Tan Sri Arshad Ayub, I think You Are Too Late !!

Here is some really 'out-of-touch-with-reality' news.

UiTM should open doors to non-bumiputeras, says pro-chancellor

• UiTM proposed to give opportunity to non-Bumis to study there
• to encourage healthy competition & produce more intellectuals among students
• "I think perhaps the time has come for us to consider this matter, which is maybe in a small percentage, giving opportunities for non-Bumiputera students out there to pursue their Masters and PhD in UiTM."
• Arshad said the matter should be considered in view that the world now was very challenging with a wider competition.
• "They (Bumiputeras) need to be more competitive at the top level so that they will not only be local heroes," he said.

My comments : There is plenty of confusion here. 

Tan Sri Arshad Ayub the pro Chancellor of UITM is acknowledging (a bit late though) that there is not enough competition at the UITM.  

He says,  "They (Bumiputeras) need to be more competitive at the top level so that they will not only be local heroes"

In common parlance they become jaguh kampong.  

So now he wants more Chinese, Indians and other non bumis admitted into UITM  "so as to encourage healthy competition and produce more intellectuals among students."

Tan Sri, I think you are a little late. 

I dont think there are many non-bumis who want to study at UITM any more. From what you say, they fear they may come out "less intellectual"  after they graduate than before they went in.  

Many of our local IPTAs have become institutions producing what certain sectors of the job market describe as  "unemployable graduates".  

Poor English skills, poor motivation to learn on the job, poor attitude (or they have an attitude),  expect instant gratification (high salaries and perks), unwillingness to work hard, poor professional integrity, inability to socialise or work well with other races or cultures are just some of the complaints you hear about our local graduates especially from the IPTAs.  This also includes UITM.

But not unemployable everywhere. Some of these graduates end up working for the GLCs, working for the civil service or they remain unemployed.  

I have heard that some employers have given some of those online employment agencies names of local universities from which they DO NOT WANT to interview job applicants. 

"Just wasting time" they say. Tan Sri Arshad Ayub should call these employment agencies to see if UITM is on that black list. Or at least talk to them. You may learn something.    


Here are some other thots for Tan Sri Arshad. First of all only 2% or less of the country's population goes to university, including UITM. Out of this number even fewer graduate - there are many university dropouts. 

Finally the number of university graduates who go on to study for their Masters and PhDs is an even tinier fraction. 

Therefore the idea of fostering more "non bumi" competition only among the Masters and PhD candidates (as suggested by Tan Sri Arshad for UITM) is not going to reduce the jaguh kampong mentality at the UITM at all.  It is far too little and far too late.


I think what will happen is that the very few non-bumi graduate students at UITM will instead be under pressure to "conform" to the UITM way of doing things, including of course pseudo-religious indoctrination.


To get out of the jaguh kampong mentality (where everyone must look alike, talk alike, dress alike, eat alike, believe alike, be malas alike, not work so hard alike, waste time alike, talk rubbish alike etc) we need more competition from the youngest school levels.  

 
Competition should begin - among all our kids, of all races -  right from the tadika level.  Those who are fast should be pushed even farther to achieve even more. Those who are slower should be given attention so that they will catch up.  

Sadly however our gomen education system follows the Hara-kiri Assured Mental Retardation Model (or HARAM for short - excuse the mis-abbreviation). You know what I mean. 

Here is an example of the Hara-kiri Assured Mental Retardation Model being practised in our gomen schools today. This is part of a letter written by a parent that appeared in Free Malaysia Today. 


Can learning biology grant you access to heaven?

• Last week, secondary school in KL organised Awal Muharram event
• All Muslim students required in assembly hall during first FOUR periods
• non-Muslim students were allowed to return to their classrooms
• a group of Muslim students ...asked permission to attend classes for one period
• since they had a biology presentation that day
• Upon hearing this, the ustazah angrily replied, “Belajar biologi boleh tolong di akhirat ke? Belajar biologi boleh masuk syurga ke? (Can learning biology help you on Judgement Day? Can learning biology grant you access to heaven?)”
• typical scenario faced by most Muslim students in public schools today
• irresponsible religious educators, ignorant education ministry
• teaching of religion should never be at the expense of other subjects

My comments :    So Tan Sri Arshad,  here we have a religious teacher denying Malay Muslim students FOUR PERIODS of really Islamic knowledge (biology, chemistry, mathematics whatever).  While the non bumiputeras spend FOUR periods learning useful Islamic knowledge subjects (biology, chemistry, mathematics)  the Malay students sat through tortuous mumbo jumbo. 

