation of Harry Potter was released. It was a bittersweet moment for my life as I realized that this was THE final film of Harry Potter. No more Harry, no more Ron, no more Hermione. Deathly Hallows Part 2 was very heartfelt as I finally got to see the truth, as read in the book. My life took a turn for the better after reading and watching the last book and film adaptation, respectively. I finally understood that people were still immature at that time when I was bullied, as when I was finally leaving high school, I was not bullied, but on the contrary, I had friends who I can count on. I finally got to experience true friendship from these great friends.

Conclusion

It was and still is surprising that a pure-blood, a half-blood and a Muggle-born could be good friends together. Harry, Ron and Hermione, from the Harry Potter series, have inspired many people to be brave, to be themselves, to fight against evil. I dare to admit and say that I am one of those people. I applaud Rowling for writing such a great series of books, timeless stories, and most of all, creating a magical world that many Muggles like me try to realize in the real world. I hope that everyone who reads Harry Potter could take something home after reading the series, because I have.

 

Works Cited

Deyoung, Rebecca Konyndyk. “Love Bears All Things: Thomas Aquinas, Harry Potter & The Virtue of Courage.” Virtual Library of Christian Philosophy. Calvin College. 12 Sept. Web. 16 Nov. 2014.

Farr, Emma-Victoria. “JK Rowling: 10 Facts about the Writer.” The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, 27 Sept. 2012. Web. 16 Nov. 2014.

Ferreol, Yvette. “Rowling Reveals `Marriage’ to Harry Potter at Reading (Correct).” Bloomberg.com. Bloomberg, 22 Oct. 2007. Web. 30 Nov. 2014.

“J.K. Rowling Web Chat Transcript”. Bloomsbury. The-Leaky-Cauldron.org. 30 July 2007. Web. 11 Nov. 2014. Transcript.

Jusino, Teresa. “Hermione Granger: Minority Geek Girl”. Potterpalooza on TOR.com. TOR.com, 14 July. 2011. Web. 13 Nov. 2014.

Rowling, J. K.  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. New York, NY: Arthur A. Levine, 2007. Print.

—. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. New York: Arthur A. Levine, 2000. Print.

—. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. New York: Arthur A. Levine, 2003. Print.

—. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. New York: Arthur A. Levine, 1999. Print.

—. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. New York: Arthur. A. Levine, 1998. Print.

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Below is the grading & comments from the author’s instructor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Grade: ___A_____Comments: Leland, well done! Your revisions all went in the right direction. It is great to see (after the Doyle essay) how truly athletic you are as a writer, slipping from one challenging essayistic form to the next. You have been a delight to have in my class. Please keep in touch if you need anything.

[Feature picture of this post was derived from: http://blogs-images.forbes.com/markhughes/files/2014/10/Harry-Potter-1940×1212.jpg]

Who’s going to do their work if I send them to training?

If you want your business to have a chance to soar with the eagles & not run with the turkeys, you need to appreciate & develop the staff that you have.

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I attended a graduation ceremony about two years ago in Subang Jaya by the Trinity College London in which 150 musicians graduated with their Associate, Licentiate or Fellowship awards. Parents, spouses and even children of graduates came from all over Malaysia to celebrate their love ones’ achievements. It dawn on me that despite our relatively small population, Malaysia really has a lot of musical talents. In the same year’s Global Chinese Music Award, Malaysian artists took home 20% of the 35 opened awards. However, almost all of these artists had to leave Malaysia to seek and find their fame & fortune, in Taiwan and China. In the inaugural issue of the now defunct print weekly, The Heat, it was revealed that former Miss Malaysia, Soo Wincci had to spend RM1.0 million to launch her musical career. To nurture talents is indeed a very expensive undertaking and there seems to be no allocation by the state to nurture these talents. But judging from the musical talents I witnessed in the Trinity College London event, Malaysian parents are willing to spend heavily on their children’s music education even if the government is not prepared to do so. However, funding of music education is just one of the many aspects of developing musical talents in the country. When the “ecosystem” for an industry is not able to sustain its healthy growth, talents will need to move overseas. We may lose these talents altogether.

In the workplace, aside from the civil service, government-linked companies and multinationals, many private companies still treat the training and development of their staff as something that the government “forces” upon them. The implementation of the Human Resource Development Fund (HRDF) put paid to some of these lack of training commitments as contributing companies have to pay 1% of their payroll as HRDF contribution and they get back training grants in return. But there is still a lack of training culture in private companies, especially among the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME). SMEs form the bulk of the companies that do not fall into the the HRDF contribution requirements.

When I was operating a federal government funded institution that provides technical and vocational training in 2011, my centre was awarded RM100,000 by the SME Corporation Malaysia (SME Corp) to spend on subsidizing 50% of the training fees of approved short technical and vocational courses for SMEs. The qualifying criteria were very simple: the trainees need to be Malaysians, the companies have to be majority Malaysian owned or in sole-proprietorships or partnerships. I was told by my staff that every year we would have trouble spending the full allocation. I decided to do something different. I packaged soft-skills courses (which were not covered by the grant) into the offering so that the trainees would get 2 courses for 50% of the fee for each SME Corp sponsored course they take (2 for half the price of one course). I was prepared to lower the margin for my centre to benefit these SMEs. Despite the incentives, I was having great trouble spending the RM100,000 grant!

It seemed that in that part of Malaysia, the culture of appreciating and nurturing our talent pool did not exist.  I was wondering why many bosses only paid lip service to my effort. In the end my centre only managed to spend less than half of our allocated grant. Later, after I have made some enquiries and spoken to some of the SMEs and clients, I discovered that there were two reasons for my failure to entice SMEs taking up my offer. Firstly, most do not subscribe to the idea of training their staff. I was getting this question thrown to my face many times,”If I send my guy to your training course, who is going to do his job?” Secondly, many of the SMEs were nearly fully relying on foreign workers with only token Malaysians working in the administrative, marketing and supervisory functions. Foreigners are not eligible for the training grant. Many of these SMEs seemed to be contented with being the fabricators or contract manufacturers, at the bottom of the value-chain. They stand to lose out to other companies, especially those from cheaper cost regions when there is any changes in the business environment. They will always be squeezed by the big customers or main contractors because of their lack of technical ability or design capability.

