Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
ANAK MASUK UNIVERSITI.MAMPUKAH ANDA?
setiap ibubapa mahu anak2 mereka mendapat pendidikan yg terbaik utk anak2 mereka tak kiralah samaada belajar di dalam negara ataupun luar negara.segalanya memerlukan belanja yg besar.dan kebanyakannya diluar lingkungan kemampuan ibubapa.
utk mula melangkah masuk ke universiti pun sudah mula menggunakan belanja yg kasar,bagaimana pula dgn kos sepanjang bertahun-tahun anak2 ketika berada di universiti tersebut.bagaimana pula jika menyambung pengajian samaada didalam atau luar negara.
Berikut adalah perbelanjaan yang perlu disediakan jika ingin menyambung pengajian ke peringkat Ijazah Sarjana Muda (rujukan 2009):
Bagaimana, adakah anda mampu? Jika jawapan anda adalah YA, mari kita beralih ke waktu 15 tahun yang akan datang di mana anak anda yang kini berusia 3 tahun akan melangkah masuk ke alam universiti. Untuk pengiraan kali ini saya ingin menjemput seorang tetamu istimewa untuk menyertai kita, saya mempersilakan encik INFLASI untuk naik ke pentas! Untuk makluman anda semua, tugas utama encik INFLASI adalah meningkatkan kos perbelanjaan pendidikan sebanyak 5% setahun. Ini kerana adalah mustahil semua universiti yang disenaraikan di atas akan mengekalkan yuran pengajian mereka setiap tahun, tidak dapat tidak pihak universiti perlu meningkatkan yuran pengajian lantaran peningkatan kos pengurusan, penambahbaikan, dan lain-lain. Apa akan terjadi jika kos pendidikan meningkat sebanyak 5% setahun sepanjang 15 tahun? Sila lihat ini:
jika jumlah yuran pengajian di atas sudah memeningkan kepala anda, apa akan jadi jika saya nyatakan pula jumlah perbelanjaan untuk sara hidup, penginapan, pengangkutan dan keperluan-keperluan lain? Anda mungkin akan tergamam dan hati anda akan lebih berbelah-bagi untuk mengizinkan anak-anak menyambung pengajian. Jangan begitu...setiap masalah ada penyelesaiannya, dengan syarat anda bermula dari awal.
Begini, andaikan tahun 2009 saya mempunyai 2 orang anak yang masing-masing berumur 3 dan 5 tahun. Saya akan menunjukkan bagaimana saya menyediakan dana/simpanan pendidikan supaya apabila tiba masanya nanti (tahun 2024) saya mampu menyediakan pendidikan berkualiti untuk mereka di Universiti Industri Selangor (IPTS). Terdapat dua cara:
DANA PENDIDIKAN
Jumlah perbelanjaan untuk yuran pengajian untuk anak-anak saya adalah RM 122,500 (RM 61,250 x 2). Jadi saya melaburkan wang sebanyak RM 30,000 dalam dana unit amanah yang dijangka akan memberi pulangan sekitar 11% setahun. Saya melabur hanya sekali dan tidak pernah menambah pelaburan atau mengeluarkannya. Jadi apabila tiba masanya pada tahun 2024 saya akan memperolehi RM 143,400!!! Ini sudah melebihi jumlah yang saya perlukan untuk yuran pengajian mereka, menarik bukan?
SIMPANAN PENDIDIKAN
Jumlah perbelanjaan untuk yuran pengajian untuk anak-anak saya adalah RM 122,500 (RM 61,250 x 2). Lantaran saya tidak memiliki wang yang banyak saya hanya mampu menabung sebanyak RM 360 setiap bulan dalam dana unit amanah yang dijangka akan memberi pulangan sekitar 9% setahun. Saya menabung setiap bulan tanpa henti dan saya juga tidak pernah mengeluarkan wang tersebut. Akhirnya saya akan menerima pulangan sebanyak RM 150,000 untuk digunakan sebagai perbelanjaan yuran pengajian anak-anak saya apabila mereka memasuki universiti pada tahun 2024. tak payah saya pinjam ptptn.
Ketika kita menghantar anak-anak ke sekolah, kita selalu berpesan supaya mereka belajar bersungguh-sungguh dan mendapatkan keputusan yang cemerlang. Apabila mereka berjaya mendapatkan keputusan yang cemerlang dan menerima tawaran melanjutkan pengajian ke universiti, adakah kita mahu menghampakan harapan mereka?
Ingatlah, pinjaman PTPTN atau MARA belum tentu mampu membantu. Ini adalah kerana PTPTN dijangka akan mengalami defisit sebanyak RM 48 bilion pada tahun 2020 yang mana akan menyebabkan tiada lagi pinjaman akan diberikan. MARA juga dijangka akan mengalami nasib yang sama kerana keengganan peminjam-peminjam melunaskan hutang mereka.
tunggu apa lagi hubungi saya skrg utk memulakan langkah pertama anda.demi anak2 yg tersayang.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Kebebasan Akademik
Kebebasan akademik merujuk kepada situasi penulisan dan pengajaran di peringkat universiti. Hasil kajian mahasiswa dan pensyarah amat penting untuk menentukan kualiti sesebuah universiti. Malangnya pelbagai sekatan bertulis dan tidak bertulis wujud sehingga menghalang minat untuk menulis kajian ilmiah atau menyampaikan idea.
Di Malaysia wujud istilah 'profesor kangkung' bagi menggambarkan pensyarah yang bercakap melalui TV dan media yang tidak mengikut fakta sebenar, mengampu pemerintah dan begitu hebat sekali menghentam pembangkang. Pihak universiti akan memantau pembabitan kakitangan dan pelajarnya di dalam dan luar universiti.
Di Malaysia wujud istilah 'profesor kangkung' bagi menggambarkan pensyarah yang bercakap melalui TV dan media yang tidak mengikut fakta sebenar, mengampu pemerintah dan begitu hebat sekali menghentam pembangkang. Pihak universiti akan memantau pembabitan kakitangan dan pelajarnya di dalam dan luar universiti.
Academic Freedom and Educational Responsibility
Academic freedom and responsibility have long been topics for public concern and debate. Academic freedom to explore significant and controversial questions is an essential precondition to fulfill the academy’s mission of educating students and advancing knowledge. Academic responsibility requires professors to submit their knowledge and claims to rigorous and public review by peers who are experts in the subject matter under consideration; to ground their arguments in the best available evidence; and to work together to foster the education of students. The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), in concert with the American Association of University Professors, helped establish the principles of academic freedom early in the twentieth century, and recently AAC&U joined with other associations to reaffirm them.*
Today, new challenges to academic freedom have arisen from both the right and the left. On the right, conservative activist David Horowitz, founder of Students for Academic Freedom, has fashioned an “academic bill of rights” that is being considered in several states ostensibly as a means of protecting “conservative” students from alleged indoctrination by the purportedly “liberal” views of faculty. This bill inappropriately invites political oversight of scholarly and educational work. On the left, anti-war protests by students have interrupted speeches by proponents of current national policies. Some protestors have sought to silence—rather than debate—positions with which they do not agree. These challenges prompt AAC&U to revisit the basic principles involved and to discuss the role of academic freedom.
