Deficit-cutting measures take toll on Najib’s popularity, survey shows

By
Zurairi AR
 | December 18, 2013

The Malay Mail Online

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 18 — A series of painful measures to trim Malaysia’s chronic budget deficit has hit Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s popularity hard, according to a survey by independent pollster Merdeka Center that showed his approval sliding to a new low of 52 per cent in December.

Conducted from June to September and supplemented by an updated poll this month, the survey took place during a time when Putrajaya rolled out a fuel price hike, confirmed the long-delayed Goods and Services Tax (GST), eliminated price support for sugar, and announced an increase to power tariffs next year — all of which have angered Malaysians already struggling with rising cost of living.

News is also swirling now of extensive toll rate increases next year.

Sixty-seven per cent of respondent cited worsening costs and inflation as their main grouses.

In the survey, Najib also lost popularity across all ethnic communities, but was hardest hit among the Indians, for whom his approval fell from 76 per cent to 57 per cent now.

The PM’s approval also slid further among the Chinese community, coming in at 21 per cent after a loss of 15 percentage points.

More from Malay community also joined in the disapproval, with Najib getting the nod from 66 per cent of the group, down from 73 per cent previously.

Malaysia embarked on a series of subsidy cuts in September, starting with raising the pump price of RON95 petrol and diesel by RM0.20/L starting September 3, to RM2.10 and RM2.00 per litre respectively.

Postponed prior to Election 2013, the so-called subsidy rationalisation programmed was resumed after ratings firm Fitch slashed Malaysia’s sovereign debt outlook from “Stable” to “Negative” in July.

In Budget 2014, Putrajaya finally confirmed the 2015 rollout of the GST and said it would stop subsidising sugar by the current 34 sen per kg, in a move that may cause cascading price hikes.

Starting next year, the electricity tariff in the peninsula will also increase by 14.9 per cent or 4.99 sen to 38.53 sen for every kilowatt per hour (kWh), and 5 sen for Sabah and Labuan.

MORE TO COME

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 18 December 2013, 4:35 pm and is filed under
Najib Razak
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Idris Jala should “walk the talk” to “stop politicizing education” and get agreement of PM and Cabinet to establish Opposition-headed Parliamentary Select Committee on Education

The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department and the head of Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu), Datuk Seri Idris Jala should “walk the talk” to “stop politicizing education” and get the agreement of the  Prime Minister and the Cabinet for the establishment of an Opposition-headed Parliamentary Select Committee on Education as a bipartisan response to the “triple whammy” of relentless erosion of educational standards in the country, viz:

* 2011 TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study);

* 2012 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment); and

* World Bank’s adverse Malaysia Economic Monitor themed “High-Performing Education”.

If Idris can announce such an  agreement by the Prime Minister and the Cabinet to the establishment of a bi-partisan Opposition-headed Parliamentary Select Committee on Education,  this will be the most cheerful and best end-of-the-year news for Malaysians who had been buffeted by an avalanche of bad news on all fronts in the past seven months after the 13th  general elections creating unprecedented division, disunity and negative vibes about the future of Malaysia.

Idris made the call on both Pakatan Rakyat and Barisan Nasional to stop politicizing education at a forum on Monday to commemorate the third anniversary of the Economic Transformation Programme, which was attended by at least four  Cabinet Ministers – the Minister for International Trad and Industry, Datuk Seri Mustapha Mohamed, the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Abdul Wahid Omar, and the Minister for Communication and Multimedia, Datuk Seri Ahmad Shabery Cheek and Idris himself.

This was reported both by Malaysiakini and The Malaysian Insider but strangely not by any print media.

The Malaysiakini report by Aidila Razak and Wang Yuan, entitled
“Urgent overhaul needed to our education system”
 said:

Despite Malaysia’s goal to be a high income nation by 2020, he  (Idris) said the National Education Blueprint will only start bearing fruit in 20 years time.

“In 50 years from now, if we don’t up our game in education, we will be overtaken by countries who run faster than us. In the long-term, the agenda for poverty eradication, is education,” he said.

Meanwhile, Idris, who was appointed senator so he can run the Performance and Management Delivery Unit (Pemandu) called on both Pakatan Rakyat and the BN to stop politicising education.

“Wahid and I are not politicians. If there is one thing we…hope for both the BN and Pakatan Rakyat, it is to lay down their swords and not to politicise education. Come together and agree about education,” he said.

The Malaysian Insider report headlined
“Barisan, Pakatan should agree on education, says Idris Jala”
 by Trinna Leong said:

Both the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) and Pakatan Rakyat (PR) may disagree on issues, but that should not cover education which must be improved to ensure Malaysia remains competitive, Datuk Seri Idris Jala  said today.

The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department said all lawmakers must work together to ensure the education system is a success.

“Both BN and PR need to come together and agree on education. We may disagree on other things, but not on education,” Jala said at the Economic Transportation Programme (ETP) panel meeting in Putrajaya today.

He warned that the quality of education has to be improved or Malaysia would risk losing out to other countries.

“In 50 years if we don’t up our game in education, we’ll lose out to other countries running faster than us,” said Idris, who heads the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu).

Others at the meeting were International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed, Minister in Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Abdul Wahid Omar and Communication and Multimedia Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Shabery Cheek.

Speaking of the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025, Jala said that the transformation of the education system can only be seen years from now. In the meantime, the government has taken immediate action to remedy problems at hand.

“If anyone were to say they can fix problems in education in one or two years, that guy must be lying. There is no shortcut in education. By the time we do this, the real results will come out in 20 years from now with the kids getting through the new education system,” he said.

We in the Pakatan Rakyat fully support Idris’ call that both the BN and PR “lay down their swords and not to politicise education”. We in PR are prepared to “lay down our swords” but is BN prepared to do so?

If so, then let Idris  take the next step to get the agreement of the Prime Minister and the Cabinet to form a bipartisan Opposition-headed Parliamentary Select Committee on Education.

How long will Idris need to get such an agreement so that a Parliamentary Select Committee on Education could be set up as the first item of business of the March meeting of Parliament  next year?

In fact, if the Cabinet is serious, a preparatory panel of MPs for the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education could be set up  immediately to  start work even before the reconvening of Parliament in March.

In this connection, Idris should explain what he meant when he said on Monday that the Malaysian Education Blueprint (MEB) “will only start bearing fruit in 20 years’ time”.

Have the Cabinet, Parliament and  Malaysians been misled all this while by the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and the  Deputy Prime Minister-cum-Education Minister,Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin who have clearly promised that the MEB will bring about significant changes in the national education system in three Waves in  the next 13 years until 2025 – and not to  “only start bearing fruit in 20 years’ time” which is 2033!

Are Malaysian students to be condemned to mediocrity and the bottom-third of countries whether in PISA or TIMSS international educational benchmarks for the next 20 years, or at least for the entire 13-year period of the MEB from 2013-2025?

I have checked Muhyiddin’s speech when he launched the MEB in September this year, and he specifically promised that  the entire education system will see significant transformation by the end of the 13-year MEB.

Muhyiddin will not be around in public life to deliver on his MEB pledge come 2025, but why is Idris, as czar of Pemandu responsible for Government and Economic Transformation Programmes, now backing off from these pledges by claiming that the reforms in MEB will “only start bearing fruit in 20 years’ time?”

Is this a ploy to evade and avoid responsibility and accountability for the proposed reforms and the three Waves of educational transformation promised in the MEB?

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 18 December 2013, 10:41 am and is filed under
Education
,
Muhyiddin Yassin
,
Najib Razak
,
Pakatan Rakyat
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Najib’s approval rating takes a plunge, Merdeka Centre survey reveals

The Malaysian Insider
 | December 18, 2013

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s approval rating has taken the lowest dip since assuming office in 2009, declining to 52% in December, from 62% in August, a Merdeka Centre survey has found.

Two months after replacing Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as prime minister, Najib had a 65% approval rating.

The pollster said the survey was conducted between December 4 and 12, 2013, after the reduction of fuel subsidies in September 2013, and the tabling of the 2014 national budget during which the government announced the introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in 2015.

Merdeka Centre said in a statement that concerns over the economy, particularly rising costs and inflation, rose to its highest ever level, up to 67% of all respondents.

The survey found that 55% of Peninsular Malaysia voters said that they did not  quite understand how GST will affect them.

Additionally, 54% of respondents reported that they did not believe in statements by government leaders about the country’s economic situation.

The number of those expressing “happiness” with the government has also declined to 38%, compared to 50% in August 2013, showing a significant reduction in positive attitude from across major ethnic groups.

Merdeka Centre also released data from previously unreleased opinion surveys conducted in June 2013 and August 2013.

The latest survey, which coincided with the recent Umno general assembly, polled 1,005 registered voters comprising 60% Malays, 31% Chinese and 9% Indians through telephone interviews in the preferred language of the respondents.

They were selected randomly, representing Malaysians of different races and genders.