Some years ago, I read a very interesting article in one of the Chinese dailies. It was describing the 4 types of people that employees can be classified into. “Wealth generating people” (WGP) (“Ren Cai“  － 人财） are talents that you have who will help you to create all the wealth of your company. “People being there” (PBT) （”Ren Zai” – 人在） are those employees who will clock in to work each day waiting to clock out and have the “minimalist” approach to doing work. “Woody people” (WP) （“Ren Cai” –  人 材） are those described as deadwood. “Talented people” (TP) （”Ren  Cai” – 人才) are staff who have all the potential and talent waiting to be developed. Of course you will want to be rid of the WP and PBT as fast as possible. You will need to be very alert when communicating with the WGP. These guys know what they have and can do and they will bring their talents elsewhere as soon as they detect any major issues with you or your company. Your success rely more on the TP. But if you do not take the trouble to develop them, either they will look for better opportunities or they will, when they become more experienced, turn themselves into WGP for other companies.

Although all entrepreneurs aspire to soar with the eagles, but many, like those I had encountered in my vocation and skills development centre, are content to run with the turkeys. But I sincerely hope that they know, only with a bit of commitment in cultivating the “Talented people” among their staff, even though they might not be soaring with the eagles, at least they can be the “roadrunners” to always race ahead of the turkeys and escape from the coyote….Beep! Beep!

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I wrote the draft of this article on November 01, 2013. At that time I had been roped in to contribute articles to help in getting the then brand new English business weekly, Focus Malaysia off the ground. As happened to many new publications, getting credible writers was the main headache for the editors. Hence I became the “accidental” writer to fill in the gap till the publication could engage sufficient full-time and part-time writers. This piece was prepared for my column, “Learning Circle” in which I had been publishing my column under my moniker of “Plantcloner” but it did not get the see the light of day in 2013 as my column was pulled in favour of a “star” columnist. For my stint as a columnist for Focus Malaysia, I did not receive a single cent or any incentive for my effort.

Since then this draft has received several revisions when I was writing for The Heat (the print version) and later Focusweek, but somehow I did not manage to shorten it from the 1,000 words (as specified for Focus Malaysia) to about 800 words for the latter two.

If you are a business owner or managing a business for an employer, may all the staff that you have turn out to be either Talented People or Wealth Generating People!

(The image used was derived from: http://schenec.com/business/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Corporate-Training.jpg

Difficult to score on moving goalposts

The education concept behind the new lower secondary national assessment system, PT3 in Malaysia is a great idea that was horribly implemented. What can students and parents do? Read more to pick up some advice from a parent & educationist.

I had to be on a day-trip to Penang on December 22, 2014 which was the same day that candidates who have sat for the lower secondary school’s Pentasiran Tingkatan 3 (PT3) (which has replaced the traditional Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR) examination by the power that be) would get their results. My daughter was one of the 453,413 candidates. When I reached Penang at around 10:30 am I gave my wife a quick call to check on my daughter’s performance. I wanted to speak to my wife first just in case we have some “unforeseen” results. But my daughter answered the call instead, because her mother was driving.

“How many “B”s did you get?”, that was my opening line. “I am surprised you ask this funny question!”, my daughter answered indignantly.

She did her best and scored 5 “A”s, 3 “B”s and 2 “C”s. Naturally, she along with a few hundred thousands “PT3ers” were disappointed and rightly so. Both my wife (a former teacher) and I feel that our daughter has done her very best and we are proud of her achievements despite being one of the “guinea pigs” for Ministry of Education.

Anyone who plays football can tell you that it is very, very difficult to score a goal if the goalposts keep moving. Those charged with implementing PT3 must be either fickle-minded, lack planning skills or both. Parents, students and even teachers have been left guessing what to expect of PT3 candidates and how assessments were to be taken. This was not helped by the constant adjustments to the entire PT3 system. At one point, we did not even know whether there would be a “final” examination, or if there was one, in what format it was going to be. One thing good about this is that the “advantage” held by those who are “customers” of tuition centres have been mainly nullified. No one, even the teachers had any idea what to expect in the entire PT3 examination system. To me, those deciding on the PT3 were actually making up the “rules’ as they went along. This is grossly unfair to all stakeholders. If the system is not yet fully tested and the plan not fully thought out, it would have been better to have retained the PMR for this cohort and implement PT3 for those who have started Form 1 in 2014. The RM100 million questions include, why was the haste in implementing PT3? What was the rationale? Who stood to benefit from this premature implementation of PT3? (the PT3 candidates, their parents and teachers surely were not the beneficiaries)

As an educationist, I have nothing but praise for the concept of PT3. It has many positive features such as giving greater emphasis on continuous learning and assessment. This makes life a lot more difficult for those lazy students and reward those who put in consistent hard work. However PT3 is a great idea that has been very, very poorly executed. As the saying goes, “the devil is in the details”. The constant yo-yoing of policies and instructions given by those handling the PT3 system had caused the poor candidates (their teachers and parents) to second guessing what would the system churn out next.

You cannot sail a ship that is half built and hope that it will withstand the waves in the high seas. It was just plain luck that this half built “ship” called PT3 was only “partially submerged” in its maiden voyage! One thing great about the PT3 system is that “leaking” of examination question papers so endemic in our examination system seems to be “eliminated”.  Schools have the option to choose which version of the examination paper to use.  I am sure the PT3 system has a built-in mechanism to ensure that questions chosen and compiled for different versions of the same subject would assess the students in the similar manner and there is a moderation process to ensure equality. There should not be any “harder” or “easier” papers. I think the power that be should make sure that this process is transparent and communicated well to all stakeholders.

