Retaining Talent

I sometimes wonder if the government reads my blog – many people do. In a recent entry, I actually complained that it was unfair for our government to send our best and brightest overseas while pressuring our local varsities to out-perform themselves and be kings of the hill.

Then, here comes our DPM saying that, “the Government is looking at sponsoring more top students at local universities so that the country can retain talents, Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said. He said he believed local universities were comparable to foreign ones.”

Interesting.

I do not think that it is untrue when he says that some local varsities are comparable to foreign ones. I think that it is better for our government to send those who get into third-rate foreign universities to local ones instead. It would be cheaper and probably produce comparable results either way.

By keeping some of our talent here, we would also help our local universities with the student quality. We would hopefully, ‘raise-the-bar’ by placing a few punching bags in strategic places and improve the overall standards.

Interesting.

Bersatu Teguh

WTF?

I just read an article in TheStar on comments by a Selangor UMNO leader who, “has slammed the state government for riding on the Federal Government’s success in garnering investors into the state.”

This is the exact problem with the mentality of our political leaders that are leading us into a mess of things. I can go further and say that the Federal Government’s success in garnering investors is due to the available resources of the state, and nothing to do with the government at all – i.e. we can replace the present federal government and still have the same result at the end.

The whole idea of having a government is so that they can work together with all necessary parties for the betterment of the country – and this includes working together with the political opposition because even having a political opposition is contributing towards the betterment.

What does this person think, that the advances of our nation are all due to the performance of just one group of people – the federal government? If that is the case, then this group of people must also accept all responsibility for the failures on our performance – e.g. like falling in all sorts of global indices.

So, I can turn this around and say that the Federal Government is responsible for all our failures. But no, we reap the seeds that we sow.

Idiots!

PSD Interviews

I just read an article in TheStar on how our MCA president has come up with the dumbest idea I’ve heard so far on the PSD scholarships. According to the article, “Four MCA ministers will propose to the Cabinet on Wednesday that the top 300 SPM students be selected for Public Service Department (PSD) overseas scholarships based purely on academic results and should not be required to go through an interview.”

WTF?!

Then, I thought to myself, maybe he knows something that I don’t?

For example, maybe he knows that these students would fail their interviews because they cannot speak or communicate properly. Maybe, he knows that these students are unable to think clearly or answer the questions asked. Maybe, he knows that these students do not qualify for the overseas scholarships on their own and need the MCA to help them over the bar.

Honestly, I’d like to know what the MCA is smoking.

Robbed by the Police

After reading this article in MT about someone else’s experience of being ‘robbed’ by the local police, I recalled an incident that once happened to me at the junction of the LDP leading into the Federal Highway in PJ.

I was stopped by a traffic policeman on a motorbike and the usual thing happened when you get stopped the traffic police – i.e. asked for IC etc. I do not try to bribe the police but normally, try to talk my way out of it instead. Failing which, I would usually ask to be fined. It usually works if you speak nicely to the policeman and they’d rather not have the hassle of filing the paper-work.

At that time, I only had RM5 in my wallet. I showed him that I had very little money in my pocket (i.e. I couldn’t even bribe him if I wanted to) and that was when his hand flew in through the window, into my wallet and snatched the RM5 out of my wallet.

I was quite shocked – it was blatant day-light robbery – but what was I to do.

In the end, he told me that this was an ‘on-the-spot’ compound and returned my IC to me. Since that day, I no longer trust the police and use the term ‘on-the-spot’ compound quite a lot when talking about traffic police. I’ll recount the story whenever we share stories on how bad things are in the police force.

While I understand that these may be isolated cases, there are too many cases in isolation.

Scholarships a Malay Special Right

As much as I hate to admit it, PERKASA said something right for once – “Scholarships are the special rights of Malays under Article 153. The government and PSD must first make sure the rights of Bumiputeras are prioritised, a violation of the constitution in any form is a crime.”

Article 153(3) text:

The Yang di-Pertuan Agong may, in order to ensure in accordance with Clause (2) the reservation to Malays and natives of any of the States of Sabah and Sarawak of positions in the public service and of scholarships, exhibitions and other educational or training privileges or special facilities, give such general directions as may be required for that purpose to any Commission to which Part X applies or to any authority charged with responsibility for the grant of such scholarships, exhibitions or other educational or training privileges or special facilities; and the Commission or authority shall duly comply with the directions.

So, we should stop complaining about the unfairness of the scholarships being given out by the government. It is unfair by design and decree. If we want to have a fair system, we will need to amend Article 153 of the constitution and that is unlikely to happen within my life-time.

Unfortunately, they said something else that I think is right as well – “Make overseas scholarships only for post-graduate studies. This can save the outflow of money overseas and give due recognition to local public and private universities in the country.”

By sending all our best and brightest out, we are unfairly shackling our local universities by setting targets for them to shine as regional champions while depriving them of the human resource that they need to do it, all at once.

Grand Uncle

Wow, I just became a ‘grand-uncle’ last week! That makes me feel really old. :p

PSD Drama 2011

Sigh. Here we go again – our annual scholarship drama!

I’ve gotten so sick and tired of it over the years and I blame it all on our government’s decision to give in to a particular crier in 1999 from Sungai Petani who failed to obtain a scholarship even though he was the top student of his school while his peers got scholarships. That opened the flood-gates and set a precedent that resulted in more and more mis-steps every year after that, including radically diluting the number of scholarships over the years from 200 to 2000 students.

Honestly, I feel that this is just plain stoopid and it is definitely not sustainable. A scholarship is not a right but a privilege. If you are not happy with your scholarship, then just turn it down. It is not the end of the world.

If you line up the bunch of Malaysian undergraduates at Cambridge, you will find that there are many ways in which they made it to Cambridge. Of course, some of them had parents who could afford to send them there and many others were government scholars. However, there are also a lot of others who made it there without having rich parents nor the government’s help.

There are always options and these kids need to get creative about them.

If someone asked me whether it was right or wrong for a 4A+ student to get an overseas scholarship while a 8A+ student gets a local scholarship, I will say that right and wrong is relative. It is all a case-by-case basis. If the 4A+ student is an orang asli child and the top student of his kampung school across the last decade, then I would not deny that child a place.

Let us get one thing straight – the system will never be fair to all – it is a privilege, not a right.

This is where I think things have gone wrong. Our government has been giving out too many scholarships over the years and have very little to show for it. As a result, the kids are taking it for granted that they will definitely get a scholarship if they did well in school. This was not the case in the past when everyone understood that it is a limited opportunity that needs to be fought over.

In fact, if the World Bank report on brain-drain is to be believed, the ones we send overseas are very likely to stay overseas and even if they do come back, they will be hard pressed to contribute positively to the nation. Therefore, the return-on-investment for the country is also very limited. That money could possibly be put to better use elsewhere e.g. funding post-graduate scholarships.

These kids really need to grow up. During the 1998 economic crisis, a whole bunch of JPA scholars were ‘diverted’ to local universities. They were then forced to re-sign their contracts as the government had already reneged. Some even had to repeat their foundation years. Nobody came out to complain in the newspapers. Everyone took their lumps and these were definitely better students than the 8A+ ones today.

Kids today need to grow up.