There is, however, an additional dimension of academic freedom that was not well developed in the original principles, and that has to do with the responsibilities of faculty members for educational programs. Faculty are responsible for establishing goals for student learning, for designing and implementing programs of general education and specialized study that intentionally cultivate the intended learning, and for assessing students’ achievement. In these matters, faculty must work collaboratively with their colleagues in their departments, schools, and institutions as well as with relevant administrators. Academic freedom is necessary not just so faculty members can conduct their individual research and teach their own courses, but so they can enable students—through whole college programs of study—to acquire the learning they need to contribute to society.
As faculty carry out this mission, it is inevitable that students will encounter ideas, books, and people that challenge their preconceived ideas and beliefs. The resulting tension between the faculty’s freedom to teach—individually and collectively—and the students’ freedom to form independent judgments opens an additional dimension of academic freedom and educational responsibility that deserves further discussion, both with the public and with students themselves.
The clash of competing ideas is an important catalyst, not only for the expansion of knowledge but also in students’ development of independent critical judgment. Recognizing this dynamic, many well-intentioned observers underline the importance of “teaching all sides of the debate” in college classrooms. Teaching the debates is important but by no means sufficient. It is also essential that faculty help students learn—through their college studies—to engage differences of opinion, evaluate evidence, and form their own grounded judgments about the relative value of competing perspectives. This too is an essential part of higher education’s role both in advancing knowledge and in sustaining a society that is free, diverse, and democratic.
Intellectual Diversity and the Indispensable Role of Liberal Education
In any education of quality, students encounter an abundance of intellectual diversity—new knowledge, different perspectives, competing ideas, and alternative claims of truth. This intellectual diversity is experienced by some students as exciting and challenging, while others are confused and overwhelmed by the complexity. Liberal education, the nation’s signature educational tradition, helps students develop the skills of analysis and critical inquiry with particular emphasis on exploring and evaluating competing claims and different perspectives. With its emphasis on breadth of knowledge and sophisticated habits of mind, liberal education is the best and most powerful way to build students’ capacities to form their own judgments about complex or controversial questions. AAC&U believes that all students need and deserve this kind of education, regardless of their academic major or intended career.
Liberal education involves more than the mind. It also involves developing students’ personal qualities, including a strong sense of responsibility to self and others. Liberally educated students are curious about new intellectual questions, open to alternative ways of viewing a situation or problem, disciplined to follow intellectual methods to conclusions, capable of accepting criticism from others, tolerant of ambiguity, and respectful of others with different views. They understand and accept the imperative of academic honesty. Personal development is a very real part of intellectual development.
Beyond fostering intellectual and personal development, a liberal education also enables students to develop meaning and commitments in their lives. In college they can explore different ways to relate to others, imagine alternative futures, decide on their intended careers, and consider their larger life’s work of contributing to the common good.
Building such intellectual and personal capacities is the right way to warn students of the inappropriateness and dangers of indoctrination, help them see through the distortions of propaganda, and enable them to assess judiciously the persuasiveness of powerful emotional appeals. Emphasizing the quality of analysis helps students see why unwelcome views need to be heard rather than silenced. By thoughtfully engaging diverse perspectives, liberal education leads to greater personal freedom through greater competence. Ensuring that college students are liberally educated is essential both to a deliberative democracy and to an economy dependent on innovation.
What Is Not Required in the Name of Intellectual Diversity?
There are several misconceptions about intellectual diversity and academic freedom, and we address some of them here.
In an educational community, freedom of speech, or the narrower concept of academic freedom, does not mean the freedom to say anything that one wants. For example, freedom of speech does not mean that one can say something that causes physical danger to others. In a learning context, one must both respect those who disagree with oneself and also maintain an atmosphere of civility. Anything less creates a hostile environment that limits intellectual diversity and, therefore, the quality of learning.
Students do not have a right to remain free from encountering unwelcome or “inconvenient questions,” in the words of Max Weber. Students who accept the literal truth of creation narratives do not have a right to avoid the study of the science of evolution in a biology course; anti-Semites do not have a right to a history course based on the premise that the Holocaust did not happen. Students protesting their institution’s sale of clothing made in sweatshops do not have a right to interrupt the education of others. Students do have a right to hear and examine diverse opinions, but within the frameworks that knowledgeable scholars—themselves subject to rigorous standards of peer review—have determined to be reliable and accurate. That is, in considering what range of views should be introduced and considered, the academy is guided by the best knowledge available in the community of scholars.
All competing ideas on a subject do not deserve to be included in a course or program, or to be regarded as equally valid just because they have been asserted. For example, creationism, even in its modern guise as “intelligent design,” has no standing among experts in the life sciences because its claims cannot be tested by scientific methods. However, creationism and intelligent design might well be studied in a wide range of other disciplinary contexts such as the history of ideas or the sociology of religion.
While the diversity of topics introduced in a particular area of study should illustrate the existence of debate, it is not realistic to expect that undergraduate students will have the opportunity to study every dispute relevant to a course or program. The professional judgment of teachers determines the content of courses.
Academic Freedom and Scholarly Community
A college or university is a dedicated social place where a variety of competing claims to truth can be explored and tested, free from political interference. The persons who drive the production of knowledge and the process of education are highly trained professors, and they, through an elaborate process of review by professional peers, take responsibility as a community for the quality of their scholarship, teaching, and student learning. Trustees, administrators, policy makers, and other stakeholders also have important roles to play, but the faculty and their students stand at the center of the enterprise.
The development of a body of knowledge involves scientists or other scholars in developing their best ideas and then subjecting them to empirical tests and/or searching scholarly criticism. Knowledge is not simply a matter of making an assertion but of developing the evidence for that assertion in terms that gain acceptance among those with the necessary training and expertise to evaluate the scholarly analysis. In order to contribute to knowledge, scholars require the freedom to pursue their ideas wherever they lead, unconstrained by political, religious, or other dictums. And scholars need the informed criticism of peers who represent a broad spectrum of insight and experience in order to build a body of knowledge.
One of the great strengths of higher education in the United States is the integration of scholarly research and educational communities. Students benefit enormously when their learning is guided by thoughtful and knowledgeable scholars who come from diverse backgrounds and who are trained to high levels in a variety of disciplines.
A discipline consists of a specialized community that, through intense collective effort, has formulated reliable methods for determining whether any particular claim meets accepted criteria for truth. But assertions from any single disciplinary community as to “what is the case” are themselves necessarily partial and bounded, because other disciplinary communities can and do provide different perspectives on the same topics. Economists, for example, see poverty through one set of lenses, while political scientists and historians contribute different, and sometimes directly competing, perspectives on the same issue.