Because of these moving goalposts (I heard that even the scoring system for grades was changed unannounced), many elite schools that were accustomed to producing 70 – 80 or more students with straight “A”s are seeing this elite lot in single digits in 2014. But as a parent, I would strongly advise that we treat our children’s PT3 results as a form of attainment and a rite of passage.  The schools, teachers and candidates are all victims of a badly executed but highly progressive examination system. Console your children if they did not do as well as expected. Tell them that PT3 is only the second public examination in their learning journey, and it is not the “be all and end all” of their tenure as a student. There are bigger challenges ahead. They must enjoy learning and carrying on learning all their lives.

I do advise students who are unhappy with their PT3 results to file in their appeals (there is still about 1 week left to file an appeal by Jan 21, 2015). They owe it to themselves and their younger colleagues at schools to voice up their discontent. Perhaps the power that be may take notice if there are 100,000 appeals. It should take those charged with implementing the PT3 to task for messing up a great opportunity in making progress in our education system due to their inaptness and some might say, incompetence.

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This article was initially written to be published as the penultimate piece on my column in Focusweek / Focus Malaysia last week (Jan 10, 2015). But as there was a change in arrangements which resulted in an earlier termination of my association with the publication, I am publishing this article on my own blog instead. I hope my readers in Focus Malaysia can find this and like this!

……………………….Chow YN, PhD.

Why measuring only academic inputs causes academic decline in Malaysia

Dr. Chow provides a commentary on this article he wrote about the obsession with inputs that is one of the culprits for academic decline in Malaysia.

With the discontinuation of The Heat as a print version and a more reduced Focusweek taking its place in October 2014, I was given about 10 days of “breathing” space. At that time (around late September / early October 2014), some officials in the Ministry of Education threw a “bomb” into the higher education industry: the use of forecast results from the national high school graduation examination, Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) for the purpose of granting conditional acceptance for high school graduates to enter private colleges was disallowed. This practice which can be traced back for over 20 years allows students to commence their college studies without having to wait for months for the SPM results to be announced.

The reason cited in the press was IMHO not really credible, some students whose actual SPM results were not up to par were accepted into college studies based on a more favourable forecast result and hence this 20-year-old practice had to stop. It is like saying that because of some cases of accidental injuries due to the kitchen knives, we now make it illegal to have it in the home! The person making the recommendation to the power that be to ban the use of forecast results perhaps was not familiar with the dire consequences to private colleges for any failure to “weed” out students without the correct SPM credentials. This gave me an idea about this article. 

Is the obsession with inputs one of the key contributor to the lackluster academic performance of Malaysian students? That was the question I asked in the following article.

Our system also has very little flexibility when it comes to tapping into the expertise of renown sons and daughters of Malaysia to impart their wisdom to the new generation of learners. By disregarding the professional and industrial attainment of a person when it comes to measuring the academic credential of a person to teach at college level makes it very restrictive when we want to tap on many very established and renown professionals, designers, creative talents to impart their wisdom to our students.

In early 1980s I was taught mathematics at GCE “A” levels by Mr. Gowland who did not go to university. He was better in teaching us and guiding us to score grade A’s than many of his colleagues with Masters and PhDs. A person with a string of degrees does not necessary make a good lecturer. In the same technical college, tucked in the small town of South Shields, Tyne and Wear, England, our head of department, a nuclear physicist with a PhD was having great difficulties in making us understand topics in nuclear physics at GCE “A” level! I remember this lesson well and when I was hired as a  lecturer in 1996 (without any formal training in teaching) by the now defunct Sepang Institute of Technology. I quickly learned the rope by sitting in on classes delivered by senior colleagues especially those from the collaborating university, University of Adelaide. I also was not shy in asking for pointers from senior colleagues and did a “learn as you go” for the first few months.

It is about time we move to an “outcome-centric” education system. Why should we care how and what kind of inputs a student’s learning journey involved? We should only use SPM grades as an “indicative” measure to accept students into higher education. We should provide a “challenge route” for those whose grades may not be sufficient to follow a course of study of their choice so long as they can take the challenge and prove that they can do just as well as others by passing the relevant subjects (in which they did not attain the necessary grade as SPM). We should worry a lot more about what the student can do after taking a subject (the output or learning outcome) and not about the amount of work he put into studying it. We should care less about the different “learning journey” of individual students and more about their reaching their “learning destination”. Each student’s ‘learning journey” is different from the other but it is their ability to demonstrate the attained skills and knowledge, that is the “learning destination” that counts.

I am glad the re-published article in theantdaily.com (in English, Chinese and Malay), at the time of writing this article  has generated 5 comments (all, I am glad to say being favourable to the author!), 170 Facebook “likes” and 6 tweets on the news portal.

The great 20th century statesman who transformed China from an economic basket case to soon-to-be the World’s largest economy, Deng Xiaoping said in 1961, “it doesn’t matter whether a cat is black or white, if it catches mice it is a good cat”. Perhaps educationists in Malaysia, especially those advising the power that be should ruminate on the wisdom of Deng.

Last updated on 11 Jan 08:29 AM

The cause of academic decline     

by Dr Chow Yong Neng

OPINION: Parents, students and owners of private colleges and universities are relieved now that the powers that be have concluded that it serves no purpose to prevent the use of forecast Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) re­sults for conditional admission into private institutions of higher learning.

Students admitted using forecast re­sults, whose actual SPM results fell short of the required minimal grades, have always been prevented from enrolling into their desired course of study. Private colleges know too well that if they allow them to remain, sooner or later, approving authorities like the Malaysian Qualifica­tions Agency (MQA) will catch up with them. So long as parents and students are well informed of this fact, there should not be any issue of anyone “slipping” through the net.