The June 2013 survey had 1006 respondents while 1008 were polled for the August 2013 survey. – December 18, 2013.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 18 December 2013, 4:13 pm and is filed under
Najib Razak
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Think tank warns of grim outlook for Malaysian education following poor ranking

The Malaysian Insider
 | December 18, 2013

A think tank has urged Putrajaya to urgently address what it said was a crisis in the Malaysian education system, following the recent findings that Malaysian students scored poorly in an international assessment test.

The Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (Ideas), referring to the results of the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa), which saw Malaysia ranked 55th among 65 countries, said the test scores revealed that the country was behind less developed countries such as Vietnam.

Ideas chief executive Wan Saiful Wan Jan also cited a recent World Bank report titled High Performing Education, which showed a connection between the country’s future economic growth and access to quality education.

 “This is an important point, access to education is no longer the main issue.  The real issue is access to quality education,” Wan Saiful said, urging the public to pay closer attention to the looming education crisis.

According to Saiful, however, survey findings by Ideas on Malaysian parents’ perception of their children’s schools, revealed that a vast majority were happy with the system.

“In fact, between 80% to 90% felt the schools were effectively run and teachers know their subjects very well. They trust the government is providing a good education.

“This appears to be a positive finding, but in reality it is extremely worrying,” said Wan Saiful, who added the nationwide survey polled parents in the bottom 40%.

He said it showed a wide gap between perception and reality as was revealed when the students were internationally assessed.

“Those in power seem to be very good at shaping how the poor view the quality of education their children receive but the trust among the poor should not be taken advantage of.

“They need true school reform to help the next generation  break away from the poverty cycle,” he noted.

Saiful called on the public to demand immediate and real improvements in the quality of education in the country, saying there were too many “illusions of reform” created by the government’s announcements.

“We must remember there are only announcements, when the reality is that nothing has happened yet and no real benefit has been realised in the system,” he pointed out.

He said to safeguard the future of Malaysian children, the gap between perception and reality must close, noting that currently, the reality “looked rather grim”.

Pisa, conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), tested 510,000 students aged 15 last year, covering the subjects of mathematics, science and reading.

Malaysia obtained a mean score of 421, below the average mean score of 494. In reading, Malaysian students fared poorly, scoring 398 (average: 496). In mathematics, they scored 421 (average: 494), while in science, 420 (average: 501). – December 18, 2013.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 18 December 2013, 4:07 pm and is filed under
Education
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Will ‘The Heat’ wilt from Government heat?

 – Kee Thuan Chye

The Malaysian Insider

December 17, 2013

The relatively outspoken weekly newspaper The Heat has been given a show-cause letter by the Home Ministry and reportedly told to tone down its fervour. And this has come about only three months since the paper sparked to life in early September.

This shows how tightly the Government still controls the media, and how difficult it is for any print publication to be critical of the ruling party. It also blows to bits the promise that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak made in September 2011 that he wanted to establish in Malaysia “the best democracy”. Unless, of course, he has a radically different understanding of “democracy”.

The online news website The Malaysian Insider had reported that the action taken by the ministry was believed to have been prompted by The Heat’s front-page article on Najib and his wife Rosmah Mansor’s “spendthrift” use of public funds – on overseas trips, utilities in their official residence, the hiring of consultants, the use of the Government’s private jets, allocations for the Prime Minister’s Department.

The article, which came out in the weekly’s November 23-29 issue, provided relevant facts and gave a detailed summary of what has been spent. It also included criticisms from several quarters of Najib’s extravagance, and placed the issue in its current context of worsening economic times and the need for belt-tightening by all Malaysians. I have yet to see another report that so comprehensively puts the issue in such clear perspective.

Moreover, the issue is one that is already out there in the public sphere and deserves to be discussed in any true democracy. And we the public have a right to question how our money is being spent. So why should the ministry take exception to it?

Is it because Rosmah is being criticised here? Well, when you view it together with the recent alleged directive from the Prime Minister’s Office to Astro Awani to remove from its website a report about a blog post that satirically called for Najib to make Rosmah a minister, you will probably think there is a connection.

But even so, whether it is Rosmah being criticised or otherwise, we cannot tolerate such authoritarian interference with the media. It’s now 2013, coming to 2014, not 1984 and the era of Mahathir Mohamad anymore.

The central problem that this episode shows is that the Home Ministry still has too much power over the print media, despite the amendments made to the Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA) last year, amendments that the Government-owned mainstream media made a big deal of by saying it showed Najib’s sincerity in liberalising our democratic space. What tosh!

The truth is, the amendments are little more than eyewash. The minister still has the power to break any newspaper or publication by simply revoking its licence. And by dint of this, he holds every publication to ransom. This contravenes Article 10 of the Federal Constitution, which guarantees our right to freedom of speech and expression.

By right, we should not require a licence to publish. The requirement merely serves to create fear in editors and publishers of losing such a licence, as when they are given show-cause letters by the Home Ministry.

“These show-cause letters,” the Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ) has pointed out, “may … be used as a political tool by any political party in government should a newspaper run foul of its voter-base.” The way it looks, the Government is wielding that tool against The Heat right now.

Making amendments to the PPPA is therefore not enough. If Najib wants to be sincere and truthful about giving us “the best democracy”, he has no other option but to repeal the PPPA.

To judge how effective a show-cause letter can be, you only need to go through the latest December 14-20 issue of The Heat. You will see how the editors have already blunted the paper’s bite and kept to publishing relatively ‘safe’ material. It’s not quite the same Heat of the preceding weeks any more.

The main stories this issue are not about politics. And while The Heat may defend this by saying that it’s not a political paper anyway but a current affairs one, it may be hard put to justify why it doesn’t even make mention of the Umno general assembly that was arguably the main event last week. Or, Najib’s travesty of Mandela’s struggle and reputation by saying that Umno shares the “same cause”. How could such significant happenings be totally ignored?

Furthermore, in its “Newsmakers” section, where it was wont to lash out with no minced words at the foibles of ministers and lackeys, it has taken almost an opposite turn, like even complimenting ruling party politicians for trivialities. I hope its lauding of Terengganu Menteri Besar Ahmad Said for buying bread from a truck to give to motorists who were stuck in a jam was meant as a send-up more than anything else – to subtly protest against its current predicament.

In the same section, where you once got stuff like “Don’t pick a fight with the Culture and Tourism Minister – he may just kill you. … Seems like we now have a gangster in our Cabinet.”, you now get:

 “Many can follow Hishammuddin’s example and give up nicotine for a healthier lifestyle.”

    “Tourism remains a big money earner for Malaysia and an assurance that this country is safe will go a long way in helping to attract visitors.”

    “Hanif’s concern is understandable. Most Malaysians do not want to hurt each other’s feelings. However, blaming social media for the current situation is a little shallow… To his credit, Hanif stopped short of calling for a ban on alternative media.”

Sounding sappy, stating the mundanely obvious, bending over backwards to find something positive to say – all that seems to be part of the doctor’s orders for cooling down The Heat. And if that’s not enough, wait till you read the article ‘The challenge of bringing talent home’. The fawning angle that The Heat now takes, as can be seen in that article, might turn the stomachs of intelligent readers who have a perceptive grasp of the brain drain reality – and other Malaysian problems.

It’s sad to see that The Heat has traded its adults’ gloves for kids’ ones. It would be sadder if its new tone and format were to become entrenched. Then the weekly would become nothing more than a virtual replica of the mainstream media publications.

When that happens, it would have given in to a government that fears public opinion, disregards our right to freedom, reneges on what it promises, and behaves like a bully. That would be the saddest thing of all.

I ardently hope, however, that I’m just being overly pessimistic and that The Heat has the resilience to continue pursuing its true purpose, undeterred by anti-democracy elements, with its latest issue being only a one-off diversion from its norm. I hope that in the coming weeks, if not by next week itself, The Heat will blaze back with its original fire and shame the devil with the truth.

I’ll be the first to celebrate that. – Yahoo! News, December 17, 2013.

* Kee Thuan Chye is the author of The Elections Bullshit.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 18 December 2013, 7:32 am and is filed under
Constitution
,
Kee Thuan Chye
,
Mahathir
,
Media
,
Najib Razak
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Zahid Hamidi, stop making Malaysia a laughing stock

– Dyana Sofya

The Malaysian Insider

December 18, 2013

Dear Zahid Hamidi, what happened to innocent until proven guilty?

The controversy surrounding Zahid Hamidi and Mat Sabu where the minister claimed that Mat Sabu is a Shiite, followed by the Ministry of Home Affairs’s 10 pieces of evidence to back the claim, has become the laughing stock throughout the nation.

Soon after, the ministry covered up by saying that the 10 pieces of evidence are only Grade B evidence, and that it would soon provide Grade A evidence to prove the Minister’s claim.

Not just that, Mat Sabu was asked to prove his innocence or rather his non involvement with Shiite movement.