Any assertion from a particular individual or a specific intellectual community is necessarily simpler than the complexity it attempts to explain and describe. This is the central reason both scholars and students must work within a communal setting that involves multiple academic disciplines, and that fosters an ethos of communication, contestation, and civility. By creating such communities of inquiry, the academy ensures that no proposal stands without alternatives or arrogates to itself the claim of possessing the sole truth. The advancement of knowledge requires that intellectual differences be engaged and explored even as individuals with different points of view are also respected.
Intellectual Diversity and the Development of Judgment
Although one often hears that faculty “impart knowledge” to students, the reality is that, in a good liberal education, substantial time is devoted to teaching students how to acquire new knowledge for themselves and how to evaluate evidence within different areas of knowledge. To do this well, professors in the classroom also need academic freedom to explore their subjects—including contested questions and real-world implications—with their students.
To help students think critically about a subject or problem, faculty members need to take seriously what students already know or believe about that topic and engage that prior understanding so new learning modifies the old—complicating, correcting, and expanding it. This process of cultivating a liberal education is a journey that transforms the minds and hearts, and frequently the starting assumptions, of those involved—both teachers and students. Because knowledge is always expanding, the eventual destination is uncertain.
To develop their own critical judgment, students also need the freedom to express their ideas publicly as well as repeated opportunities to explore a wide range of insights and perspectives. The diversity of the educational community is an important resource to this process; research shows that students are more likely to develop cognitive complexity when they frequently interact with people, views, and experiences that are different from their own.
Expressing one’s ideas and entertaining divergent perspectives—about race, gender, religion, or cultural values, for example—can be frightening for students. They require a safe environment in order to feel free to express their own views. They need confidence that they will not be subjected to ridicule by either students or professors. They have a right to be graded on the intellectual merit of their arguments, uninfluenced by the personal views of professors. And, of course, they have a right to appeal if they are not able to reach a satisfactory resolution of differences with a professor.
Learning to form independent judgments further requires that students demonstrate openness to the challenges their ideas may elicit and the willingness to alter their original views in light of new knowledge, evidence, and perspectives. Just as a crustacean breaks its confining shell in order to grow, so students may have to jettison narrow concepts as they expand their knowledge and develop more advanced analytical capacities. As they acquire the capacities to encounter, grasp, and evaluate diverse points of view, they also gain more nuanced, sophisticated, and mature understandings of the world. Every college student deserves to experience the intellectual excitement that comes from the capacity to extend the known to the unknown and to discern previously unsuspected relationships.
Students may, in the end, reaffirm the worldviews and commitments that they brought with them to college. But they should do so far more aware of the complexity of the issues at stake and far better able to ground their commitments in analysis, evidence, and careful consideration of alternatives.
Teaching Students to Form Their Own Judgments
Research shows that students tend to develop intellectual and ethical capacities through a series of predictable stages. Students frequently enter college with a “black and white” view of the world, see things as either good or bad, and expect their professors and textbooks to serve as definitive authorities. Part of the job of becoming educated involves breaking out of this dualistic mindset. Students’ growing awareness of intellectual diversity frequently leads to a second cognitive stage that may be described as naive relativism. Once students see that ideas and methods are contested, and that their teachers may differ among themselves about interpretations of truth on certain questions, students often decide that “any idea is as good as any other.” While this is a predictable phase in their intellectual development, it is a phase that their teachers must recognize and challenge. Students cannot be allowed to be content with the notion that there is no legitimate way—beyond arbitrary choice—to determine the relative value of competing claims.
Thus it is vital that liberal education be organized to help students progress to a third, more mature, mental framework in which they form judgments—even in the face of continuing disagreement—about the relative merits of different views, based on careful evaluation of assumptions, arguments, and evidence. One of the central purposes of majoring in a particular discipline or academic field is to come to the understanding that different fields of endeavor provide well-grounded intellectual criteria for making decisions about alternative claims. Using these criteria, students can learn to discriminate by arguing the evidence, with the understanding that arguments exist for the purpose of clarifying ideas, evaluating claims, considering consequences, and making choices.
In this process, it is important that students be asked to assess competing points of view and to address them in making their own arguments. A good analysis does not simply ignore competing perspectives; rather, it takes them thoughtfully and carefully into account. Students need to learn, through the kind of extended and direct experience afforded by study in depth as well as general education courses, to be able to state why a question or argument is significant and for whom; what the difference is between developing and justifying a position and merely asserting one; and how to develop and provide evidence for their own interpretations and judgments.
Accomplishing this kind of educational result cannot be taken for granted or left to students’ unaided musings. There must be curricular space, capable guides and models, and a supportive institutional culture to encourage students as they learn to develop their own critical judgments. Freedom to learn is indispensable for both students and professors as they examine and assess disparate points of view within and across disciplinary boundaries. In the best designed college curricula and assessments, ample opportunity exists for students both to work on these intellectual skills and to demonstrate to the community their level of achievement in analyzing complex questions.
Further, this kind of intellectual journey often has the greatest impact on students when they apply their knowledge and inquiry skills to issues and problems beyond the academy. Students sometimes envision education as being removed from the “real world,” but direct involvement with communities beyond the academy can illustrate the actual power and significance of their learning. In such community settings, students may encounter new forms of intellectual diversity, forms that emerge from working with people whose histories, experiences, perspectives, and values may be decidedly different from their own—and also, perhaps, from that of the scholarly community. Service learning, community-based learning, community action research, internships, study abroad, and similar experiences all provide opportunities for authentic learning that engage students in using their critical skills to understand and to better the world.
Those outside the academy readily see the enrichment value of providing students with hands-on experience in community or organizational settings. However, they must also recognize that real-world learning may involve students with issues and problems that have been highly politicized. Indeed, some of the same experiences that enhance the knowledge, skills, and motivation of students to become more engaged in civic betterment are precisely the ones that are politically contested. As a result, faculty whose courses include community-based learning experiences often find that they must help students assess controversial topics that—at first glance—might be thought extraneous to the subject of the course. When such controversial topics emerge, faculty have to use their professional judgment in deciding whether to devote class time to them. If they do, they have a responsibility to ensure that students hear and assess diverse views on these topics.
The Ideal versus the Real
Academic freedom is sometimes confused with autonomy, thought and speech freed from all constraints. But academic freedom implies not just freedom from constraint but also freedom for faculty and students to work within a scholarly community to develop the intellectual and personal qualities required of citizens in a vibrant democracy and participants in a vigorous economy. Academic freedom is protected by society so that faculty and students can use that freedom to promote the larger good.
This document articulates an ideal that is based on historic conceptions of academic freedom and extends those precepts to include responsibilities for the holistic education of students. In reality, practice often falls short of these norms. Departments and sometimes whole institutions do not always establish widely shared goals for student learning, programs may drift away from original intentions, and assessments may be inadequate. Some departments fail to ensure that their curricula include the full diversity of legitimate intellectual perspectives appropriate to their disciplines. And individual faculty members sometimes express their personal views to students in ways that intimidate them. There are institutional means for dealing with these matters, and in all of these areas, there is room for improvement. The key to improvement is clarity about the larger purpose of academic freedom and about the educational responsibilities it is designed to advance.
