SYSTEMIC FAILURE UNFOLDED TOO OFTEN

Lecturer;Star16th.June

"GIVE A FISH TO A MAN & HE WILL EAT ONE DAY.
TEACH HIM HOW TO FISH & HE WILL HAVE MANY FISHES & MANY TYPES OF FISH TO EAT FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE."

Sin Chew Daily reported that "the main reason universities lack lecturers is that the Government had in the past focused only on economic development projects and high technology and pays little attention to educational development."

To analyze the current problem of lack of competent lecturers in Universities, including insufficient lecturers for critical courses such medicine and others, we have to take a walk back to the past Governmental management system and also the current system.

First, did the Government and the Ministers (all through the decades) have the vision and mission to manage the internal growth of talents, that is, to provide more Malaysian students the opportunities to pursue education in Malaysian Universities so that in the years to come (or we can say, since the many years that had passed) we would have created the critical mass required by the system, for the system to meet our own social & institutional needs.

The hypothetical presumption posed by Sin Chew based on the salary issues between the higher paid lecturers of private universities as compared to the lower paid lecturers of public universities as one of the factors that led to many lecturers resigning from the public universities is untrue and not the right & good reason. Singapore National University, Hongkong University, Tsing Hua university, Harvard, MIT, Oxford & Cambridge, Stanford, Warwick, etc; all these universities are also not able to compete with the corporates and many private universities who will be willing to pay high salary and lucrative compensation packages to lure those lecturers away. The questions why many are willing to stay as lecturers in these Universities (and not willing to work in corporations who pays higher) is the good system of management in these universities that motivates and provide career progression to all these lecturers, and ultimately self-esteem and self-actualization.

Secondly, it is important to understand that people come and go; every employee through the years will have different needs and wants, and at such they will need to change their own goals and redefine their objectives; and many may want to try something new, in a new field. A good management system with a long-term sustainable strategic plan will be able to bridge this gap to accomodate these needs and sustain the institution. Included in the long-term plan will be the continuous, progressive analysis of the growth and maturity cycle of the educational system - i.e. burgeoning population means more and more childrens will be vying for places in universities, and retirement plan of existing teachers and lecturers on reaching that age. The educational Ministry should have a masterplan to prepare for the growing population need for education, and also a strategic plan to continually increase the numbers of lecturers to meet the growing population of students in the years ahead, and the possible departure and retirement of some.

In Malaysia, we keep telling the people that the Government will not be able to provide places in Universties for those who did well in their education. Are we not discouraging the students not to study hard so as to achieve 4.0 CGPA, as those statement by the Ministers only served to demotivate them in their studies. If the current system is lacking efficiency and capacity as to ensure that all qualified students will be provided with a local university education, isn't it appropriate to review the system to ensure that the Government is the Government of the people, for the people, and by the people? Instead, the Ministers makes silly comments and comes up with stupid advises. We spent billions to build the Twin-Tower, a new international airport, billion-dollar Double-track railways, Putrajaya, MSC, Cyberjaya, etc. We build hundreds of primary and secondary schools as needed but those students will end up at secondary school level (the highest possible) due to the lack of public universities in Malaysia to give them graduate level education. Only those who can afford to sent their children overseas had the solution for their children; while hundreds of thousands whose family are not well-off financially will have their future defined by the Government's inefficiency, inability and incompetency.

With the current mentality of the Ministers (as shown in their response to the recent medical students' dilemma and the tinkering solutions mooted to correct the systemic failure), the chain of disaster will continue and become more critical in the years to come. As long as we are not producing more and more graduates, we will continue to face the shortages of professionals and specialists. The hospitals will not be getting the required number of doctors, nurses, and specialists, the industries and corporations will not have enough local professionals, and the Government will need to employ expatriates to manage the GLCs and institutions. Ultimately, our economic and social system will be retarded and we will all be in an abyss.

The Government talks about K-Economy, Knowledge Management, Knowledge-worker, First World Mentality - but we have Ministers from the Forth World Mentality to lead us to Vision 2020 - The Blind mens world of stupid management! And we want to be able to compete with the world's best - CAKAP TAK SERUPA BIKIN!