Dear Minister of Home Affairs, what happened to rule of law where one is innocent until proven guilty?

The rule of law is the underlying framework of rules and rights that make prosperous and fair societies possible. The rule of law is a system in which no one, including government, is above the law; where laws protect fundamental rights; and where justice is accessible to all. No public official may act arbitrarily or unilaterally outside the law.

The rule of law requires the government to exercise its power in accordance with well-established and clearly written rules, regulations, and legal principles.

But when a government official acts without the imprimatur of any law, he or she does so by the sheer force of personal will and power.

If a case is brought up to court, the accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

However, this is a different case. Zahid Hamidi, who obviously thinks that he and his ministry are above the law, and who clearly exceed their legal authority through accusations based on 10 pieces of “Grade B” evidence, is now trying instigate the nation by saying that Mat Sabu is a Shiite, unless he is able to prove otherwise.

Since when did this nation adopt a doctrine that a person is presumed guilty until he is proven innocent?

What is the hidden agenda of accusing Mat Sabu of such? To challenge the credibility of PAS in the eyes of Malaysian Muslims and therefore Pakatan Rakyat? Or mainly to divert the nation’s attention from rising cost of living that is going uncontrollably under the administration of Barisan Nasional?

Dear Minister, if you really want to persecute Mat Sabu for a non-existing offense, you should at least go through a proper procedure because in this country, we do have laws. Rather than resorting to this tasteless publicity gimmick which obviously disregards fundamental rights of a person.

I am honestly surprised and disappointed at how a Minister of Home Affairs and former minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of Islamic affairs are handling this matter.

I suggest that the Minister should drop this issue that is clearly to divert the nation’s attention from the rising cost of living, because it isn’t working. The people of Malaysia is upset and it is only making the nation a laughing stock. – December 18, 2013.

* The writer is political secretary to DAP’s Gelang Patah MP, Lim Kit Siang.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 18 December 2013, 1:18 pm and is filed under
Islam
,
Law & Order
,
PAS
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Muhyiddin’s greatest disservice to nation is his denial that Malaysia has been in throes of education crisis for past decade and making bottom 40 per cent of Malaysian parents and students happy because of the delusion of a “world class” and quality education

The greatest disservice to the nation by the Deputy Prime Minister cum Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin is his denial that Malaysia has been in the throes of an educational crisis for the past decade and making the bottom 40 per cent of Malaysians parents  and students happy because of the delusion of a  “world class” and  quality education ensuring excellence for all.

In actual fact, educational standards in Malaysia, whether primary, secondary or university, have seriously deteriorated over the past decade.

What the CEO of the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (Ideas), Wan Saiful Wan Jan, said yesterday should be serious food for thought for all Malaysians.

Wan Saiful accused the Barisan Nasional government of taking advantage of the trust given by the poor by creating an “illusion” that the education system in the country has been reformed.

He said that according to a study conducted by his think tank, the bottom 40 per cent of parents of school-going children are generally happy with the quality of schools and teachers in the country when the reality is that their children are struggling by regional and international standards.

Lamenting the wide gap between “perception and reality”, Wan Saiful said these parents seem to have a very positive perception about our schools, whereas when the products of these schools are assessed internationally, the findings are “near disastrous”.

Wan Saiful said that those in power seem to be “very good” at shaping how the poor view the quality of education in the country.

He said: “There are too many ‘illusions of reform’ created by the various announcements by the government. But we must remember that these are only announcements.

“The trust of the poor should not be taken advantage of. They need true school reform to help the next generation break away from the poverty cycle.”

Wan Saiful said that if Malaysians want to safeguard the future of their children, they must ensure that perception is about as close to reality.

“And the reality at the moment looks rather grim,” he said.

Wan Saiful is being very diplomatic to talk about “illusions” that the Malaysian education is “world class” which make Malaysian parents in the bottom 40 per cent of the parents “happy” that their children are getting a quality education.

I would not call this “illusion” but describe it as “delusion”, which Muhyiddin and the Barisan Nasional leaders have concocted by a neo-feudal enslavement and subjugation of the thinking of Malaysians, particularly those in the bottom 40 per cent of the population and those in the rural areas.

In the 2012 PISA (Programme of International Student Assessment), Indonesia topped the list for being the happiest students at school although Indonesian 15-year-old students scored poorly in PISA tests, ranked at the second bottom for maths, science and reading.

Indonesia is ranked at 64 from 65 countries participated in the three-year cycle test. The average scores for Indonesian students are: mathematics 375; science 382 and reading 396. This is just slightly better  compared with Peru which is at the bottom of the list. Peru is ranked as the third of the 65 countries whose students are the happiest at school.

It would appear that Malaysian students and parents are emulating their Indonesian counterparts – “happy” at their educational levels although they compare most unfavourably with international standards.

In fact, in the PISA ranking of students with the highest percentage of students who are happy at school, Malaysia is ranked No. 6 after  Indonesia, Albania, Peru, Thailand and Colombia with some 90 per cent of the students “happy at school” although Malaysia is placed at the bottom third,  ranked No. 52 out of the 65 countries in the 2012 PISA academic tests.

Muhyiddin must bear a great responsibility for this educational “illusion” or more correctly “delusion” of Malaysian parents and students in the bottom 40 per cent of the households that they are world-class students with a quality education, for Muhyiddin had conspired to hide the fact from Malaysian parents of the crisis of confidence confronting Malaysia since becoming Education Minister in 2009.

In fact, Muhyiddin had continued to hide from Malaysian parents and public the disastrous performance of Malaysian students in 2011 TIMSS, with Malaysia producing the worst results out of 25 countries which participated in the 1995 or 1999 to 2011 TIMSS, chalking the worst total of decreases of 79 points for maths, when the two next worst countries were Sweden with decrease of  55 points and Thailand 40 points.

In 1999 TIMSS, Malaysia’s scores on both Mathematics and Science (519 and 492 respectively) were above in the international average, with a ranking of 16 among 38 countries in Mathematics and 22 in Science.

By 2011, the Mathematics score had dropped to 440 points (26th position among 42 countries), while the Science score benchmarks fell to 426 points (32nd among 42 countries).

Up to 38 percent of students in Malaysia did not meet the minimum benchmarks in Mathematics and Science in 2011, an approximately twofold increase since 2007, and five times higher than in 1999.

Muhyiddin had never confided in Malaysians that the country is facing a grave crisis of confidence about our educational standards, preferring to let Malaysians particularly the bottom 40 per cent of the population believe that Malaysia has a world-class education system which could become even better after the 13-year Malaysia Education Plan to catapult it to the top third of the nations of the world.

Up to now, despite the adverse 2011 TIMSS and 2012 PISA results, Muhyiddin has refused to come clean and admit that the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025 for Malaysia to attain the rank of top third nations in TIMSS and PISA systems are unrealistic, unachievable and Utopian.

When will Muhyiddin come clean with the people of Malaysia about the crisis of deteriorating educational standards in the past decade as highlighted by the 2011 TIMSS and 2012 PISA, and stop the concoction of educational “illusions” and “delusions” so that Malaysians can wake up to the reality that the Malaysian educational system has a very long way to become world-class regardless of whether Malaysian parents and students in the bottom 40 per cent of the population are mistakenly or ill-advisedly “happy” or otherwise?

The time has come for Muhyiddin to go on live telecast to make such a confession of educational ineptitude and irresponsibility.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 19 December 2013, 2:31 am and is filed under
Education
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Completion of Impian Sabah’s inaugural project in Kampung Samparita Laut, Kota Marudu

 Tuan-tuan puan-puan sekalian, hari ini merupakan satu hari bersejarah untuk Kg Samparita Laut dan juga bagi parti DAP.

Hari ini cukup bermakna sebab akhirnya selepas 50 tahun pertubuhan Malaysia, penduduk-penduduk Kg Samparita Laut dapat menikmati air paip dalam rumah sendiri. Lima puluh tahun Sabah masuk Malaysia, Kg Samparita Laut diabaikan, dipinggirkan.  Tetapi walaupun penduduk-penduduk kampung bukan dapat air paip yang dirawat, sekurang-kurangnya, Tuan-tuan puan-puan tak perlu bergantung kepada air hujan dan air sungai yang keruh lagi.

Hari ini amat bersejarah untuk parti DAP kerana Kg Samparita Laut merupakan projek Impian Sabah yang pertama. Impian Sabah dilancarkan oleh DAP untuk membantu menaiktarafkan kehidupan rakyat di kawasan pendalaman Sabah yang masih hidup tanpa infrastruktur dan keperluan asas seperti elektrik, air dan lain-lain.