Today, new challenges to academic freedom have arisen from both the right and the left. On the right, conservative activist David Horowitz, founder of Students for Academic Freedom, has fashioned an “academic bill of rights” that is being considered in several states ostensibly as a means of protecting “conservative” students from alleged indoctrination by the purportedly “liberal” views of faculty. This bill inappropriately invites political oversight of scholarly and educational work. On the left, anti-war protests by students have interrupted speeches by proponents of current national policies. Some protestors have sought to silence—rather than debate—positions with which they do not agree. These challenges prompt AAC&U to revisit the basic principles involved and to discuss the role of academic freedom.
There is, however, an additional dimension of academic freedom that was not well developed in the original principles, and that has to do with the responsibilities of faculty members for educational programs. Faculty are responsible for establishing goals for student learning, for designing and implementing programs of general education and specialized study that intentionally cultivate the intended learning, and for assessing students’ achievement. In these matters, faculty must work collaboratively with their colleagues in their departments, schools, and institutions as well as with relevant administrators. Academic freedom is necessary not just so faculty members can conduct their individual research and teach their own courses, but so they can enable students—through whole college programs of study—to acquire the learning they need to contribute to society.
As faculty carry out this mission, it is inevitable that students will encounter ideas, books, and people that challenge their preconceived ideas and beliefs. The resulting tension between the faculty’s freedom to teach—individually and collectively—and the students’ freedom to form independent judgments opens an additional dimension of academic freedom and educational responsibility that deserves further discussion, both with the public and with students themselves.
The clash of competing ideas is an important catalyst, not only for the expansion of knowledge but also in students’ development of independent critical judgment. Recognizing this dynamic, many well-intentioned observers underline the importance of “teaching all sides of the debate” in college classrooms. Teaching the debates is important but by no means sufficient. It is also essential that faculty help students learn—through their college studies—to engage differences of opinion, evaluate evidence, and form their own grounded judgments about the relative value of competing perspectives. This too is an essential part of higher education’s role both in advancing knowledge and in sustaining a society that is free, diverse, and democratic.
Intellectual Diversity and the Indispensable Role of Liberal Education
In any education of quality, students encounter an abundance of intellectual diversity—new knowledge, different perspectives, competing ideas, and alternative claims of truth. This intellectual diversity is experienced by some students as exciting and challenging, while others are confused and overwhelmed by the complexity. Liberal education, the nation’s signature educational tradition, helps students develop the skills of analysis and critical inquiry with particular emphasis on exploring and evaluating competing claims and different perspectives. With its emphasis on breadth of knowledge and sophisticated habits of mind, liberal education is the best and most powerful way to build students’ capacities to form their own judgments about complex or controversial questions. AAC&U believes that all students need and deserve this kind of education, regardless of their academic major or intended career.
Liberal education involves more than the mind. It also involves developing students’ personal qualities, including a strong sense of responsibility to self and others. Liberally educated students are curious about new intellectual questions, open to alternative ways of viewing a situation or problem, disciplined to follow intellectual methods to conclusions, capable of accepting criticism from others, tolerant of ambiguity, and respectful of others with different views. They understand and accept the imperative of academic honesty. Personal development is a very real part of intellectual development.
Beyond fostering intellectual and personal development, a liberal education also enables students to develop meaning and commitments in their lives. In college they can explore different ways to relate to others, imagine alternative futures, decide on their intended careers, and consider their larger life’s work of contributing to the common good.
Building such intellectual and personal capacities is the right way to warn students of the inappropriateness and dangers of indoctrination, help them see through the distortions of propaganda, and enable them to assess judiciously the persuasiveness of powerful emotional appeals. Emphasizing the quality of analysis helps students see why unwelcome views need to be heard rather than silenced. By thoughtfully engaging diverse perspectives, liberal education leads to greater personal freedom through greater competence. Ensuring that college students are liberally educated is essential both to a deliberative democracy and to an economy dependent on innovation.
What Is Not Required in the Name of Intellectual Diversity?
There are several misconceptions about intellectual diversity and academic freedom, and we address some of them here.
In an educational community, freedom of speech, or the narrower concept of academic freedom, does not mean the freedom to say anything that one wants. For example, freedom of speech does not mean that one can say something that causes physical danger to others. In a learning context, one must both respect those who disagree with oneself and also maintain an atmosphere of civility. Anything less creates a hostile environment that limits intellectual diversity and, therefore, the quality of learning.
Students do not have a right to remain free from encountering unwelcome or “inconvenient questions,” in the words of Max Weber. Students who accept the literal truth of creation narratives do not have a right to avoid the study of the science of evolution in a biology course; anti-Semites do not have a right to a history course based on the premise that the Holocaust did not happen. Students protesting their institution’s sale of clothing made in sweatshops do not have a right to interrupt the education of others. Students do have a right to hear and examine diverse opinions, but within the frameworks that knowledgeable scholars—themselves subject to rigorous standards of peer review—have determined to be reliable and accurate. That is, in considering what range of views should be introduced and considered, the academy is guided by the best knowledge available in the community of scholars.
All competing ideas on a subject do not deserve to be included in a course or program, or to be regarded as equally valid just because they have been asserted. For example, creationism, even in its modern guise as “intelligent design,” has no standing among experts in the life sciences because its claims cannot be tested by scientific methods. However, creationism and intelligent design might well be studied in a wide range of other disciplinary contexts such as the history of ideas or the sociology of religion.
While the diversity of topics introduced in a particular area of study should illustrate the existence of debate, it is not realistic to expect that undergraduate students will have the opportunity to study every dispute relevant to a course or program. The professional judgment of teachers determines the content of courses.
Academic Freedom and Scholarly Community
A college or university is a dedicated social place where a variety of competing claims to truth can be explored and tested, free from political interference. The persons who drive the production of knowledge and the process of education are highly trained professors, and they, through an elaborate process of review by professional peers, take responsibility as a community for the quality of their scholarship, teaching, and student learning. Trustees, administrators, policy makers, and other stakeholders also have important roles to play, but the faculty and their students stand at the center of the enterprise.
The development of a body of knowledge involves scientists or other scholars in developing their best ideas and then subjecting them to empirical tests and/or searching scholarly criticism. Knowledge is not simply a matter of making an assertion but of developing the evidence for that assertion in terms that gain acceptance among those with the necessary training and expertise to evaluate the scholarly analysis. In order to contribute to knowledge, scholars require the freedom to pursue their ideas wherever they lead, unconstrained by political, religious, or other dictums. And scholars need the informed criticism of peers who represent a broad spectrum of insight and experience in order to build a body of knowledge.
One of the great strengths of higher education in the United States is the integration of scholarly research and educational communities. Students benefit enormously when their learning is guided by thoughtful and knowledgeable scholars who come from diverse backgrounds and who are trained to high levels in a variety of disciplines.
A discipline consists of a specialized community that, through intense collective effort, has formulated reliable methods for determining whether any particular claim meets accepted criteria for truth. But assertions from any single disciplinary community as to “what is the case” are themselves necessarily partial and bounded, because other disciplinary communities can and do provide different perspectives on the same topics. Economists, for example, see poverty through one set of lenses, while political scientists and historians contribute different, and sometimes directly competing, perspectives on the same issue.