But what if a student’s actual result does not “qualify” him for enrolment into his desired course of studies but he did well in the first semester of the foundation programme? For instance, student Tan used his SPM forecast result of five credits to enter a foundation programme. But he only scored four credits in his SPM and failed to get a credit in mathematics.

However, since being admitted to his foundation programme, Tan had worked hard and scored grade A for mathematics in his first semester examination. Under the Ministry of Education (MoE) policy, Tan will be denied his quest to be formally enrolled in his foundation studies prog­amme.

However, a true educationist will be persuaded by the fact that Tan’s SPM grade for Mathematics is immaterial as he has proven himself by scoring in Math­ematics in his foundation studies, which is at a higher academic level than SPM. Tan has “made up” for his lack of credit in SPM mathematics and should be allowed to continue his foundation studies.

But Malaysia over-emphasises inputs. We are obsessed with measuring inputs in academia, from the admission of students to institutions of higher learning, to quality assurance of delivery and learning of aca­demic programmes – the key emphasis is just on inputs and more inputs.

We do not have a concept of learners’ ability to “catch up” as we do not have much faith in evaluating our learners’ outputs. So scoring a credit grade in SPM mathematics in Tan’s case is considered more important than his scoring a grade A in an academically higher level math­ematics. Thus Tan’s desirable foundation studies output for mathematics is ignored.

Tan’s case is a classic example of, “the proof of the pudding is in the eating” but Malaysian education policies are more into “what was done to make the pudding”. It is this kind of input-centric mentality in our education system that has held Malaysians back from excelling academically for decades.

Even on the input-side, Malaysian educational policies are overly input-cen­tric as well. Someone once had an idea that to teach at diploma level, the lecturer must have a minimum of a Bachelor degree. This idea eventually made it to be the “standing policy” to evaluate the suitability of a person to teach. Thus for Bachelor level studies, the teaching staff must have a Master’s level qualification and for Master’s subjects the lecturer must hold a PhD in the same field. Our educa­tion system seems not to have the ability to recognise the importance of experience, exposure and achievements over paper qualifications.

If there is a Master’s level class on modern shoe design, Datuk Jimmy Choo would not be allowed to deliver it. This is because Choo, even though he is the world’s most renown shoe designer, does not hold an earned doctorate in this field. Yet a freshly-minted PhD holder in the same field who has never worked beyond academia would be found suitable to teach the same class. Such is the idiosyncrasy of Malaysia’s higher education system.

This obsession with input is the major cause of the lack of transmission of wisdom, insights and experience by successful professionals, industrialists and master craftsmen to the new generations of learners at Malaysian institutions of higher learning.

If our young learners are denied the opportunities to learn from great masters in their respective fields and are instead constantly fed an academic diet of book-knowledge, it will not take a genius to figure out why our universities have been lacking yearly in the various universi­ty ranking systems compared to our peers.

Unless Malaysians collectively get out of the shackles of our input-centric mental­ity, we will always be chasing the tail wind of our competitors

Dr Chow Yong Neng once argued successfully for MQA to allow a few of his students with inadequate SPM grades to continue with their studies by emphasising the satisfactory output of their diploma studies.

This article was first published in the Oct 18, 2014 issue of Focusweek

How do you debunk myths about Chinese primary schools in Malaysia?

It is not easy to fight lies told about the vernacular schools of Malaysia. A recent availability of a string of revealing facts help to debunk these myths. Read more & comment!

I have always wanted to write something to debunk the myths propagated by people with ulterior motives about Malaysia’s Chinese primary schools (to a lesser extent, Malaysia’s Tamil primary schools as well). I have tried without success in getting data from the Ministry of  Education’s website. Without these data, we cannot do much to nullify these myths.

It took the availability of key statistics by the Chinese press in Malaysia to give me the facts and figures I needed in early November 2014 to write this article.

It is extremely difficult to demystify the lies and untruths told over and over again by successive has-been and dead-wood politicians, but I try my best and hopefully provide at least some good points for supporters of the vernacular school system to keep the struggle going and gain the upper hand. A lie told many times unchallenged will eventually be misconstrued as the truth. There are many, many lies told about Malaysia’s vernacular schools and a great deal more will be concocted by politicians with limited mental capability. It is the duty of all who are concern with the rights of Chinese and Indian Malaysians to learn their mother tongues to fight these lies and liars.

Subsequent to the publication of this article on November 14, 2014 in Focusweek, there have been some startling facts further revealed by a Sabahan UMNO (United Malay National Organisation) member, the dominant partner of the coalition that rules Malaysia since independence in 1957 (from the British). Datuk Taufiq Abu Bakar Titingan revealed on November 29, 2014 that, out of 35,162 students studying in Chinese vernacular schools in Sabah last year (2013), 15,120 were bumiputra (and hence not Chinese Malaysians).  In fact in his constituency, 85% of the bumiputra students study in Chinese primary schools! Datuk Taufiq told the annual assembly of UMNO that, “….so there is no need to close down these schools“.  I would have liked very much to see the political rotten eggs on the faces of those who have been calling for the closure of vernacular schools in that grand meeting in the end of November 2014.

Despite the reiteration of the position of the Malaysian government that the vernacular schools are part and parcel of the national education system and their existence guaranteed under the Federal Constitution of Malaysia by the Prime Minister, the vernacular schools, especially Chinese primary schools are still the favourite punching bags of those with ulterior motives. The Mahathir administration was brilliant in coming out with the Wawasan School concept to provide a solution to tackle this problem. I personally was involved in helping to ensure that the first Chinese primary school established by the Malaysian government (in 2002) in 45 years of administration, SJK(C) Tun Tan Cheng Lock was nothing but a true Chinese vernacular school, except it is housed with and shares​ facilities with one Tamil vernacular school and one national primary school in the same school complex. Although there were many detractors (especially the “right-wingers” of the Chinese school movements) to the Wawasan School Concept, SJK(C) TTCL is today one of the most difficult to get your children registered!