Of course the non bumis eventually become cleverer than the Muslim students.  Then you try to fix it (with Band Aid) by allowing a handful of non bumis into graduate school at UITM !! Kelakar sangat Tan Sri.  

(Satu lagi soalan : Lets say the non-bumis do study for their Masters and PhD at the UITM, can you guarantee them a job outside?)  

Dogmatic religion and religious doctrines have hijacked our school system since the last 40 years or so.  20 years ago when our sons began schooling we could see this religious indoctrination in everything.  

At our sons' primary school the 'Students of the Year' were also those who attended the surau regularly, knocking out non-Muslims automatically (it was a government school).  My son who was a star performer  (he entered medical school at the age of 17) was never in the running. 

At the Victoria Institution where the boys later continued doing well in their studies, a class teacher once complained to me (during Report Card day) 'anak encik dapat markah yang baik tetapi  fahaman agama dia kurang'.   

I wanted to tell him, 'sebab itulah dia bukan bodoh macam awak' but I did not want them to take revenge on our boys so I left it at that.

I believe the gomen schools including the Victoria Instituon have become even more bodoh since our boys left.  Malaysia's poor performance in international ratings like the PISA scores is just some of the evidence.     


The reality is the entire gomen education system from the Tadika to sekolah rendah to sekolah menengah and the IPTAs have become monocultural, almost completely monolingual, mono-religious (overdosage of  Shafie Sunnism) brainwashing centers.

And then we are also having a radicalisation problem in our government system, especially religious radicalisation. In my view that is also why we have more terrorist volunteers joining ISIS from Malaysia than from Indonesia.  Indonesia has 205 million Muslims (the largest number in the world) while Malaysia has only about 16 million Muslims. 

Yet 120  ISIS members have been arrested in Malaysia and another 200 are believed to roam around. Compared to about  250 ISIS volunteers from Indonesia. 

This is proof enough that our gomen education system now produces more extremist terrorist volunteers than even the madrassahs. 

Here is my parting observation. Before the 1970s, before the NEP, our cleverer planners then, who were educated in English and were not infused with religious doctrine came to realise that the Malays were left far, far behind in education because a large majority of them lived in a rural, village environment.

In those days you did not have to go far to find a village. There were Malay kampongs right beside Orchard Road in Singapore. There were kampongs in the middle of the town in Malacca. 

The kampongs were truly beautiful places. They still are.  But a rural setting or a rural mindset were not conducive to generating a modern Malay race that could keep up with the realities of living, competing and surviving in a  fast changing world.

So our brilliant planners came up with the 'sekolah asrama penuh' system or fully residential schools system where Malay students will be  brought up in a sanitised, scientific and progressive environment of learning, inquiry and a break from their past.

They were 'isolated' from the  intellectually and academically  'debilitating'  rural atmosphere.  

And the experiment worked wonders. It was highly successful -  for a while.  I think never in history has a community gone from being a largely rural populace to  sitting in the same university classes from California to New York and from London to New Zealand in just one generation.  The Malays achieved this.

Then more religion, ketuanan Melayu (including the anti English movement) and politics got mixed into the equation. Religious doctrine started creeping everywhere. The anti English ketuanan clowns (who drive Mercedes Benz from Malay language book publishing contracts)  put the last nail in the coffin.

Now the environment in the sekolah asrama penuh (or the sekolah kebangsaan) is no more sanitised, scientific and progressive anymore.  The village has now crept into the education system, including the sekolah asrama penuh. 

That is why that teacher yelled back,  “Belajar biologi boleh tolong di akhirat ke? Belajar biologi boleh masuk syurga ke? 

This did not happen in some backwoods madrassah in Gunung Semanggol or Batu Kurau. This happened in a government school in Kuala Lumpur, the Federal capital. 

The sekolah pondok ideology has found  its way to Kuala Lumpur.