Any assertion from a particular individual or a specific intellectual community is necessarily simpler than the complexity it attempts to explain and describe. This is the central reason both scholars and students must work within a communal setting that involves multiple academic disciplines, and that fosters an ethos of communication, contestation, and civility. By creating such communities of inquiry, the academy ensures that no proposal stands without alternatives or arrogates to itself the claim of possessing the sole truth. The advancement of knowledge requires that intellectual differences be engaged and explored even as individuals with different points of view are also respected.
Intellectual Diversity and the Development of Judgment
Although one often hears that faculty “impart knowledge” to students, the reality is that, in a good liberal education, substantial time is devoted to teaching students how to acquire new knowledge for themselves and how to evaluate evidence within different areas of knowledge. To do this well, professors in the classroom also need academic freedom to explore their subjects—including contested questions and real-world implications—with their students.
To help students think critically about a subject or problem, faculty members need to take seriously what students already know or believe about that topic and engage that prior understanding so new learning modifies the old—complicating, correcting, and expanding it. This process of cultivating a liberal education is a journey that transforms the minds and hearts, and frequently the starting assumptions, of those involved—both teachers and students. Because knowledge is always expanding, the eventual destination is uncertain.
To develop their own critical judgment, students also need the freedom to express their ideas publicly as well as repeated opportunities to explore a wide range of insights and perspectives. The diversity of the educational community is an important resource to this process; research shows that students are more likely to develop cognitive complexity when they frequently interact with people, views, and experiences that are different from their own.
Expressing one’s ideas and entertaining divergent perspectives—about race, gender, religion, or cultural values, for example—can be frightening for students. They require a safe environment in order to feel free to express their own views. They need confidence that they will not be subjected to ridicule by either students or professors. They have a right to be graded on the intellectual merit of their arguments, uninfluenced by the personal views of professors. And, of course, they have a right to appeal if they are not able to reach a satisfactory resolution of differences with a professor.
Learning to form independent judgments further requires that students demonstrate openness to the challenges their ideas may elicit and the willingness to alter their original views in light of new knowledge, evidence, and perspectives. Just as a crustacean breaks its confining shell in order to grow, so students may have to jettison narrow concepts as they expand their knowledge and develop more advanced analytical capacities. As they acquire the capacities to encounter, grasp, and evaluate diverse points of view, they also gain more nuanced, sophisticated, and mature understandings of the world. Every college student deserves to experience the intellectual excitement that comes from the capacity to extend the known to the unknown and to discern previously unsuspected relationships.
Students may, in the end, reaffirm the worldviews and commitments that they brought with them to college. But they should do so far more aware of the complexity of the issues at stake and far better able to ground their commitments in analysis, evidence, and careful consideration of alternatives.
Teaching Students to Form Their Own Judgments
Research shows that students tend to develop intellectual and ethical capacities through a series of predictable stages. Students frequently enter college with a “black and white” view of the world, see things as either good or bad, and expect their professors and textbooks to serve as definitive authorities. Part of the job of becoming educated involves breaking out of this dualistic mindset. Students’ growing awareness of intellectual diversity frequently leads to a second cognitive stage that may be described as naive relativism. Once students see that ideas and methods are contested, and that their teachers may differ among themselves about interpretations of truth on certain questions, students often decide that “any idea is as good as any other.” While this is a predictable phase in their intellectual development, it is a phase that their teachers must recognize and challenge. Students cannot be allowed to be content with the notion that there is no legitimate way—beyond arbitrary choice—to determine the relative value of competing claims.
Thus it is vital that liberal education be organized to help students progress to a third, more mature, mental framework in which they form judgments—even in the face of continuing disagreement—about the relative merits of different views, based on careful evaluation of assumptions, arguments, and evidence. One of the central purposes of majoring in a particular discipline or academic field is to come to the understanding that different fields of endeavor provide well-grounded intellectual criteria for making decisions about alternative claims. Using these criteria, students can learn to discriminate by arguing the evidence, with the understanding that arguments exist for the purpose of clarifying ideas, evaluating claims, considering consequences, and making choices.
In this process, it is important that students be asked to assess competing points of view and to address them in making their own arguments. A good analysis does not simply ignore competing perspectives; rather, it takes them thoughtfully and carefully into account. Students need to learn, through the kind of extended and direct experience afforded by study in depth as well as general education courses, to be able to state why a question or argument is significant and for whom; what the difference is between developing and justifying a position and merely asserting one; and how to develop and provide evidence for their own interpretations and judgments.
Accomplishing this kind of educational result cannot be taken for granted or left to students’ unaided musings. There must be curricular space, capable guides and models, and a supportive institutional culture to encourage students as they learn to develop their own critical judgments. Freedom to learn is indispensable for both students and professors as they examine and assess disparate points of view within and across disciplinary boundaries. In the best designed college curricula and assessments, ample opportunity exists for students both to work on these intellectual skills and to demonstrate to the community their level of achievement in analyzing complex questions.
Further, this kind of intellectual journey often has the greatest impact on students when they apply their knowledge and inquiry skills to issues and problems beyond the academy. Students sometimes envision education as being removed from the “real world,” but direct involvement with communities beyond the academy can illustrate the actual power and significance of their learning. In such community settings, students may encounter new forms of intellectual diversity, forms that emerge from working with people whose histories, experiences, perspectives, and values may be decidedly different from their own—and also, perhaps, from that of the scholarly community. Service learning, community-based learning, community action research, internships, study abroad, and similar experiences all provide opportunities for authentic learning that engage students in using their critical skills to understand and to better the world.
Those outside the academy readily see the enrichment value of providing students with hands-on experience in community or organizational settings. However, they must also recognize that real-world learning may involve students with issues and problems that have been highly politicized. Indeed, some of the same experiences that enhance the knowledge, skills, and motivation of students to become more engaged in civic betterment are precisely the ones that are politically contested. As a result, faculty whose courses include community-based learning experiences often find that they must help students assess controversial topics that—at first glance—might be thought extraneous to the subject of the course. When such controversial topics emerge, faculty have to use their professional judgment in deciding whether to devote class time to them. If they do, they have a responsibility to ensure that students hear and assess diverse views on these topics.
The Ideal versus the Real
Academic freedom is sometimes confused with autonomy, thought and speech freed from all constraints. But academic freedom implies not just freedom from constraint but also freedom for faculty and students to work within a scholarly community to develop the intellectual and personal qualities required of citizens in a vibrant democracy and participants in a vigorous economy. Academic freedom is protected by society so that faculty and students can use that freedom to promote the larger good.