Perhaps the Najib administration should relook at the Wawasan School Concept and relaunch it whenever there is an opportunity to do so?

DEBUNKING MYTHS ABOUT CHINESE SCHOOLS

By Dr Chow Yong Neng

1/1/2015 9:00:00 AM

SJKCs and SJKTs are no different from Sekolah Kebangsaan (SK), the national schools, because all these schools follow the same administrative systems as prescribed by the Ministry of Education

For many has-been politicians and those who are vying for attention, attacking the existence of Chinese primary schools, the Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan (Cina) (SJKC), seems to be a sure way to get attention.

And why not? Those who run Chinese primary schools are government servants; they are not likely to fight back. Their ultra-rightism may bring these mediocre politicians some press attention and hence signify their political relevance to their target audience. Thus, whenever there is a need to divert the people’s attention, the SJKCs have been the politicians’ bogeyman.

Let us get some facts straight. SJKCs and SJKTs (Tamil primary schools) are, for all intents and purposes, no different from Sekolah Kebangsaan (SK), the national schools, because all these schools follow the same administrative systems as prescribed by the Ministry of Education (MoE).

The schools follow the same curriculum with the exception that the vernacular schools have greater emphasis on the use of the respective mother tongues in the delivery of the lessons and have an additional subject, that is Chinese or Tamil language.

There are 1,294 SJKCs, 523 SJKTs and 5,863 SKs, with student enrolments of 560,788, 89,007 and 2,029,658 respectively. SJKCs and SJKTs account for 20.78% and 3.30% of the entire primary school student population respectively. Collectively, they are educating close to a quarter of Malaysian primary students.

Outside of Greater China (China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau), Malaysia is the only country where the government funds and operates Chinese primary schools

Successive prime ministers have made it clear that vernacular schools are part and parcel of our education system and the Federal Constitution guarantees their continued existence.

There are over 60,000 pupils in Chinese primary schools who are not Chinese Malaysians. This group of mainly bumiputera pupils constitutes about 10.7% of SJKCs’ student population. Has it occurred to these opportunistic politicians to wonder why the parents of these 60,000-plus students send their children to SJKCs rather than SKs?

Some politicians say that SJKCs only have Chinese Malaysians as teachers but they do not back this claim with facts. While I do not have access to proper data, my observation of my children’s school reveals that during my daughter’s time (she completed Year Six in 2011) there were two Malay teachers, one of whom I have known personally since she started in the early days of the school’s establishment. When I was a pupil of a SJKC, I was taught Bahasa Malaysia mainly by Malay teachers. So the statement that SJKCs have only Chinese Malaysians as teachers is untrue, concocted by politicians without substance to gain political advantage.

The recent leak of Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) examination papers supports my point. All UPSR classes of 2014 had to resit the Science, English and Mathematics papers. The only reason why candidates from SKs, SJKCs and SJKTs have to resit these same papers was because they studied the same curriculum in the same medium of instruction.

This pokes a big hole in the credibility of those who charge that vernacular schools are not part of the Malaysian education system. The philosophy of teaching at SJKCs that dates back over 80 years is the only difference. This philosophy is passed on by senior teachers and headmasters to younger teachers. I believe this philosophy alone accounts for the higher scholastic achievements of SJKC students, something which ill-informed politicians have chosen to dispute.

Outside of Greater China (China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau), Malaysia is the only country where the government funds and operates Chinese primary schools. Malaysians are reputed to have the best command of Mandarin outside Greater China. The standard of Chinese at SJKCs easily outclasses that of our southern neighbour, Singapore.

But with the incessant attacks on Chinese schools and deliberate hurdles placed by some officials at the MoE (the case of not sending Chinese language teachers trained for secondary schools is one example), this advantage is eroding. Already many secondary schools pupils have been either actively discouraged or coerced into dropping Chinese at the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) level. This comes at a time when other countries are encouraging the learning of Chinese.

Incidentally, my friend’s son who is studying at a high school in Australia is required to take Chinese as a subject due to his ethnicity. With so many China nationals having settled in Australia, there is no shortage of good Chinese teachers to guide students in Australia. Perhaps Australians outclassing Malaysian in their command of Chinese within the next 20 years may be a reality that we will face.

 [the feature picture for this post was source from The Heat Online]

Let your children chase their own dreams!

I mooted the idea of writing a commentary about Malaysian parents, especially Chinese Malaysians wanting to dictate the fields of studies for their offspring way back in January 2014. This was because I regularly get requests from acquaintances, friends, and families to provide “free advising” to their college-going children.

As a freelancer (on and off since 2011), the idea of providing a fee-based advisory service on higher education opportunities and options was a very attractive one. I even managed to get myself appointed as a recruitment adviser by a few overseas institutions. But to base my bread and butter on this kind of work is not exactly child play. It is a pay-on-success-only kind of arrangement. You will get nothing for the time, effort, parking charges, restaurant tabs etc. that you have spent on a student unless the parents concerned sign up their offspring. I had wasted many hours and lots of expenses giving this sort of free advising.

Then I decided to levy a small charge of RM100.00 (about US$28.60 in Dec 2014) for providing unbiased advising. After all, people have no issue paying for professional advisory from their lawyers, accountants, etc. why not education advisers?

Did I earn any income for the advising I have been providing to my “clients”? You may incline to ask. The answer is absolutely NIL!

Either all the people who have engaged my time, knowledge and services are cheapskates or they just did not know that as a freelancer I need to generate some income for my time. So I hope this article will help in a way to sow the seeds for my friends, relatives, and acquaintances to pay my bills! People should be aware that unbiased advice comes with a price tag and mine is a modest RM100.00 only! Doesn’t your kid’s future worth this small sum?

So have I stopped all these pro bono work? Not exactly.  I just become more incline now to refer requests for free education advising to the many education establishments directly and have become very “economical” with my advising unless the request comes from a close friend or relative.

