To counter the glut of top-scoring school-leavers applying for medical courses in universities, the Higher Education Ministry and the Public Service Department want to "open their minds" to other choices. Higher Education Minister Datuk Shafie Salleh said the ministry and PSD would come up with selection methods and incentives to persuade top-scorers to become scientists. He said most students had a narrow view of career choices.
"Just because students have a CGPA (cumulative grade point average) of 4.0 it does not mean they must be doctors. Our country also needs scientists, so we will discuss with the PSD how to get more students to take up science," he said. Although Malaysia needed more doctors in the public sector, he said, it also needed more scientists to achieve its development goals, which include being a leader in biotechnology and information and communications technology.
The number of students who apply for PSD scholarships for medicine often exceeds the number of places available. This year, 1,265 students were offered PSD scholarships and 1,189 picked medicine. Only 322 secured scholarships. Shafie said it took a "special kind of person" with perseverance and dedication to become a scientist. "We plan to persuade top students to choose science and we’ll have selection methods to determine if they have the right personality."
Dear Shafie, maybe, it is far more appropriate that you should consider other career alternatives too. Maybe, the job as Higher Education Minister is not suitable for you because you are blinkered and unable to see things in a factual and pragmatic perspective.
Firstly, Shafie's advice to top-scoring students to encourage them to be scientist is based on the fact that the students applying to study medicine exceeds the number of places available; and not because Malaysia don't need more doctors or that the aspiring applicants are unqualified. His solution is reactive, negative, and short-term tinkering, and not proactive, and long-term solutions. Shafie has shown that he prefers fire-fighting methodology, rather than strategic management; that is, Malaysia's has a problem of shortages of doctors in government hospitals, and we have many potential students who are qualified to do medicine which would eventually help us alleviate the shortages should the Education Ministry look into the ways to get them places in Universities and nurture them to be our future doctors. Instead, the Ministry is telling them to become scientists, historians and kayus.
Last year, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had instructed the Higher Education Minister to look for a long-term solution to overcome the shortages of places for those who wants to study medicine. Instead of looking into solutions for the medical students, Shafie is looking into ways to discourage the students to study medicine but instead wants them to opt to be scientists. It is not being scientist is bad; it is about the dreams of those students who are qualified to do medicine; they want to be doctors, not scientists. There are many who wants to be scientists, and the Ministry is telling these group to study history and serat kayu (wood technology).
Secondly, it was reported in the Parliament that "Malaysia is facing a shortage of doctors and medical support staff whereby 20,000 posts are unfilled," said Health Minister Datuk Chua Soi Lek. Currently, there was a dearth of some 5,000 nurses, 3,300 doctors, 700 medical specialists, 600 pharmacists and 500 dentists. Currently the shortage is 22,000 and these positions are not filled because there are no people.
Efforts have been taken by the Health Ministry to alleviate the problem of shortages such as, implementing compulsory three-year contract service, hire retired staff, recruit foreign doctors and increase the number of public and private institutions of higher learning offering medical courses. There is a need for 3,000 doctors yearly of which we train about 1,000 doctors but at the same time, about 300 government service doctors resign or retired to join private sector or pencen. The net gain is only 650 doctors; this means that we need to recruit 2,350 foreign doctors yearly in order to ensure there is one doctor for every 650 people by 2015. The current ratio is 1,420 people per doctor.
The existing problems of hiring foreign doctors and the selections of candidates left much to be desired and thus gave us a new set of problems.
On August 14, 2004, it was published in the NST that 22 foreign doctors hired by the Health Ministry would be sacked and 8 more serving in Sabah and Sarawak are also facing the sack. The termination was based on medical evidence on the doctors performance and quality of service. Dr Chua Soi Lek said he had noted these doctors clinical expertise and competence and had called into question why these foreign surgeons cannot even do a simple appendix operation. From the prescriptions they write, some of these doctors don’t even know what is the latest drugs available.
On November 25, 2004, Health Ministry Parliamentary Secretary Lee Kah Choon had reported that 46 foreign doctors were sacked for not achieving the level of expertise required of a doctor. 19 doctors were from Pakistan, 12 from India and Egypt and one from Bangladesh.
So, what is the solution to all these? On one side we have the Education Minister not willing to accept aspiring and qualified students to study medicine; on the other side, we have the Health Ministry crying and berating about shortages and incompetent doctors.
What now? What is the problem? We don't have a problem, sir. What we have is an inherent dysfunction in the system; the legislatures are incompetent to manage the delegated legislators and executives; we have built our level of incompetence to such high level of competence.
What can we do? Live with it. Because the politicians and ministers and aspiring ministers are busy discussing and debating about who is Bapa Malaysia, who has contributed to our independence, what should be the new Malay Agenda, why APs are not given to more people, and how the Keris will wield motivation and fear. Good luck and God bless the asinines.
2 comments:
Nice analysis done as usual. I wanted to blog about this later too.
First, I do not disagree his advice for top students to opt to become scientists. I'm talking about the message not the medium here.
But as explained in your analysis, the shortage of doctors (and university places for them) has to be solved first.
IMHO, many brilliant intellectual students opt to become doctors (me myself included-the choice part, not quite the brilliant part :P) because they see that there is a clear cut career pathway for them and at the same time, they could practise their critical thinking. Most do not want to opt for a career in science because there is just not quite a future in Malaysia, aggravated by race-based science policies.
Life sciences/bioscience and biotechnology is the future of tomorrow but what I see with the current National Biotechnology Policy, it is just merely an traditional biotech agriculture policy (where you take plant as living things for the benefit of the humankind). Look at the kind of research IPTAs are doing. It is always about Tongkat Ali and Kacip Fatimah. How can they make sex organs larger, better ejaculations orgasms, and almost everything about sex. And then when they find nothing else to do with it, they tested it to see what effect the herbs have on almost all sorts of disease under the roof including AIDS.
But again, not all will get to have the chance to get into the biotech research field. The UMNO assembly remember? " We want Malays to dominate the biotech field..."
Howsy,
I agree with you. There are plenty of students who wants to be scientist and had scores of 3.0 to 3.6 CGPA, of which they were given places in public U to study serat kayu and history.
We have large shortages of doctors, plenty of students who qualified to be admitted to medical degrees, and the ministry should look into how to overcome them. Instead, they are diverting the solutions to another area which is similarly lacking but not as critical.
Apart from it, not many Malaysians can survive as a scientist as the environment and opportunity is absent except for an elective few. Other than Tongkat Ali and aphrodisiacs, our scientist will have to be content with theoretical research and clinical support services.
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