This document articulates an ideal that is based on historic conceptions of academic freedom and extends those precepts to include responsibilities for the holistic education of students. In reality, practice often falls short of these norms. Departments and sometimes whole institutions do not always establish widely shared goals for student learning, programs may drift away from original intentions, and assessments may be inadequate. Some departments fail to ensure that their curricula include the full diversity of legitimate intellectual perspectives appropriate to their disciplines. And individual faculty members sometimes express their personal views to students in ways that intimidate them. There are institutional means for dealing with these matters, and in all of these areas, there is room for improvement. The key to improvement is clarity about the larger purpose of academic freedom and about the educational responsibilities it is designed to advance.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Humaniversity: humanising the university
by; Professor Tan Sri Dato' Dzulkifli Abd Razak
IN my annual address for 2011 to the university community last week, I spoke about Humaniversity: Transformation to Humanise the University.
This is perhaps the culmination of 11 years of provoking it to look for new vistas to give meaning to universities, and higher education, in particular.
Over the last decade, the threat against the university as an institution in its own right has never been more intense. Drawing an analogy between the university and a frog in simmering water, universities have, by and large, accommodated the slow boil so far.
Perhaps tertiary institutions are unaware that soon the water will boil over, and like the frog, they will no longer be able to "jump out".
Then we have to face what is called a "dead university" scenario -- which was identified at the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) Scenario Planning workshop five years ago -- if the inertia in academic leadership continues.
Many universities and tertiary education systems are under an array of economic, geo-political and hegemonic cultural siege that are dramatically changing higher education as we know it.
This view is shared by Cary Nelson, Professor Emeritus at University of Illinois, the United States in his book, No University is an Island: Saving Academic Freedom (New York University Press, 2010). He blames the erosion of the fundamental principles of higher education, namely academic freedom, shared governance and tenure to a lengthy list of trends and forces -- including corporatisation and globalisation.
Nelson is president of the American Association of University Professors, the largest non-profit multidisciplinary professional organisation for academic staff in the US.
That he bemoaned what universities are undergoing adds to many voices of dissent in academic circles, which further increases the uncertainties of the future of education.
When a university's culture is subjected to intrusive micromanagement at various levels, it can only serve to create fear, which undermines the notion of free inquiry upon which knowledge and innovations blossom. This is a common phenomenon in our universities.
As a way out, many academics prefer to "insulate" themselves by being risk-averse and closing their minds to articulating new and bold ideas and concepts, which are radical enough to spark a transformation.
A safer bet is to focus on the "me-first" syndrome that is devoid of human empathy due to their disengagement from societal needs and wants.
Over time, universities serve as no more than a part of the mechanisation processes despite the severe imbalances they cause to the ecosystem, human well-being and humanity as a whole.
It is worse when such an imbalance tends to dehumanise the larger sector of the global population, especially in the developing world.
Nelson cited the "demand for instrumentalisation" -- which is skewing the curricula towards job training and reducing the preparation of students for citizenry in a democracy -- as an "anachronism".
In other words, today's education greases the cogs in a dysfunctional mechanised world dictated by the fancies of shareholders who seek to dominate the education sector.
The impetus to humanise universities (and education) is to offset such a dominating trend by reclaiming the ethos of education that regards people as valued members of the community anchored in virtues that nourish humanity as their core responsibility and universally accepted commitment.
That place is what we term the "humaniversity", where the human dimensions of the university are fully restored as part of the transformation to challenge the status quo.
It is imperative to work towards the humaniversity if the vision of "people first" is to be met.
This is further underlined by the recent Human Development Report 2010, which is emphatic that "national development should be measured not just by economic growth, as had long been the practice, but also in terms of broader aspects of well-being".
Lead author Jeni Klugman says: "Our results confirm, with new data and analysis, two central contentions of the Human Development Report from the outset: human development is different from economic growth, and substantial achievements are possible even without fast growth."
Malaysia would do well to ponder on this in realigning its education agenda and processes for the future, acknowledging that the policies that advance economic growth and the humanistic aspects of development differ, although they overlap.
In so doing, we may still have the chance to jump out of the simmering water, and save future generations.
IN my annual address for 2011 to the university community last week, I spoke about Humaniversity: Transformation to Humanise the University.
This is perhaps the culmination of 11 years of provoking it to look for new vistas to give meaning to universities, and higher education, in particular.
Over the last decade, the threat against the university as an institution in its own right has never been more intense. Drawing an analogy between the university and a frog in simmering water, universities have, by and large, accommodated the slow boil so far.
Perhaps tertiary institutions are unaware that soon the water will boil over, and like the frog, they will no longer be able to "jump out".
Then we have to face what is called a "dead university" scenario -- which was identified at the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) Scenario Planning workshop five years ago -- if the inertia in academic leadership continues.
Many universities and tertiary education systems are under an array of economic, geo-political and hegemonic cultural siege that are dramatically changing higher education as we know it.
This view is shared by Cary Nelson, Professor Emeritus at University of Illinois, the United States in his book, No University is an Island: Saving Academic Freedom (New York University Press, 2010). He blames the erosion of the fundamental principles of higher education, namely academic freedom, shared governance and tenure to a lengthy list of trends and forces -- including corporatisation and globalisation.
Nelson is president of the American Association of University Professors, the largest non-profit multidisciplinary professional organisation for academic staff in the US.
That he bemoaned what universities are undergoing adds to many voices of dissent in academic circles, which further increases the uncertainties of the future of education.
When a university's culture is subjected to intrusive micromanagement at various levels, it can only serve to create fear, which undermines the notion of free inquiry upon which knowledge and innovations blossom. This is a common phenomenon in our universities.
As a way out, many academics prefer to "insulate" themselves by being risk-averse and closing their minds to articulating new and bold ideas and concepts, which are radical enough to spark a transformation.
A safer bet is to focus on the "me-first" syndrome that is devoid of human empathy due to their disengagement from societal needs and wants.
Over time, universities serve as no more than a part of the mechanisation processes despite the severe imbalances they cause to the ecosystem, human well-being and humanity as a whole.
It is worse when such an imbalance tends to dehumanise the larger sector of the global population, especially in the developing world.
Nelson cited the "demand for instrumentalisation" -- which is skewing the curricula towards job training and reducing the preparation of students for citizenry in a democracy -- as an "anachronism".
In other words, today's education greases the cogs in a dysfunctional mechanised world dictated by the fancies of shareholders who seek to dominate the education sector.
The impetus to humanise universities (and education) is to offset such a dominating trend by reclaiming the ethos of education that regards people as valued members of the community anchored in virtues that nourish humanity as their core responsibility and universally accepted commitment.
That place is what we term the "humaniversity", where the human dimensions of the university are fully restored as part of the transformation to challenge the status quo.
It is imperative to work towards the humaniversity if the vision of "people first" is to be met.
This is further underlined by the recent Human Development Report 2010, which is emphatic that "national development should be measured not just by economic growth, as had long been the practice, but also in terms of broader aspects of well-being".
Lead author Jeni Klugman says: "Our results confirm, with new data and analysis, two central contentions of the Human Development Report from the outset: human development is different from economic growth, and substantial achievements are possible even without fast growth."
Malaysia would do well to ponder on this in realigning its education agenda and processes for the future, acknowledging that the policies that advance economic growth and the humanistic aspects of development differ, although they overlap.
