This is a response to a letter from Piarapakaran Subramaniam, Varsity rankings: Don't blame the methodology .
May I just say that the author has not touched the surface, much less at the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
The culture of tussling for promotions and holding posts for the benefit of higher monetary incentives such as free housing. As college master and in-house college staff, I have seen some of the most shameless methods in securing free benefits prompting financial extravaganza, which over the past six years, to my personal knowledge and experiences, is the major contributing factor in the demise in excellence at Universiti Malaya (UM).
College heads and supervisors excel purely through gutter politics of attractive freebies and even unchallenged, undeserved academic promotions.
The current vice-chancellor's hands are tied and it is of little significance as to where she came from, in other words insider-outsider arguments are petty talk.
What should have been purported is the facts. For example, during post-Anwar Zaini's term promotions increased as much as the requirements decreased miserably, I may add, even amongst students. Pre-Master degree tutors vigorously increased their political activeness at such shameless, vicious levels that virtually secured their positions as lecturers.
While others who failed had their cases reviewed or had recommendations against the wishes of their relevant supervisors who had ticked them off due to poor academic performances and outright failures. These prevailing requirements and procedures rendered these under-achievers incapable of continuing studies much less teach or work at what was once the pride of our nation.
Can you imagine the vice-chancellor's wife transferred to UM from another university where she held the title associate professor and within two years promoted to full 'fool' professor? We are so naive, especially since word went out within the academic arena.
Don't undervalue induced foreign intake, lay the blame squarely and proportionately. I have since changed my policy in 2001 with regards to educating my children in Malaysia, certainly not after what I have witnessed first hand at UM.
Political activists, despite their usually dismal performance, got the best of both worlds they are a secured job and sanction the abuse of the system and customs.
UM spent millions on unnecessary facelifts, flower pots, glass fountains and trees for monkeys to run rather than placing greater emphasis on educational standards and the freedom of our youth in independent and critical academic challenges.
Malaysian youths, particularly the Malays, are boxed in to the point that critical academic challenges can cause adverse reprisals that has nothing to do with education or even the subject in question. To put it simply, students are too afraid of authority to ask pertinent questions.
Honestly, these ideas do not come easily as did the varsity rankings and have no bearing on my resolve. How any parent or lecturer can find faith in a system so compromised by political appointees clearly with an agenda other than academic excellence? How can they think of having their children educated at the same institution?
I have complained repeatedly that we are doing greater damage to our nation. No 'about-to' fail Masters student cum 'confirmed' lecturer can teach my kids, let alone manage their welfare at the live-in college facility. Where is the inspiration, the examples, the qualified experience when needed?
UM Sports Academy is the microscopic lab of what is reflected in Malaysian sports. The management and staff fight running battles littered with surat layar (poison-pen letters) against each other. The only unifying factor is when it comes to the annual nationwide university sports events where the commission and profit soar in the indiscriminate free-hand policies of purchasing and upgrading equipment and uniforms for the thousands of staff.
Another fact is that students are robbed as they are required to pay in advance for both college facilities and extra-curricular activities which always never happens. Payments are never refunded or reimbursed.
We, Malaysians, dislike criticism and relish the blame game. Often we persecute the messenger.
Though the author's emphasis is on the business of or from education, the principle of education demands are far greater than the exercise of money-making ventures.
We are all about stifling content rather than descent. Somewhere the lines got blurred and as a result, we have emphasised submission rather than challenge, hence the timidity and shy unimaginable phobia that has permeated our youth.
The lack of emphasis on field work and on-the-ground experience in science and sports are mediocre and not worth its salt. While on the topic of sports, part-time lecturers often conduct lectures during the prime hours. These hours are when sports science students are free to either belt their trade and garner the crucial experience they would have otherwise missed in the lecturer hall. Unfortunately, they have to attend lectures merely because part-time lecturers are interested in making overtime money and/or double salaries.
Hundreds of students, lecturers and staff set out to the sport fields running strips and to the gymnasium after lectures therefore the socio-educational sports and occupational therapy bonanzas are passed up. Nowhere else in the world is sports science taught and the phenomenal evening breaks are restricted to the lecture halls. No wonder Malaysia is so crucially lacking in the disciplines of outdoor sport.
Students sent out in the fields for practical training are at the mercy of unscrupulous businesses with faulty practices seeking free labour more than the educational experience it was intended for, which is to share or gather statistical and working knowledge. Yet they benefit via the tax system intended to reward business for engaging our youth would-be professional workforce.
The risk is so grave that it would take two generations to wean Malaysia's education back in to the annals of excellence. Otherwise drastic measures like re-vetting suspicious promotions via resumes and supporting documentation and/or either shipping these employees elsewhere is thus necessary in eradicating the threat to our nation's youth and bettering our standings.