Whatever the message this article below conveys, I would like all parents to do what I have done. Guide your children in their choice of studies which may or may not lead to a career in the same field, but let them chase their own dreams. Whatever their choices, your job as parents is to support them both in spirit and in Ringgit (or US$). Let the kids realize their own dreams. They need not take up the profession of their choice of studies. If they find out that they have to change direction, don’t get mad. It is part and parcel of learning to find a suitable path.

Just look at me. An agriculture graduate who was trained to be a farm manager or farm adviser. The fact is, after graduating with an Honours degree in General Agriculture from the Queen’s University of Belfast in 1985, I have never worked in the field of agriculture. In fact, for 18 years now, I have not worked in the field of expertise I gained from my postgraduate studies, plant tissue culture! Instead, I become an education management specialist.

Luckily for me, the field of plant tissue culture progresses at a snail pace and an armchair “old dog” lab scientist like me can still find my expertise being valued and fortunately, I can still keep pace with developments. But “old dogs” still need to learn new tricks, that is where Massive Open Online Courses come in handy, but that is another story! The broad-based agriculture degree prepared me well to lead the life of an academic when in the heyday of private college growth in the late 1990s and early 2000s this broad knowledge helped me to be a much better educator. The farm management, especially farm marketing and accounting courses that I studied helped to horn in my entrepreneurial skills. The list of applications for knowledge I had picked up during my university days is very long indeed. There again, I spent almost 3 times longer than the average British-educated person in university!

It may be great to know that (and I am very proud to be associated with this man) one of my buddies, Dr. Michael Leong who was trained as a surgeon became a serial entrepreneurs (who retired a very wealthy man before he was 48 years old) is one of those people who did not follow the typical career path of a medical doctor! I don’t get to meet with Micheal who is based in Singapore often enough, but every time we meet he would insist on buying the drinks and food and I usually could not argue well with a self-made multimillionaire on that!

DO PARENTS KNOW BEST?

By Dr Chow Yong Neng
12/27/2014 5:00:00 PM
Young students must be given the freedom to realise their own dreams

Being an 18-year veteran of the education and training industry has its perks. Every year, especially after the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) examination (a public examination for all Malaysian high school graduates), I get invitations to lunch or dinner from friends and relatives to provide advice to their offspring on the next step after high school.

I would be expected to give my unbiased and learned views. My round of questions would usually not solicit much of a reply from the young student involved. Dad or mum knows best is the theme. Mostly, the kid realistically has no say in his choice of studies.

Many parents, even those who have had the benefit of university education, do not understand the real reason for their children having a university education. The notion, especially among Malaysian parents, is that students must choose and seek their career in their respective fields of undergraduate studies. That is why parents are so concerned and usually take over the decision-making in the fields of studies that their children should undertake.

A former colleague, Dr. CGB, who was a practicing engineer and lecturer in structural engineering, once commented: “Most fresh graduate engineers are half-baked; we need to put them through at least three years of rigorous industrial exposure before they are ready.”

I think Dr. CGB’s view can be applied to almost all fresh graduates. University education is a means to provide students with the opportunity to learn new knowledge, skills and social networking. A person holding an undergraduate degree demonstrates to the world that he has the ability to think, analyse and assimilate factual knowledge to solve problems better than those without such an advantage.

That’s why I had adopted a liberal view in helping my own children choose what they want to do. I exposed them to what different career choices entail and explained what they need to do to be in various different professions.

My son, having learned these quickly, discarded the idea of being a medical doctor right from the age of 15 and decided by the time he was in Form 4 that he would like to study mathematics, finance or actuarial science. He settled on the finance option when he embarked on his tertiary education.

Exposing your children to different professions at an early age lets them gain the knowledge that they need to make the right decision on a course of study when the time comes.

As parents, it is our duty to guide our children on their choices of study. The key phrase here is “their choices”. We should be flexible and should refrain from deciding on the choice of study for them. Young students must be given the freedom to realise their own dreams. They should not be expected to accomplish and live the dreams of their fathers or mothers. Parents force their children to take a study choice that they do not have an aptitude for, there may be damaging consequences.

While you are explaining and exposing different professions and career choices to them, never attempt to look down on non-traditional choices of study. Not everyone is interested to be an engineer, doctor, accountant, lawyer or banker. Many people who did not choose to be in any of these professions in their university studies ended up doing just as well or better.

In 1982, I had chosen general agriculture as my choice of study. My parents, who were paying for my education, supported my choice without hesitation. I met many fellow Malaysian students at the Queen’s University of Belfast who were reading medicine, engineering or accounting. Some of them thought I chose to read agriculture because (a) I must have had poor grades for my GCE ‘A’ levels, (b) I must have some predilection for the smell of cow dung or (c) both.

They were gobsmacked when they learned that with two A’s and two B’s, I was offered to read medicine, engineering or accounting but I had chosen agriculture instead. I like biology and the most practical form of biology was agriculture.

Interestingly, you would think that an education consultant would be able to earn a living from satisfying regular requests for unbiased advice. In reality, no one seems to be willing to pay my consultancy fees of RM100 per hour. My friends and relatives either do not think that my advice is worth RM100 or they think I am too wealthy and therefore will not need this small fee.

[This article was originally published on November 1st, 2014 edition of Focusweek  & is re-published in The Heat Online on December 27, 2014]

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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How many different types of identities do you think you have?

How many identities do you think you have? What is your cultural & social identities? What about your regional & religious identities? What about age and national identities? Read on to find out more.

Introduction

Cultural identities are identities that each person has, no matter where he or she is. Cultural identities ultimately form who we are and what we do. Therefore, in the following discussion, I would investigate my own cultural identity in a few sections. The first section is the cultural and social identities, where I will discuss about the identities which I have since I was born, which are my racial, ethnic, religious and regional identity. This is followed by cultural space, where I will talk about identities that I have formed since I am in the United States, which are racial, national and age identity. Next, I will discuss about the technology I use in my life and how it relates to my cultural identity. The final section will talk about my cultural future, which is to become a financial advisor. Hence, I believe I have many cultural identities that I have instilled since I was born, and I have a few more when I came to United States.