In so doing, we may still have the chance to jump out of the simmering water, and save future generations.
No Time to monkey around with R&D
by;Professor Tan Sri Dato' Dzulkifli Abd Razak
This column had highlighted before how crucial research on genomics, using rubber as an example, is helping the country's economy to grow. By developing superior scientific and technical expertise to discover novel knowledge, related industries can move up the value chain with relative ease.
As demonstrated by the newly established Centre for Chemical Biology at Universiti Sains Malaysia (www.ccbusm.com), much can be gained by pushing Malaysia as an internationally reputable, cutting-edge R&D centre. In the case of rubber, the race was with a number of countries that had the same desire to be the first because this will position the winner to be the leader in the field, with a host of intellectual property rights (IPR) and consultancy options at its disposal, thus creating new sources of wealth. Speed is of the essence.
However, there is much more to it than meets the eye. The downside is often painful, though it can offer very useful lessons, especially in building new and critical talent pools for the future. In the USM experience, we wasted precious time in getting the process started when the partners who had initially agreed to work with us backed out for some unknown reason.
More puzzling is that one of them later announced a similar collaboration with another research agency abroad. Not only was time lost, but it also bred suspicion and mistrust among those who rightly should be working together for the national interest. All this smacked of some ego trip that derailed the entire project and its good intentions.
Unfortunately, it did not stop there. When it came to the actual implementation, some researchers and bureaucrats felt uneasy while others felt threatened and made it difficult for the research to take off. Thus, more time was wasted, many more relationships went sour and more egos got busted!
Though many do not even understand the significance of the science, few cared to find out what it was all about and clear the way ahead. In fact, even when the work was completed and the outcome delivered, there were still attempts to snoop around quite unethically.
In other words, without the passion to drive the research and the perseverance to fight for the sake of science, one would have easily given up or chosen not to attempt it at all.
That means Malaysia would remain stagnant while our neighbours pass us by sooner or later, taking with them our resources and leaving us vulnerable. Ultimately, our future would be squandered.
The intense focus on R&D will not stop. For example, one country is currently embarking on a 1,000-plant genome project to secure heritage and expand its sources of new wealth. With state-of-the-art sequencing platforms and the know-how, its researchers are able to innovate sequence analysis and bioinformatics, targeting not just 1,000 but 100,000 genomes in the years to come! When that day arrives, what will happen to our biodiversity, let alone our future heritage and survival as a sovereign nation?
This kind of challenge must be an early warning to those who are concerned about the nation's destiny and its capacity to do science as carved out in Challenge 6 of Vision 2020 (I wonder if one can still recite it). We have what it takes to accomplish this but only if we keep our individual egos at bay and focus on the work as a collaborative team, come what may.
The most recent opportunity lost is the case of the orang utan genome, uncovered by a group of foreign scientists at the Washington University Genome Centre. Two species of orang utan from the forests of Indonesia and Malaysia have had their genomes sequenced — these are endangered species whose population is in rapid decline.
While Malaysians should have been the first to do this and take the lead — after all, the orang utan are in our backyard — this was not the case. Worse still, not a single one of the more than 50 authors of the published paper, entitled Comparative and demographic analysis of orang utan genomes, is a Malaysian. Yet the first line in the preamble clearly mentions that "orang utan" is derived from a Malay term meaning "man of the forest". How embarrassing! More so when we consider what USM had to go through to put Malaysia on the map and stand tall in genomic R&D, on a par with others globally.
Clearly, the days to monkey around with R&D are over. It is time for serious business.
This column had highlighted before how crucial research on genomics, using rubber as an example, is helping the country's economy to grow. By developing superior scientific and technical expertise to discover novel knowledge, related industries can move up the value chain with relative ease.
As demonstrated by the newly established Centre for Chemical Biology at Universiti Sains Malaysia (www.ccbusm.com), much can be gained by pushing Malaysia as an internationally reputable, cutting-edge R&D centre. In the case of rubber, the race was with a number of countries that had the same desire to be the first because this will position the winner to be the leader in the field, with a host of intellectual property rights (IPR) and consultancy options at its disposal, thus creating new sources of wealth. Speed is of the essence.
However, there is much more to it than meets the eye. The downside is often painful, though it can offer very useful lessons, especially in building new and critical talent pools for the future. In the USM experience, we wasted precious time in getting the process started when the partners who had initially agreed to work with us backed out for some unknown reason.
More puzzling is that one of them later announced a similar collaboration with another research agency abroad. Not only was time lost, but it also bred suspicion and mistrust among those who rightly should be working together for the national interest. All this smacked of some ego trip that derailed the entire project and its good intentions.
Unfortunately, it did not stop there. When it came to the actual implementation, some researchers and bureaucrats felt uneasy while others felt threatened and made it difficult for the research to take off. Thus, more time was wasted, many more relationships went sour and more egos got busted!
Though many do not even understand the significance of the science, few cared to find out what it was all about and clear the way ahead. In fact, even when the work was completed and the outcome delivered, there were still attempts to snoop around quite unethically.
In other words, without the passion to drive the research and the perseverance to fight for the sake of science, one would have easily given up or chosen not to attempt it at all.
That means Malaysia would remain stagnant while our neighbours pass us by sooner or later, taking with them our resources and leaving us vulnerable. Ultimately, our future would be squandered.
The intense focus on R&D will not stop. For example, one country is currently embarking on a 1,000-plant genome project to secure heritage and expand its sources of new wealth. With state-of-the-art sequencing platforms and the know-how, its researchers are able to innovate sequence analysis and bioinformatics, targeting not just 1,000 but 100,000 genomes in the years to come! When that day arrives, what will happen to our biodiversity, let alone our future heritage and survival as a sovereign nation?
This kind of challenge must be an early warning to those who are concerned about the nation's destiny and its capacity to do science as carved out in Challenge 6 of Vision 2020 (I wonder if one can still recite it). We have what it takes to accomplish this but only if we keep our individual egos at bay and focus on the work as a collaborative team, come what may.
The most recent opportunity lost is the case of the orang utan genome, uncovered by a group of foreign scientists at the Washington University Genome Centre. Two species of orang utan from the forests of Indonesia and Malaysia have had their genomes sequenced — these are endangered species whose population is in rapid decline.
While Malaysians should have been the first to do this and take the lead — after all, the orang utan are in our backyard — this was not the case. Worse still, not a single one of the more than 50 authors of the published paper, entitled Comparative and demographic analysis of orang utan genomes, is a Malaysian. Yet the first line in the preamble clearly mentions that "orang utan" is derived from a Malay term meaning "man of the forest". How embarrassing! More so when we consider what USM had to go through to put Malaysia on the map and stand tall in genomic R&D, on a par with others globally.
Clearly, the days to monkey around with R&D are over. It is time for serious business.