 Impian Sabah berhasrat untuk mengumpul Dana daripada rakyat Malaysia, terutamanya daripada Semenanjung Malaysia untuk mengusahakan projek – projek yang diperlukan.   Impian Sabah juga ingin membolehkan sukarelawan-sukarelawan terutamanya daripada Semenanjung Malaysia untuk datang ke Sabah untuk membawa perubahan. Kami ingin mengucapkan ribuan terima kasih kepada kesemua sukarelawan-sukarelawan yang bukan sahaja bertungkus-lumus membantu projek air paip graviti ini, mereka datang tanpa dibayar oleh sesiapa pun. Kesemua kos perjalanan yang berjumlah melebihi seribu ringgit setiap orang adalah ditanggung oleh mereka sendiri.

Kami berharap sukarelawan-sukarelawan yang hadir bukan sahaja dapat membantu dari segi kerja-kerja projek air ini, tetapi juga dapat meningkatkan pesefahaman antara orang Semenanjung dengan rakyat di pendalaman Sabah. Kami berharap supaya perkongsian ini akan dapat mengeratkan lagi hubungan kita kerana kita semua rakyat Malaysia.

Akan tetapi, Impian Sabah merupakan hanya suatu permulaan sahaja. Rakyat di kawasan pendalaman Sabah seperti Kg Samparita Laut mempunyai banyak masalah yang rumit. Penduduk-penduduk masih tiada bekalan elektrik. Orang kampung nak menyeberangi sungai tidak ada bot atau jambatan. Tanah orang kampung milik nenek-moyang dirampas oleh orang lain. Kesemua ini sepatutnya diselesaikan oleh kerajaan Barisan Nasional.  Akan tetapi harapan ini, kian hari, kian kurang. Kerajaan BN yang selalu memberikan janji-janji manis tidak menunaikan janji.

Saya telah berkali-kali melawat Batu Sumpah Keningau yang mencatatkan janji-janji BN kepada rakyat Sabah.  Tiga janji tersebut merupakan asas kepada penggabungan Sabah dengan Malaya yang membentuk persekutuan Malaysia pada 1963 yang mengetengahkan kebebasan beragama dalam Sabah, penguasaan tanah oleh kerajaan Sabah dan menghormati serta memulihara adat istiadat di negeri tersebut.  Adakah sumpah yang dilakar di atas Batu Sumpah Keningau ini sudah ditunaikan?

Yang paling penting sekali, dan juga yang berkaitan dengan hak orang Kg Samparita Laut adalah Isu Tanah. Walaupun penduduk-penduduk di sini telah menetap di kampung ini berpuluh-puluh tahun, tetapi tanah nenek moyang Tuan-tuan dan puan-puan telah dirampas oleh syarikat-syarikat kayu balak. Ini jelas satu pencabulan melampau, memeranjatkan dan benar-benar satu jenayah terhadap perjanjian “tanah” pada Batu Sumpah Keningau. Peminggiran, kemiskinan dan keterbelakangan sosio-ekonomi tidak sepatutnya berlaku pada negeri kedua terbesar di Malaysia selepas Sarawak.

 Kerajaan Pakatan Rakyat jika diberikan peluang pimpinan di Sabah dan Putrajaya akan segera melaksanakan dasar “Tanah bagi yang Tidak Bertanah” untuk rakyat asal Sabah yang mahu mengusahakan tanah. Kami juga akan membanteras penyalahgunaan kuasa yang menyebabkan sebahagian besar tanah dirampas oleh mereka yang berkuasa untuk kroni-kroni mereka.

Pada masa ini mungkin ramai termasuk yang ada di Kg Samparita, tidak mengenali DAP. DAP telah ditubuhkan sejak 1966 dan kini merupakan parti pembangkang yang paling besar di Malaysia dengan 38 ahli Parlimen dan 103 ahli Dewan Undangan Negeri. Kami bekerja sama dengan PKR dan PAS untuk mendirikan Pakatan Rakyat, untuk lawan sama Barisan Nasional. Kami telah mendapat keyakinan daripada semua rakyat kawasan bandar – Pulau Pinang, Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh, Melaka, Seremban, Kuching dan Kota Kinabalu. Kami nak memberikan jaminan bahawa DAP tidak akan mengabaikan kepentingan dan hak rakyat Malaysia di Sabah dan Sarawak. Rakyat di semua bandar-bandar Malaysia memilih DAP dan Pakatan Rakyat akibat rasuah dan penyelewengan Barisan Nasional. Rakyat di bandar juga yakin kepada DAP dan Pakatan Rakyat kerana kami telah membuktikan bahawa kerajaan Pakatan Rakyat di Pulau Pinang dan Selangor adalah tidak be rasuah, cekap dan beramanah.

Yang paling penting sekali, kerajaan Pakatan Rakyat berjaya membantu semua rakyat mi skin dan kurang upaya dalam negeri kami. Parti DAP akan berikrar kepada penduduk-penduduk Kg Samparita Laut dan juga rakyat Sabah hari ini, bahawa DAP tidak akan mengabaikan aspirasi dan keperluan rakyat yang menderita. Impian Sabah membuktikan DAP bukan sahaja pandai cakap. Kami akan buat dengan bersungguh-sungguh. Kami akan menunaikan janji-janji kami. Wakil rakyat DAP akan berjanji untuk mendesak kerajaan BN negeri dan pusat untuk membantu orang kampung di sini.

 Akhirnya, Impian Sabah bermatlamat untuk menjatuhkan kerajaan BN yang tamak, rasuah dan menyeleweng. Dan kami harap penduduk – penduduk akan berjuang bersama kami untuk membawa perubahan ke Malaysia, negara yang kita cinta ini.

(Speech  when officiating the completion of the Impian Sabah gravity water pump  in Kampung Samparita Laut, Kota Marudu on Thursday 19th December 2013 at 2 pm)

                This entry was posted on Friday, 20 December 2013, 6:19 am and is filed under
DAP
,
Malaysian Dream
,
Sabah
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Ku Nan: Playing race card at BN party meets is normal

Lawrence Yong

Malaysiakini

Dec 19, 2013

At the 67th Umno general assembly, delegates had also made some controversial statements including a suggestion that the 1Malaysia slogan be replaced with the 1Melayu slogan because people from the other races did not help Umno in Penang during the 13th general election.

Tengku Adnan said that to mitigate the problem, perhaps parties should stop giving “live” coverage rights of their meetings to reporters, whom he fingered as the real troublemakers.

The MCA elections kicked off today with the 48th MCA Youth national annual assembly and election at the party’s headquarters in Kuala Lumpur.

The Chinese-based party had seen its support eroded during the last general election, winning only seven seats in Parliament. It has opted not to accept ministerial posts in the cabinet.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 20 December 2013, 5:58 am and is filed under
1Malaysia
,
MCA
,
UMNO
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Unable to take the heat, Putrajaya puts media on notice

NEWS ANALYSIS BY THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER

December 20, 2013

Putrajaya’s transformation programme took a step backward yesterday when the Home Ministry suspended The Heat weekly, most likely for its November 22 lead article that focused on Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s spendthrift ways.

While such reports are commonplace in online news portals, The Heat’s article hit too close to home as it was in print and came at a time when Putrajaya had cut fuel and sugar subsidies while higher electricity tariffs, toll charges and public transport fares were on the cards as public funds were tight.

Putrajaya insiders say the Home Ministry took action as the report made the PM look bad, which is an unwritten out-of-bounds marker in the local media scene.

“You get a permit to publish, so you must know your parameters even if you want to be critical,” a retired newspaperman told The Malaysian Insider.

“This is just a warning not to overstep the boundaries even if the PM can be quite liberal about such things,” he added, noting that the government is more concerned about print rather than online media.

Ironically, Najib had relaxed publishing rules two years ago, allowing printing permits without the need for annual renewals that has kept the media in check all these years. However, the Home Minister retains the right to suspend printing permits, as he did with The Heat yesterday.

The last newspaper suspension was in February 2006 when the Sarawak Tribune ran into trouble for publishing an image of Prophet Muhammad which is taboo for Muslims. And before that, in 1987 when The Star and several Chinese dailies were suspended under Operasi Lalang.

The contrast cannot be any greater in all suspension orders. Then prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad had just launched a security crackdown in 1987 and the newspapers were suspended ostensibly to preserve harmony. For Sarawak Tribune, it was to cool hotheads upset over the publication of the Prophet’s image.

This time, it was a report over profligacy that has stung the government, whose populist measures to maintain subsidies and certain rates did not help it regain the two-thirds parliamentary super-majority in the May 5 general elections.

While Parliament heard that the Prime Minister’s official residence had consumed some RM2 million a year in electricity, Putrajaya started cutting subsidies for fuel and sugar, and allowing increases that have been described as a “tsunami of hikes” for the average salaryman and even manufacturers.

“There is a sense that Putrajaya is rather detached from the reality of daily life. It is spending public funds while asking Malaysians to save or pay more,” a political analyst told The Malaysian Insider.

The Heat summed up the situation in its November 22 report, saying “Najib has built up a reputation as a big spender, using public funds in a manner that sometimes invites public criticism. Some news portals have emotionally panned him – and his wife Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor – as “spendthrift”.