Section One: Cultural and Social Identities

Racial Identity

Since I was born, I have identified myself as a Chinese in terms of racial identity. This is because I was born to a pure Chinese family. Being Chinese has been one of my proudest achievements. The Chinese people put a lot of emphasis in education, and hence, since I was a young boy, my grandparents and parents have taught me words every day. My parents said that I could read the newspapers when I was about 1 year old, and also could tell the time after that. Because of this, I was fluent in the language I spoke when I was young, which was surprisingly English. This was because my mother and my maternal grandparents did not understand Mandarin Chinese, and as my father was travelling abroad nearly every year, he was not able to teach me Mandarin before I learned the language in kindergarten school. This is also the reason why my weakest language is in fact, my “mother tongue”, Chinese. I also learned a dialect of the Chinese language, which was Cantonese when I was young, because although my mother and maternal grandparents could not understand Mandarin Chinese, they were fluent in Cantonese. However, unlike them, until today, I am still not entirely fluent in Cantonese, but I improved myself since then by watching Cantonese dramas from Hong Kong, my favorite pastime.

Ethnic Identity

In terms of ethnic identity, I identify myself as a Chinese Malaysian. Chinese Malaysians were Malaysians whose ancestors were from China. As a fourth-generation Chinese Malaysian, I have grown to love the food I had in Malaysia. The Chinese cuisine in Malaysia is different from the Chinese cuisine in China, as the Chinese cuisine in Malaysia tends to use both ingredients that are predominantly used by Chinese and other races. Hence, the staple food in Malaysia, “nasi lemak”, which has a literal translation of fats rice, has been cooked by the Chinese as well. Because I am Chinese Malaysian, I also get to experience the food from different races and learn to love all of them. I love the “roti canai”, which means flatbread made by Indians, the chicken shredded noodles made by the Chinese and the “nasi lemak” made by the Malays. The food in Malaysia is diverse, but all cuisines have a similarity: They have spicy cuisines which I personally love. The spiciness of Malaysian cuisines is considered very spicy to a lot of people here in the United States, but it is not very spicy for me. As a Malaysian, I have been trained to eat and enjoy spicy food as an enhancing flavor.

Religious Identity

In terms of religious identity, I identify myself as a person practicing three religions that intertwine each other, which are Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism, also known as the Three Teachings. This might seem to be a little weird to other people, but in Malaysia, although people label themselves as Buddhist, they also incorporate Taoism and Confucianism as well. Honestly, I am not a religious person, nor are my parents. I do not usually celebrate Buddha’s birthday, the Wesak Day, nor do I remember every god’s day, but I still stand strong with my beliefs as a person practicing Three Teachings. The Buddhism and Taoism parts of me are strong when I am facing major examinations, where I pray to the gods using incense, or during the first day of Chinese New Year, where I go to temples and pray to the gods for a good year ahead. On the other hand, on my everyday life, I practice Confucianism because it is not just only a religion, but also a way of life. For example Li, or morals, means that I should be polite and kind to everyone I meet, and Xiao, or filial piety, means that I should respect my elders, especially my parents. Confucianism, to me, has played a major role of shaping me into myself today, and I believe that every Chinese, no matter the religion, would agree on this with me that Confucianism is a way of life for the Chinese.

Regional Identity

I am from a suburban city not too far from the capital of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, which is called Subang Jaya. Subang Jaya is about 15 minutes from another large city, Petaling Jaya. Subang Jaya is a part of the Klang Valley, which is a term for the most advanced modern and fast-paced areas of Malaysia. Because I have lived in Subang Jaya since young, English was the main language I spoke in school. This was because nearly everyone in Subang Jaya spoke English, which was unlike the case in my birthplace and hometown, Ipoh, Perak, where people mainly spoke Cantonese. English was very important there as it was considered the business language in Malaysia. Malay, as it was the official language in Malaysia, was important as well, but English was the language used in everyday communication. However, the English used in Malaysia may be incorrect in syntax and grammar as Malaysians use a variety of languages in one sentence, which in a way, is somewhat like interlanguage. Traffic congestion in Subang Jaya was one of the worst in Malaysia, as there were many people living here, and every house in Subang Jaya would have a minimum of a car because the public transport in Malaysia was not entirely reliable, especially during peak office hours.

Section 2: Cultural Space

I currently live in Selleck Quadrangle, or more commonly known as Selleck, which is a traditional residence hall in campus. The residence hall itself is mainly catered to international students, which is why there are many international students like me living in here. Selleck is a coed traditional hall, and has 5 blocks from the 4000 to the 8000 block, each block containing 3 floors. I live in the 4200 floor, which means I’m at the second floor of the 4000 block. My floor consists of Brazilians, Chinese, a few Americans and Malaysians like me. Selleck has become my first home outside of Malaysia, and I treat it as my home as my home is a few thousand miles away from here and I will not be able to go back to Malaysia for the time being.

Racial Identity

My roommate is Daniel, and he is from China. Although we are both Chinese, as we are from different countries, our values are somewhat different from one another. As an example, I come from a tropical country, Malaysia, and because of this, I prefer the colder climate and I like to turn on the air-conditioner. Daniel, on the other hand, comes from a colder part of China, Xuzhou, where he prefers the room to be a little warmer and dislikes having the air-conditioner on for the whole day. Although we may have the same racial identity, we do not have the same likes. However, we have managed to solve the problem by accommodation, which I will accommodate him by turning off the air-conditioner when it is bedtime and leave the windows open instead. We solve it through discussions that start with “I think…” or “I believe…” which is politer than just shouting rudely to one another.