Making work experience and training count
The UK's Shadow Secretary of State for Education Andy Burnham recently made a suggestion that could be beneficial to us as we reconstruct our vocational and technical education system. Burnham suggested that work experience placements or training should be advertised to give everyone a chance to try out for them, especially those with poor and disadvantaged backgrounds and are most likely to miss out if offers are confined to "conversations around the dinner table" or arranged through connections.
As jobs become scarce, work experience and on-the-job training have become the "new" criteria for employers seeking suitable candidates. These are informal and unofficial requirements but have created a Catch-22 situation for many.
Without work experience or training, the chances of landing a job are slim, but with no opportunity to get a job or participate in a training scheme, there can be no experience. Besides, there are only so many places open for work experience these days and there is an expanding student population that needs work experience placements. Meritocracy aside, having no work experience can be a barrier for most job-seekers.
Gone are the days when work experience was regarded as part of on-the-job training arranged by employers so that one could fit the job one was hired for. In the training of healthcare, engineering and legal personnel, work experience is mandated in an organised manner and known by various names, for example, well accredited and supervised. There are structured mechanisms through which one can acquire the necessary experience for the purposes intended, including employability.
The same cannot be said of the other professions despite many employers insisting on "tailor-made" graduates. Unless they too come up with a structured programme for work experience that can be tailor-made, it would not be fair to insist on it. What's more, today's work experience placements are largely unpaid or poorly. While some kind of mandatory requirements are fast emerging, there are no regulations, so there is no transparency.
What this means is, as Burnham alluded to, the talent of millions of students will go untapped. "It remains possible for children from poorer backgrounds to climb high. But it is harder for them if, unlike their more privileged peers, they have never seen the inside of a barrister's chambers or PR agency or newspaper," he said.
In the meantime, many are said to be turning to vocational training as an option to get work experience and apprenticeship. They prefer to learn and earn rather than be deprived of a meaningful job or be cheated of one because the system is not well organised. One could become a cheap pair of hands.
As Malaysia is now trying to reconceptualise its vocational and technical education system as part of the integrated talent build-up under the New Economic Model (NEM) and the Economic Transformation Programme, the points that have been raised by Burnham deserve a deeper discourse. Many countries, not only developed but also developing like Brazil, have moved in the right direction. But none of their methods can be superimposed on another without taking the local idiosyncrasies into account.
The aim, nevertheless, is to convince employers to put their money where their mouth is if they want tailor-made employees — much like the professionals who are trained and accredited. And the best way is to work closely with vocational and technical institutions with the involvement of universities.
Universiti Sains Malaysia is currently working on such a scheme in partnership with the Northern Corridor Implementation Agency (NCIA) and Deloitte Malaysia. The Human Capital Development Initiative, or better known as the Regional Talent Repository, is aimed at narrowing the mismatch between the supply of and demand for talent, using the electrical and electronics industry as a template.
The scheme will consider how best to build awareness of the relevance of work experience and where to seek it, and match talent with the right employer. The need for this is mentioned in the concluding part of the NEM: "Employers should have a greater say in the vocational and skills-training curriculum. It is essential that a cluster approach be adopted to take advantage of the scale economies and proximity to the industry, for example, the Human Capital Development Initiative of USM-NCIA-Deloitte."
This is a bottom-up effort that should be supported so that it becomes a part of the existing employment ecosystem. It can, in fact, boost Talent Corporation's efforts — at the sectoral level — to move away from the current silo structure that serves individual needs. There is a long way to go, but the scheme is a good starting point to make employability a more equitable opportunity by providing work experience all around.
But the industry must get its act together as well.
Key Intangible Performance
PERHAPS it is only natural that some parties raised concerns about making History a must-pass subject. We may learn patriotism through the subject but, like loyalty, patriotism cannot be measured in any meaningful way through written examinations.
There are no Key Performance Indices (KPI) for "intangibles". We need to consider another acronym: KIP -- Key Intangible Performance, which does not anchor in numbers and percentages, but rather values, ethics and quality of being.
Still, given Malaysia's education landscape, examinations can do wonders to change behaviours.
Without the spectre of tests, there is no guarantee that the allotted period is not swapped for another examination subject. After all, our successes are measured almost entirely by examination results and performances. So is our reward system.
In other words, with no exams, History will quickly remain history. But others have argued that even with exams, the behaviour change will be transient.
Once the test is over, all will go back to normal! The cases of Civics and Moral Studies have been used as examples.
How should History be taught? Some eminent scholars and historians say that History should be dealt with "holistically".
Here, I would like to share the experience of my son who decided to study Spanish in Mexico upon graduating from a university in the United Kingdom.
He is still in Mexico, immersed in the culture, history and heritage of the Republic.
He is very much a Malaysian but enjoys "being a Mexican".
He was in Malaysia in September for Hari Raya Aidil Fitri but rushed back to celebrate the 200th year of Mexican Independence.
His introduction to Mexico is illuminating and instructive indeed.
He learns Spanish not only in the context of conventional grammar classes but also Mexican history, culture and heritage dating back to the early years of Mesoamerican civilisation.
The lessons embody elements of inherent patriotism through deep understanding of the interactions of history, culture and heritage infused over time.
The context and nuances strengthen the foundation and significance of history upon which the rest are built, gradually supported by the language.
He visited museums with well-preserved artefacts all over Mexico. He went to many heritage sites of the days of the Aztecs and various cultural centres where visitors observe and even take part in some of the traditional rituals and dances.
There are exams, of course, including that of the Mexican dances, but it is not about regurgitation for the sake of achieving an "A" or remaining oblivious to the subtleties of what Mexico is all about.
In his first two months in Mexico, he went to Taxco to sample the lifestyle and integrate with the locals.
This indirectly forced him to immerse himself in the culture and language of the local community. Only after such an experience did he return to the Autonomous National University of Mexico.
Almost every city in the Republic exudes cultural awareness. Metro stations are designated as focal exhibition centres to acquaint the public of aspects of history-cultural consciousness.
Every metro station represents a timeline of history, from the birth of the 1917 Constitution to notable presidents including Aztec emperors.
Streets after streets take the name of national heroes such as Benito Juarez or Miguel Hidalgo.
Artists, poets, muralists and authors are also given the same respect and recognition for enriching Mexican culture.
They can be likened to free and endless outdoor museums for all to learn and reflect so that Mexican history remains alive all the time.
Mexicans stand proud buttressed by a deep appreciation of their historical past rooted in one common single language which is spoken and cherished by all.
While they proudly acknowledge their indigenousness, they remain a community of mestizos.
This is where Malaysia deviates from the Mexican daily experience of multicultural mestizos reaching a matured level of unity without having to worry about being unpatriotic.
Malaysia is still thematically centred on food and festivities. We withdraw into the comforts of our ethnic cocoons, shutting out the historical-cultural-heritage significance surrounding us.
Come Christmas and the New Year, we superficially sample Malaysian multiculturalism yet again.
So perhaps in seeking out a holistic approach to History, Mexico could be a country to learn from!
It has perfected the art of achieving 1Mexico by harnessing the KIP-intangible dimensions of language, history, culture and heritage holistically.
• The writer is vice chancellor of Universiti Sains Malaysia
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
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