“In many Parliament sessions, questions have been raised on various aspects of his spending, including the utility bill for his official residence Seri Perdana in Putrajaya, his use of government aircraft for official business, his penchant for using consultants and the mammoth budget allocation for the Prime Minister’s Department.

“People need to know how taxpayers’ money is being spent. However, there is no full access to information on such spending. The only source so far is parliamentary meetings, and opposition MPs are playing watchdog to the hilt,” it said in the report which is still available online.

But Putrajaya has defended its tough if unpopular decision to cut subsidies and hike other rates, saying it was trying to protect the economy and keep investors’ confidence.

“To keep Malaysia’s economy strong, we need to keep our public spending in check. That means raising some rates and cutting some subsidies. In the short term, this will be unpopular with some.

“But it is absolutely necessary to maintain investor confidence in Malaysia – and to continue the strong growth in jobs and income over the last four years,” the government had said in a statement in response to a Merdeka Center survey that showed Najib’s approval ratings fell 10% to 52% this month.

According to Merdeka Center’s latest survey, his approval rating for December is the lowest since September 2009 (59%) and is close to the 45% he had in May 2009, a month after taking over as prime minister.

“Taking out The Heat might cool the antagonism towards the prime minister. But it comes at the expense of being seen as undemocratic and unable to take criticisms,” a diplomat told The Malaysian Insider, on condition he was not named.

“It is a step backward, but he has four years to go forward,” he added, referring to the next general election due in 2018. – December 20, 2013.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 20 December 2013, 7:41 am and is filed under
Media
,
Najib Razak
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Which assessments are Malaysians to believe – PMR or PISA/TIMSS?

I join the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and the Deputy Prime Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin in congratulating the top scorers in this year’s Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR) examination, in particular the  30,988 or 7.33 per cent of the over 462,940 PMR candidates nationwide who scored Grade A in all subjects –  an increase of 0.41 per cent or 514 candidates over last year’s 30,474 Grade A straight scorers.

However, both the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have been singularly silent over the 2011 TIMSS and 2012 PISA results which show Malaysian students very low down in international educational standards, and they should explain the reason for the vast discrepancy in the local PMR examination results with international educational assessment results like 2011 TIMSS and 2012 PISA.

With 7.33 per cent  of students scoring straight As in all the PMR subjects, this should mean that the Malaysian national education system has produced over seven per cent of our students who are world-class “top scorers” comparable with their peers in the rest of the world.

However, this is not reflected whether in the 2011 TIMSS or 2012 PISA results.

The 2011 TIMSS showed that only two per cent of the Malaysian students who participated reached the topmost performing grade of “Advanced International Benchmark”  for maths as compared to 49 per cent for Taiwan, 48 per cent for  Singapore, 47 per cent for South Korea,  34 per cent for Hong Kong,  27 per cent for Japan and 14 per cent for Russian Federation.

What is even more disconcerting is the international assessment results reflect a relentless deterioration of educational standards of Malaysian students especially in the past one-and-a-half decades as the percentage of Malaysian students reaching the TIMSS “Advanced International Benchmark”  for maths had fallen drastically from 10% in 1999 to 2% in 2011, while the top-performing countries have improved in the percentage of students in this top scorer category, e.g. from 1999 to 2011, Taiwan improving from 37% to 49%;  Singapore from 42% to 48%; South Korea from 32% to 47% and Hong Kong from 28% to 34%.

Why is Malaysia regressing while the best  and most competitive of the national educational systems in the world  are making phenomenal progress in the past decade-and-half?

In the 2012 PISA, only 1.3 per cent of students in Malaysia made it to the “top performers” bracket in maths, i.e. (reaching Level 5 or 6) as compared to Shanghai-China (55.4%), Singapore (40%), Taiwan (37.2%), Hong Kong (33.7%), South Korea (30.9). Between 15% and 25% of students in Belgium, Canada, Finland, Germany, Japan, Liechtenstein, Macao, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland and Switzerland are top performers in mathematics.

Even the top 5 per cent of Malaysian students perform only in line with the average Korean or Japanese pupil.

Most worrying,  more than half of Malaysian students (51.8%) do not reach basic proficiency levels in Mathematics (i.e. Below Level 2).

Can Najib or Muhyiddin explain such a vast discrepancy in the results of local examinations and prestigious  international educational assessment tests?

Which examinations or assessments should Malaysians believe – PMR or PISA/TIMSS, local ones or international educational benchmarks?

                This entry was posted on Friday, 20 December 2013, 9:28 am and is filed under
Education
,
Muhyiddin Yassin
,
Najib Razak
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Greatest blooper for Muhyiddin as Education Minister is his cowardice to own up to deteriorating educational standards of Malaysian students evidenced in TIMSS 2011 and PISA 2012 which is ironically highlighted by the “superlative” 2013 PMR results

The greatest blooper for Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin is his cowardice to own up to the deteriorating educational standards of Malaysians students evidenced in the 2011  TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) released in December last year and 2012 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) released this month.

Ironically, the  deteriorating educational standards of Malaysian students, particularly in the more than four  years with Muhyiddin as Education Minister, has been ironically highlighted by the “superlative” 2013 Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR) results, to the extent that both the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and Muhyiddin had publicly congratulated students who excelled  in the PMR exam.

The 2013 PMR results are better than last year, with  30,988 or 7.33 per cent of the over 462,940 PRR candidates nationwide who scored Grade A in all subjects – an increase of 0.41 per cent or 514 candidates over last year’s 30,474 Grade A straight scorers.

It is most ironical that the “superlative” 2013 PMR results with 30,988 or 7.33 of the students in the 2013 PMR attaining top scores of all As in  all subjects stand in sharp contrast to the 2011 TIMSS, where only two per cent of Malaysian students reached the grade of “top scorers”  and 2012 PISA with  only 1.3 per cent of Malaysian students scaling the “top scorers” bracket.

Why such a vast contrast in the results of the local PMR examination and the two international educational assessment benchmarks?

Can Muhyiddin, as Education Minister, enlighten Malaysians which examinations they should believe and  trust – the local PMR or the international PISA and TIMSS?

Muhyiddin cannot doubt the credibility and integrity of PISA and TIMSS as international educational yardsticks as one of the objectives of the 13-year Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025 (MEB) launched by the Education Minister himself in September is to catapult Malaysia from bottom third to the top third of the PISA and TIMSS international educational benchmark systems!

If PISA and TIMSS are dubious international educational assessments, then why did Muhyiddin and MEB accept them as yardsticks to measure the success of Malaysian educational blueprint and  transformations in the next 13 years?

Or was Muhyiddin taken for a ride by the consultants who were paid RM20 million to prepare the MEB?

If Muhyhiddin and MEB accept PISA and TIMSS as authoritative educational assessments with credibility and integrity, then this would imply  grave doubts about the  value, credibility and integrity of local examinations like the PMR.

Is this the real reason why the PMR public examination for Form Three students  will be scrapped this year to be replaced with the secondary school-based assessment test starting from next year?

By continuing to maintain a thunderous silence on the poor performance of Malaysian students in  2011 TIMSS and 2012 PISA, Muhyiddin is in fact trying to camouflage and hide from the Malaysian public the  grave national educational crisis of deteriorating standards in Malaysia in recent years.

The 2012 PISA, for instance, shows that Malaysia’s 15-year-old students are not only falling below the international average in the three critical subjects of maths, science and reading, but are from three to five years behind their peers in the top-performing PISA countries/regions such as Shanghai, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

In fact, the World Bank’s latest “Malaysia Economic Monitor: High-Performing Education” contained an indictment on the failures of the Malaysian national education system when it said that the 2012 PISA results suggest that “schooling is not translating into learning” in Malaysia.

Equally shocking is the discovery in 2012 PISA  that more than half of 15-year-old  Malaysian students do not reach basic proficiency levels in mathematics.

The Pakatan Rakyat leadership council at its meeting in Kuala Lumpur last night has called for an emergency meeting of Parliament in January over the twin economic and educational crisis facing Malaysia.

Will Muhyiddin agree that Malaysia is facing a grave national educational crisis which deserves the convening of an emergency Parliament in January?

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 21 December 2013, 6:09 pm and is filed under
Education
,
Muhyiddin Yassin
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Journalists, Fight for Your Freedom!

By Kee Thuan Chye

Yahoo! News

21.12.2013

The scourge is upon us. The Government is getting unreasonably authoritarian by suspending the publishing licence of the news weekly The Heat. We are seeing the beginnings of a return to Mahathirism, to the culture of fear that former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad imposed on us. It’s time to nip it in the bud before it gets more grim.

I call on the media and all journalists to do their part to stop the tyranny against media freedom. Stand up and take back your right to freedom of speech and expression. Push for the repeal of the Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA) which accords power to the Home Ministry to grant and revoke licences.

A friend of mine who works in the media suggests a sympathy strike by all journalists, with media owners in tacit support. Is that doable? Or is it too much to ask?