National Identity

My neighbors around my floor are mainly Brazilians and Chinese, and I do realize that when Brazilians and Chinese are with their own nationalities respectively, they communicate with one another in their native language, Brazilian Portuguese and Mandarin Chinese. However, when I am around usually, they will speak to me in English, as a sign of courtesy. Brazilians have difficulty trying to understand what I speak sometimes because I speak very fast naturally, as in Malaysia I have been trained to do so. My accent is considered clear by them, but because I may use adjectives and vocabularies which may not be understood by them. As an example, to describe a shirt’s color, I would use “dark red”, whereas the Brazilians will use just “red” to describe the color of the shirt. Because of this, I have to simplify my sentences and choice of words to accommodate their understanding so that I would not have misunderstandings with them. However, all of us as international students are trying to have integration with the people here so that we can communicate with other cultural groups to understand better and also to maintain our own unique cultures.

Age Identity

My neighbors at my floor are either around my age or older, and we are all in different years in college. As the legal drinking age is 21, my neighbors usually go out during the weekends to the bars and clubs in Downtown Lincoln to consume alcohol. I am underage, and hence I have to stay in my rooms, or go to the basement and talk to my friends to find some entertainment. Because of this, my Brazilian friends and neighbors often call me a baby, which is a way of teasing me being underage and unable to consume alcohol. I feel somewhat insulted, as the drinking age in Malaysia is 18, and I have consumed alcohol there before coming to Lincoln. However, as this is a small matter, I just laugh along with them and say that I will just wait for two more years.

Section Three: Technology in Life

The platforms I use the most in communicating with other people are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and an online forum named Southperry.net. These platforms have made me aware about my culture, as unlike most people my age; I like to convey my messages in full sentences. I am very particular about the syntax and spelling I use in writing statuses on all social platforms. I have seen many people, no matter the race or ethnicity, typing in grammatically incorrect sentences, which really irks me. However, I do also realize that I tend to use words which are commonly used in Malaysia, but not here in Lincoln, such as colloquial words (“Kena”, which means got in English), or Malaysian English words which are not used in here (“Handphone”, which means mobile or cell phone). It made me feel aware about my Malaysian culture which I thought was universal before this.

Besides, using these platforms also ignites my cultural and social identities. My national identity is very significant here as I have posted pictures of myself attending the Homecoming Parade as an international student from Malaysia. Besides, my racial and ethnic identity is also quite significant in the platforms I use because I use Chinese to post my status sometimes, and I also comment about the Cantonese dramas that I watch which a lot of people may not understand the content. My regional identity is also quite obvious as I complain about the traffic congestion back in Malaysia nearly every day. All these examples simply show that I embrace all of my cultural and social identities using technology.

Technology also provides an opportunity for me to connect with individuals from other cultural groups. Southperry.net is the place where I met with individuals which are very different from one another. There are Americans, Brazilians, and Australians and then there’s me as a Malaysian. However, everyone shares their interests in the same game, Mafia, and thoroughly enjoy the game all together as teams. We communicate with one another using a common language, English, naturally, so that everyone understands what are talking about. However, we do not know the true identity of one another, as it is an online forum and private information need not be disclosed by anyone. Hence, identity tourism takes place here because I do take on a different identity when playing Mafia in Southperry.net than in real life. I become a little more clueless and argumentative than usual, as Mafia requires me to do so. Besides, I also use Twitter to communicate with other cultural groups. There are various people from other nationalities that communicate with me via tweets, retweets and favorites. As an example, I talked about the play I have recently watched, Unity (1918) in Twitter, and a friend whom I have not met personally from here commented about the play, asking me if I enjoyed plays. We were literally talking to one another publicly about the play, saying that plays are a good way of entertainment. It was really an exciting experience because I have never thought of talking to people of different cultural groups on Twitter.

Section Four: Cultural Future

I am currently majoring in Finance, and minoring in Communication Studies. I have chosen this major because I am really interested in the mathematical side of business, though I am not interested in the closer major, Actuarial Science as I do not want to take professional papers in order to become a fully acknowledged professional. I chose Communication Studies as a minor because I took communication subjects back in Malaysia and I have grown to love those subjects. I can see myself in the future being self-employed, working as a financial adviser as I like communicating with people, helping them when I can, relating to the major I have chosen.

I believe I will need a lot of communication skills if I have gotten the job as a financial advisor working for myself, as I will have to communicate with various people, from clients to my employees and partners. I imagine myself working in New York City, New York, where it is one of the main financial hubs in the world. Hence, I believe I would need a suitable age identity, as I would have to dress appropriately according to my age, to work. I believe in first impressions, and I know that many people believe in that too. I would also have to act like my age and not a kid, being responsible and serious when the time arises. Besides, I believe I will need to stand strong in my religious identity as a person practicing Three Teachings. One of the Three Teachings is Confucianism, which plays a major part in my life. To me, I will need to respect and be polite to every person I meet when I am working, no matter the class and age, which is one of the foundations of being a Confucian. As I come from a collectivistic country, I would need to get used to the individualism here as United States is more individualistic than Malaysia as well. Unlike in Malaysia, where I can depend on my family to help me in solving problems in my daily life, I will have to learn to be independent, and rely on myself instead.

Conclusion

As a summary, in the first section, I have talked about my social and cultural identity that I have instilled since I was born, such as racial, ethnic, religion and regional identity. This was followed by cultural space, where I obtained new identities such as racial, national and age identity during the time in United States. The third section discussed about how technology was used to show my identities and played a role in connecting with other cultural groups. Finally, I talked about my cultural future, and how cultural identities can affect my future career as a financial advisor.

In conclusion, I realized that I have many identities that I had instilled since young, and I obtained new identities when I was and still am in United States. I am pleasantly surprised that these identities are appearing in me, and I embrace all of those identities. I believe everyone should embrace their identities, because these identities are unique and can differentiate people as individuals and a member of a group at the same time.

Leland Chow is a sophomore reading Finance and Communication Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This is an essay written as an assignment for one of the subjects he is currently undertaking.

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