Our children face a bleak future. This is the result of the complacency and ‘short-termism’ by our country’s leadership, whether past or present. We have squandered away precious resources and time by embarking on one grandiose projects one after another, focussng narrowly on expensive infrastructures and monuments while consistently neglecting the one resource that can maintain Malaysia’s place in the global economy – our human capital.
From our primary schools to public universities, standards have been falling for years. Our PM has been busy crisscrossing the country officially launching economic corridors here and there. Perhaps the PM should be visiting schools and universities to see how well our younger generations will be able to cope when they enter the workforce.
The multi-billion dollar super-corridors are basically just hardware. What good is it to have IT hubs, biotechnology facilities; R&D centres when we cannot have competent and qualified professionals to work in them?
Education policies aren’t ‘sexy’. A comprehensive, well-thought out and laboriously implemented education blueprint might take years - even decades - before its results become apparent. But our government tends to go for the quick-fix, short cut solutions.
It revels in ‘instant successes’ that take little effort. Just throw the money, loads of money at the problem and you will get a fast solution. Want a Malaysian in space? Why, just hold a Malaysian Idol-like Contest, spend millions to buy a ticket from the Russians, and voila!, after a couple of months, you have your very own Malaysian ‘Angkasawan’.
Why bother spending the same millions (and years) in developing a space programme that actually sends qualified Malaysians into space?
National unity failing? No problem! Cobble some training camps together, supply some crisp new uniforms, install some vigorous physical training programmes, and presto!, after three months, our ‘National Servicemenand women’ will go back to their daily routine fully immersed with the spirit of muhibbah .
It is then not surprising that when it comes to our education policies, our government is guilty of not having a consistent, coherent and well-executed plan. The education portfolio is often seen as a stepping stone to a higher office.
As a result, every education minister that comes in tends to wants to stamp his mark by introducing new ideas, which are then hastily implemented, often discarding the previous’ structure, both good and bad.
Substance does not matter here – what matters is we have something ‘new’. A case in point – we are still debating whether teaching science and mathematics in English is a viable idea.
The 2007 World Bank report reaffirms the poor standards of our public universities. Our primary and secondary schools can’t be that much better off. The report went on to say that Malaysia would lose its competitive edge if it fails to produce a world-class education system to propel the country into an innovative economy.
Already, Malaysia’s strength in manufacturing is being quickly eroded by countries such as China which has a vast supply of labour gaining in sophistication. In the services sector too, other developing countries have been furiously pouring in billions to upgrade their knowledge-based economies, and at the same time engaging the best brains to develop their future scientists.
So where does that leave us? Not only has Malaysia failed to carve out a niche to replace its waning dominance in manufacturing and to an extent the services sectors, our future generations of local graduates are ill-equipped with the creativity and knowledge needed to compete with the rest of the world.
Because our manufacturing and services sectors have no clear advantage over other countries, this can only mean our graduates will end up with jobs that are easily replaceable whether here or in other countries.
This in turn means the jobs available to our less-than-competent graduates will most likely offer remuneration that reflects its ‘commoditised’ nature.
Parents of young children have not much choice. Most of those who can afford it will likely enrol their kids in private schools. Many of the young professionals today will no doubt do whatever they can to send their offspring to foreign universities in order to secure a globally-recognised education that will give them that extra edge in getting good-paying jobs.
And where will these jobs come from? At this rate, no one will be putting their money on Malaysia. So we have a vicious circle – the Malaysian economy is stuck in the 20 th century because our education system cannot produce sufficient scientists, engineers and financial wizards who can transform it into a knowledge-based economy.
Those with the knowledge will most likely offer their services to other countries because they cannnot find employment back home. In the meantime, our neighbours have leapfrogged over us economically with our best brains contributing to their advancement.
How about parents who have no choice but to send their children to government schools? They can only pray for a miracle that somehow, the standard of teaching improves; that the government appoints school administrators based on competence and not political obedience; that the entire education system is predicated on merit; that deserving students are given the means and support all the way from primary school to university to pursue their dreams.
If the government continues in its slumber and on its fixation on billion-dollar infrastructures, ignoring the crucial need to revamp our education system now, our children will suffer the consequences of low-paying jobs in a less-than-competitive economy in the future.
Coming at a time when we are running out of oil and high inflation looking to be a permanent fixture, our next generations will be the ones to bear the cost of our profligatcy and myopic ways.
Low-paying jobs in a less than dynamic economy; no more oil; high fuel and food prices – aren’t we condemning our next generations to a lifetime of meaningless slogging, struggling to earn just enough to cover their bills with no light at the end of the tunnel?
Can someone wake up the government now?