Well, perhaps getting the cooperation of media owners will be virtually impossible – especially those of the mainstream media since most of them are affiliated to the ruling coalition – but journalists can stage the strike on their own.

So often, mainstream media journalists complain to me about having to take bullshit from their bosses, about having to do things that grate against their journalistic beliefs. So often, they say they are fed up. Now is the time for them to say, “Enough is enough!”

It’s time to refrain from being just bread-and-butter journalists or, as Sasterawan Negara A. Samad Said calls it,
carma
(cari makan) journalists.

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) should facilitate this fight for media liberation. Once and for all, it should do what people expect it to do – represent journalists, fight for their welfare. And by fighting for their welfare, I mean not just fighting for material benefits like better pay. Far more important than that is satisfaction at work – and, certainly, the pride of being a journalist.

Reclaim that pride, journalists. The pride that you lost in the last few decades because megalomaniacs in the ruling establishment ensured that you didn’t do your job as you should, because they ensured that sycophants were promoted to become editors-in-chief. Now that megalomania is returning, it is incumbent on you, as watchdogs of society, to regain your traditional role and help our country move forward, away from the shackles of a regressive regime.

Reclaim that pride of being able to tell the truth, report the news as it should be reported and serve your reading public rightly. Instead of spinning the truth to serve the sinister agenda of the ruling coalition.

Editors-in-chief, change your stance of being a servant of the Government. Get your cojones back. Start publishing reports that expose the truth about what the Government does instead of those that seek to protect it; give equal coverage to the Opposition; be critical of both; give voice to the people in the Op-Ed pages. As long as a report is not libellous or seditious, it does not contravene the law. So what is there to fear?

If every media publication tells it like it is, would the Home Ministry suspend them all? Well, test it and see. Let the ministry suspend all and see what happens.

The Heat was doing its journalistic duty of telling it like it is. That’s why it has been stopped in its tracks. But what it did in no way broke the law. So how could the Home Ministry suspend it just like that?

The ministry gave it a show cause letter to which it must respond within two weeks. But only nine days after issuing the letter on December 10, the ministry ordered suspension on December 19. How come? Why didn’t the ministry have the courtesy to wait? Where is the fairness in that?

Most important of all, what law has The Heat broken to deserve such punishment? We don’t know. The ministry has given no reason for the suspension. Sure, it is not bound to do so – because the PPPA does not say it needs to. But this makes the PPPA an ass. It makes the PPPA unfair to the media.

Malaysiakini and theSun have speculated that the suspension could be motivated by The Heat’s article in its November 23-29 issue about Najib Razak and his wife Rosmah Mansor’s spending of public funds. If this is so, the Home Ministry has erred. This is not a valid reason for it to suspend the weekly. There is nothing in the article that breaks the law. In fact, in publishing it, The Heat was providing a public service in informing its readers about what the prime minister has been doing with our money.

If Najib and Rosmah are displeased with The Heat for exposing their extravagance, they should sue the weekly. No government agency should intervene in the matter instead and summarily inflict punishment, whether or not the couple requested it.

My lawyer friends think The Heat should contest the ministry’s action in court. I totally agree.

One says it should file for a judicial review. “It’s time to relitigate the constitutionality of the law,” he says.

First, the PPPA impinges on our right to freedom of speech and expression as guaranteed in Article 10 of the Federal Constitution. Second, it gives too much power to the Home Ministry. Third, it does not make it mandatory for a reason to be given for the suspension or revocation of a publishing licence, and this is unfair.

The other lawyer feels The Heat should go to court precisely to force the ministry to give its reason or reasons for the suspension. If nothing else, this would show up the different treatment that the ministry accords the newspaper Utusan Malaysia, which, as we know, has got away with publishing content that bordered on sedition.

Litigation will, however, take time. Meanwhile, the media as a whole must seize the moment and fight for its freedom.

If it doesn’t do that, the ministry will read its inaction as fear and continue to bully it into submission each time the Government wants to control what readers can read. It will happen again and again, as it has over the years.

The ministry will apply the disgusting tactic of suspending the media organisation’s licence indefinitely, thereby keeping it on tenterhooks, unsure of when its licence will be restored. It may even threaten to revoke the licence. All for the purpose of teaching the media organisation a lesson. We should not tolerate this any more – unless we want to remain a backwater democracy.

Journalists should come together and with one voice shout, like the character portrayed by Peter Finch in the movie Network, “We’re as mad as hell, and we’re not going to take this any more!”

That’s the way to stand up to bullies. Once and for all.

* Kee Thuan Chye is the author of the book The Elections Bullshit, available in bookstores.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 21 December 2013, 8:04 am and is filed under
Kee Thuan Chye
,
Media
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


No graduate in Kota Marudu village – DAP

by Mariah Doksil

Borneo Post

December 21, 2013

KOTA KINABALU: Likas assemblyman, Junz Wong has urged Deputy Education Minister Datuk Mary Yap to explain why more than 50 per cent of federal scholarships allocated to Sarawak and Sabah students to pursue their education in local universities allegedly had no takers and as such given to students in Peninsular Malaysia.

He said it is impossible for Sabah not to have students who qualified to receive federal scholarships, especially when the government is very proud to have one of the best education systems in the world.

“The ‘loss’ is not the latest story for Sabah and Sarawak, as Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Joseph Entulu has revealed that it has been going on since 2008.

“According to Entulu, only 499 out of 1,000 scholarships allocated for both states were successful in their application in 2008, while in 2009 only 402 successful. He also said the situation was the same for the years 2010, 2011 and 2012,” said Junz in a press conference at Bandaran Berjaya Shangri-la Hotel, yesterday.

Also present were DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang, DAP Sabah chief Jimmy Wong, Kepayan assemblyman Dr Edwin Bosi and Batu Kawan MP Kasthuriraani Patto.

Junz made the call after Kit Siang called on the government to set up a Parliament Select Committee for the amazing performance in the recent Penilaian Menangah Rendah (PMR) examinations.

He said the achievement of the 30,988 students out of over 462,940 PMR candidates nationwide who scored Grade A in all subjects were a joy to parents and students but it is a different story when it comes to international standards of education.

Junz believed that Yap will be able to bring the Sabah education issues to parliament, and hoped that she can answer for the level of education in Malaysia, as reported in the 2011 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and 2012 Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA).

Meanwhile, Kit Siang said his recent visit to Kampung Samparita Laut in Kota Marudu was another shocking experience when the villagers admitted no one from the village had ever entered university.

“After 50 years of independence in Sabah, I cannot believe there is still a kampung without any university graduates. I am also calling Mary Yap as a minister from Sabah to look at this matter seriously. Every Sabahan has the right to a higher level of education,” he said.

Kasthuriraani, who also went to Samparita Laut to join the launching of DAP Impian Sabah’s water gravity inaugural project, said it is not fair for Sabahans and Sarawakians to be rejected in their federal scholarship applications.

“I am not sure if this is Barisan Nasional (BN) plans to ensure Sabahans and Sarawakians are left behind in education, so that they will be more dependent on the government.

“If Sabahans and Sarawakians are dependent on the government, it will give more benefit to BN because both states will be forever BN fixed deposit in terms of votes in the General Election,” she added.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 21 December 2013, 7:05 pm and is filed under
DAP
,
Education
,
Sabah
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


World Bank president calls corruption ‘Public Enemy No. 1’

Reuters

Thursday Dec 19, 2013

WASHINGTON –  The World Bank took a bold stance on fighting corruption on Thursday, with President Jim Yong Kim saying that corruption at both the public and private level is the scourge of the developing world.

The development institution, which long shied away from tackling corruption because it wanted to steer clear of politics, on Thursday said it plans to hire more experts in the rule of law and other governance issues.

Kim said corruption must be at the center of the development lender’s work.

“Every dollar that a corrupt official or a corrupt business person puts in their pocket is a dollar stolen from a pregnant woman who needs health care,” Kim said during a panel. “In the developing world, corruption is public enemy No. 1.”

The announcement shows just how much the bank has changed since the 1990s, when corruption was a taboo subject in an institution that has 188 member countries and shuns picking sides.

Former World Bank President Jim Wolfensohn brought the issue to the fore in a 1996 speech, calling corruption a “cancer” that countries must confront — despite warnings to avoid the subject.

“I said, ‘Why can’t I use the c-word?'” Wolfensohn recalled at a panel on Thursday. “And (an adviser) said, Well, half your directors represent corrupt countries.”

Philippines Finance Minister Cesar Purisima said countries need better ways of tracking the movement of funds in order to combat corruption. He suggested a “passport,” or some kind of convention to tag capital flows in order to ensure money goes where it is supposed to.

“Corruption is a very popular slogan,” he said during the panel. “The problem is in the execution.”

The World Bank’s new governance department is one of the 14 “global practices,” or technical areas, that Kim formulated in October to enable the bank to provide better technical advice to countries. Other areas include agriculture, water, trade and education.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 21 December 2013, 9:04 am and is filed under
Corruption
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Corruption, not liberalism, is Malays’ real enemy

 – Hafiz Ahmad

The Malaysian Insider

December 22, 2013

The Malays are in a state of delusion. They cannot differentiate between their real problems and the delusional ones. I could not understand why they are paranoid with liberalism, pluralism, Shiism and Christianity, as these have no effect in their daily lives.

Some Malays don’t even understand what liberalism really means. If anyone can explain what is the real threat of liberalism in our lives, I will be very grateful. Please enlighten me, I’m so confused.

While people are struggling to put food in their mouths, there are those busy pointing their fingers at the 9% Christian population, claim that Christians are trying to establish a Christian state in Malaysia.

With the exception of Vatican, there is no Christian state in this world. Even Italy with a strong Catholic population does not claim to be Christian country.

Are Malays out of their mind? Muslims comprise 61.3% of the country’s population and Christians only 9.2 %. Where is the threat? It is worse when some religious bigots called Pembina fire up this delusional issue by organizing forums to make Muslims believe there is a threat from Christians.

I don’t understand how such hatred can considered a religion event. I am a Muslim, probably not a pious one, but my religion never taught me to throw baseless accusations filled with hatred and prejudice at people of other faiths.

Some Malays are just sucking up all this nonsense by these bigots. They should take a minute to use their brains given by Allah Almighty to think the logic of this allegation. These issues have corrupted Malays minds and robbed their common sense and ability to think.

The latest 2012 monthly household income data from the Department of Statistics shows that the Bumiputera are the poorest in this country, with average monthly income of RM4,457, followed by Indians RM5,233 and Chinese RM6,366.

This is the real problem of the Malays. The current trend of price hikes will further hurt the Malays, not to mention the Goods & Services Tax (GST) soon to be implemented. The purchasing power of Malays will reduce drastically.

Ironically, the ruling party which claims to be champion of the Malays implements economic policies that hurt Malays the most. Again, this is the real problem of the Malays, not liberalism or pluralism.

Malays should realise that rampant corruption in our country is the real threat to them.

Corruption will threaten genuine and honest Malay entrepreneurs, not pluralism. Rising cost of living will threaten their stomachs, not liberalism.

Malays must also realise that all delusional problems ‘threatening’ them are deliberately staged to cover up corruption, leakages and mismanagement bleeding our country. Malays must wake up from this delusion and face the reality. – December 22, 2013.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 22 December 2013, 7:07 pm and is filed under
Corruption
,
Islam
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Hope From the Eyes of a Middle-Class Malaysian

— Cassandra Chung

The Malaysian Insider/Loyarburok.com

December 21, 2013

DEC 21 — Just yesterday, I was speaking to my father on the phone. It had been a long time since the both of us had had a one-to-one talk ever since I came to university. Most of my Skype conversations home involved one-to-one talks with my sister, and if I was speaking to my father, it was usually in the presence of my mother, relatives or family friends. As I spoke to him, he mentioned the toll and electricity price hike. The few times in the past he told me about the petrol price hike and goods and services tax (GST) implementation, he had said it in a rather factual manner. My conversation with him over the phone seemed different this time. I could hear the stress in his voice and I must say, for him to fail at hiding his stress is a pretty big deal, because most of the time, he can effectively conceal it.

I come from a middle-class family. We live in a modest terrace house which took my father 11 years to completely pay off. We have enough money to own two imported cars but they aren’t BMWs or Mini Coopers. My family had sufficient money to send me to one of the cheaper private colleges to do my pre-university studies and to the United Kingdom to start and finish my degree, but not enough to give me an international secondary and primary education. I got a public school one with lots of tuition classes instead. My sister and I had a short stint of piano and dance lessons at some point of time in our lives. In comparison to a lot of other middle-class families, I would say we are doing alright. Some of my friends could never afford dance classes. I have a friend who had to defer his entry into one of the most prestigious universities in the world because of insufficient funds. Another one simply had to give up such an opportunity.

But I think like most other families with our financial standing, we are reaching our boiling point.
Household incomes have not increased by much but the price of everything else seems to be ballooning out of control. I do not advocate long-term subsidies because they create a ‘crutch’ mentality. However, I think subsidies should be removed gradually as household incomes rise, so that the consequences of the impact wouldn’t be too severe. To announce price increases and subsidy removals in a span of less than a year is just pure madness; salaries do not rise that fast in that span of time. I also believe that money spent on subsidies is better put to use rather than spending it on YouTube advertisements, Twitter promotions, free k-pop concerts and private jet fuel for our Ministers’ spouses. The question here isn’t whether subsidies should be removed or certain prices be increased in the name of cutting government expenditure and increasing revenue. The question here is why should the average middle-class family — or any family with whatever financial standing, for that matter — have to tighten their belts when certain parties are just going to put the money to ridiculous waste?

As average middle-income families reach their boiling points, we find another divide beginning to appear in our society — one based on political ideologies and on opportunities. We find the racial divide beginning to enlarge, as if it’s not big enough to begin with. As more and more middle-class families become increasingly angry at our government, they find that they will be unable to tolerate government supporters — people they once called friends — any longer. Families will be split apart; as it is, some families remain split because of the political parties they support. As the divide grows, we find remaining that neutral when it comes to politics is becoming tougher and tougher, especially since almost everything in Malaysia is politicised. It will come to a point where remaining neutral will no longer be an option, and picking sides will be mandatory.

As the cost of living increases, we find middle-income families growing more and more resentful towards the rich who can afford an international education system and who can afford to further their studies outside Malaysia. We find that as each day passes, we feel like screaming at them — that the only reason they can remain neutral is because everything that is happening isn’t affecting them as much as it is affecting us, the middle-income families. We find that as the cost of living increases, corporate companies no longer give out as many scholarships as they did before, in the name of cutting costs. More and more middle income families will have to deny their children the opportunity to study abroad, further fuelling resentment towards the rich. We will find it harder to refrain ourselves from slapping the rich kid who applies for a scholarship just to challenge himself, even though it might deny a financially constrained kid from entering one of the world’s top universities. As corporate companies cut down on their scholarship expenditure, we find that we begin despising a certain race simply because they have access to more scholarships.

As middle-income families scrap to earn a living for themselves, we find the values of our society begin to increasingly degenerate. More and more families will encourage their children to bribe their driving examiners out of desperation because driving exams are too costly to keep retaking, and as more and more families get desperate to save money, more and more people will take advantage of this desperation. Driving examiners will be even keener to ask for a bribe and fail you if you don’t give in, further contributing to the problem of corruption which already plagues our society. You want us to walk rather than drive? Do something about safety on the streets, then. I would like to walk without the huge fear of getting mugged, shot, raped or all three, thank you very much. You want us to take public transport? I will when you make it more accessible, efficient and safe.

One might say Malaysia is headed towards hell. I certainly thought it was when the recent Allah ruling came out. However, despite how bleak and hopeless this situation may look now, it certainly has done a good job in teaching some of us the value of money. It has taught me to appreciate my overseas education. It has made us tougher fighters; the road to change has been getting increasingly arduous, and to have survived thus far without giving up or having to go through institutional breakdown — I must say — is an achievement.

Our dire situation has given birth to a new brand of leaders — young and dynamic, they are leaders who reject all forms of corruption and have the people’s interests at heart. They offer a clean slate, which is precisely what our country needs. It has made us care albeit just a little more for the place we call home. It may take another four years before we can cast our vote again, and even more before we see good change begin to happen. Call me young and naïve, but every time I read of somebody speaking out against the injustices happening at home, I hold on tighter to the hope I have in seeing Malaysia redeemed.

Have faith; all is not lost. — loyarburok.com

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 22 December 2013, 5:46 am and is filed under
1Malaysia
,
nation building
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Jangan salahguna agama untuk politik – Dr. Asri

Roketkini

December 21, 2013

SHAH ALAM, 21 DISEMBER – Rakyat turun ke jalanraya dan mengadu kepada Tuhan kerana kerajaan sudah tidak lagi mendengar keluh kesah mereka, bukan bermakna rakyat mahukan sebarang bentuk negara tetapi mahukan keadilan.

Demikian analisa bekas mufti Perlis, Prof Madya Dato’ Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin terhadap revolusi berganda di Mesir yang akhirnya menyaksikan Presiden ke-lima negara tersebut, Dr Mohamad Morsi digulingkan.

Beliau mengulas lanjut soal meletakkan label ‘negara Islam’ yang bagi beliau bukanlah perkara yang terlalu penting.

“Pakistan pun ada enakmen undang-undang Islam, tetapi lihat negara dia punyalah kotor. Bukankah kebersihan itu sebahagian daripada Islam. New Zealand lebih Islam daripada Pakistan,” ujarnya dalam wacana ‘Ikhwan Muslimin: Musuh atau kawan’ di sini, hari ini.

Dr Asri turut berkata bahawa Islam tidak wajar dipergunakan untuk tujuan politik, malah menegaskan bahawa daripada Islam disalahgunakan bagi tujuan politik lebih baiklah agama dipisahkan daripada urusan politik.

Beliau berucap di wacana anjuran PTS Media Group membedah buku terbitan syarikat terbabit, ‘Di Sebalik Ikhwan Muslimin’ terjemahan tulisan Douglas Thompson hasil wawancara bersama Youssef Nada, strategis kewangan Ikhwan.

Sekularisme tidak memusuhi Islam

“Kerana sekularisme lah orang Islam boleh berdakwah di Eropah,” tambahnya lagi sambil berkata umat Islam kini fobia dengan konsep sekularisme akibat daripada momokan kisah Mustafa Kemal Ataturk yang memodenkan Turki sehingga memberi mudarat kepada Islam.

“Kalau Mustafa Kemal itu benar-benar sekular, dia tidak akan masuk campur dalam urusan agama langsung,” ujarnya menerangkan salah faham umum terhadap konsep tersebut.

Perkara 2 dalam Fasal Matlamat-matlamat yang termaktub di dalam perlembagaan DAP meletakkan kerangka sekular sebagai matlamat parti DAP demi kedaulatan undang-undang, nilai demokrasi dan hak saksama.

Wacana tersebut turut menampil Ahli Parlimen Kluang, Liew Chin Tong; mantan presiden ABIM Tuan Haji Ahmad Azam dan Timbalan Ketua Pemuda PAS Ustaz Khalil Abdul Hadi sebagai ahli panel. – Roketkini.com

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 22 December 2013, 5:09 am and is filed under
Islam
,
Islamic state
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Politics and sexual innuendoes

– The Malaysian Insider

December 21, 2013

Why do Malaysian politicians have a penchant of spicing up their rhetoric with sexual innuendoes? Is it the lowest common denominator in politics and one every political party member can relate to?

Be it Borneo politicians who liken leaking roofs to woman’s menses or suggestive remarks about having quotas for four wives or a minister linking property values to a woman’s made-up beauty – almost every other speech is linked to sex.

So it is no surprise Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak mentioned “political viagra” today to stimulate MCA to greater heights.

“We need political Viagra. Low in spirit, MCA has members at the grassroots level but they have no fire.

“Later, we will ask the Health Minister to do this,” the Barisan Nasional (BN) chairman said when opening the party’s annual general meeting in Kuala Lumpur.

Now, this isn’t the first time the prime minister displayed his penchant for sexual innuendo – which might be fine in his party but is unbecoming of top office.

The last time was early this month when he praised his wife at the close of the Umno general assembly, saying “Mungkin malam ini akan dapat bayaran (maybe tonight, I will be rewarded)” to laughter from the audience.

Ironically, Malaysians can be prudish when it comes to sex but the politicians seem inured and enjoy such banter without thinking that it reflects a crude or even uncouth behaviour.

More so for those who occupy high office in the country, especially the political aristocracy.

Malaysians have been told countless times to respect the office of those in high government posts, even if they have no respect for the officer bearer.

But it is time that those who hold such post also show some respect – for the other gender, if not just for the office. – December 21, 2013.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 22 December 2013, 5:27 am and is filed under
Najib Razak
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


In deflecting the heat over weekly’s suspension, Putrajaya raises more questions

COMMENTARY BY THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER

December 21, 2013

The Home Ministry has now denied that The Heat (pic) was suspended over its reports of a profligate administration but rather it was because the weekly had violated provisions in its printing permit.

If anything, that defence raises more questions than answers for Putrajaya. After all, was it a coincidence that a show-cause letter was only issued after the November 23 to 29 edition on hefty spending on travel and consultants by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak?

“This decision was not linked to The Heat’s recent report regarding the prime minister, and any accusations to the contrary are without merit,” a ministry spokesperson was quoted as saying by The Wall Street Journal.

The spokesperson said the suspension resulted from the publishing company violating provisions mandated under its printing permit, the Journal reported.

Home Ministry sources told The Malaysian Insider that the permit given to the publisher was for the publication of a magazine and not for newspaper printing.

Well, The Heat is a weekly newspaper and in some circles, that is a magazine.

More importantly, when did the ministry find out that it was not a magazine? It has had a run of 15 editions since entering the marketplace on September 6, 2013.

Isn’t it more alarming that it took the ministry nearly three months to figure out that The Heat was not a magazine as defined by it? Or is it just the weakest excuse to use when taking action against the weekly?

The sources also said that the show-cause letter had told the publisher to stop printing the weekly pending further instructions from the ministry but it was ignored.

“Because of that, the ministry had to issue another letter telling them to stop the publication until further notice,” the source told The Malaysian Insider.

Now, this is strange. The MCA-owned daily, The Star, had two show-cause letters issued over the last two years, over photographs of American singer Erykah Badu with tattoos that looked like the Arabic word for Allah and one more on a bak kut teh promotion in its Ramadan pullout.

On both occasions, the popular and most widely-read newspaper was not suspended. So why the different treatment for The Heat?

Where does it say that a newspaper or a magazine has to cease publication pending an investigation or reply to a show-cause letter?

It is time the Home Ministry comes clean on its processes for such matters. The Najib administration has liberalised publishing laws but some officials seem to be stuck in an earlier time, giving orders that do not make sense.

Or making excuses that are laughable if not for the wide powers that Putrajaya has used to shut down The Heat. Can the ministry at least explain why it had suspended The Heat?

Such arbitrary and arrogant use of power only puts the ruling government in bad light. National Union of Journalists president Chin Sung Chew had said that Malaysia, as a democratic country, should uphold media freedom.

“The media is the Fourth Estate and we have a responsibility to inform the public, especially if there is any abuse or wrongdoing by the government,” he had said.

He is right. And the government has the right to right the wrongs of any party but at the very least, do inform what the alleged mistake was.

Shutting down The Heat won’t cool the situation for the government. It will only make things hotter. – December 21, 2013.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 23 December 2013, 5:19 am and is filed under
Media
,
Najib Razak
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Kudos to CDC Director  Masnah for the first decent government response on Malaysia’s poor performances in 2011 TIMSS and 2012 PISA results which only highlights the  cowardice of Muhyiddin in continuing his irresponsibility in refusing to own up to the crisis of deteriorating educational standards under his watch

Kudos to the Curriculum Development Division director of the Ministry of Education, Dr.  Masnah Ali Muda, who has finally come out with the
first decent government response
 on Malaysia’s poor performances in the 2011 TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) and  the 2012 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment).

I am not fully satisfied with Masnah’s statement but it only highlights the cowardice of the Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin in continuing his irresponsibility in refusing to own up to the crisis of deteriorating educational standards under his watch.

I do not deny that I had been badgering Muhyiddin almost daily since the release of the 2012 PISA results three weeks ago on 3rd December to come clean with Malaysians that the country is facing a full-scale educational crisis with deteriorating educational standards under his watch in the  Education Ministry since April 2009.

Muhyiddin had been the lynchpin of an elaborate national conspiracy to make Malaysians believe the delusion that they  have a world-class education system with the ever-increasing and  unprecedented number of students scoring As for all subjects in local examinations especially PMR and SPM when the standards of Malaysian students were actually suffering serious deterioration  in the past decade as evident from international educational  benchmarks like the global assessments of TIMSS, conducted for eighth graders every four years, and PISA, conducted for 15-year-old students  every three years.

Muhyiddin had been scurrying for cover from the dismal results of Malaysian students in the 2011 TIMSS and 2012 PISA results, and when he finds the pressure for public accountability irresistible in the past three weeks, he has dragooned the  director of Curriculum Development Division of the Education Ministry to come to the forefront to face the arrows of criticisms for the poor Malaysian performance in TIMSS and PISA, when as Education Minister he should have the courage, conviction  and responsibility to bear personal responsibility for the adverse TIMSS and PISA results.

Among the questions and issues I had shot at Muhyiddin in the past three weeks, for which there are still no answers, include:

*Muhyiddin should outline concrete plans to prove that the Malaysia Education Blueprint for Malaysia’s 15-year-olds to be in top third of countries in 2021 PISA is no “pie in the sky”.

*Muhyiddin should ask McKinsey & Co to answer the question how Malaysia is to become a “wonder nation” and make the double quantum jump from the bottom third to top third of 2021 PISA or reclaim the RM20 million spent on the consultant for the Malaysian Education Blueprint.

*Has the Malaysian Education Blueprint 2013-2025 become “Miracle Education Blueprint” which   expects Malaysian students to perform three educational miracles in his 13-year Three-Wave Educational Transformation Plan?

*Muhyiddin’s greatest disservice to nation is his denial that Malaysia has been in throes of education crisis for past decade and making bottom 40 per cent of Malaysian parents and students happy because of the delusion of a “world class” and quality education.

*What type of an Education Minister we have got when Muhyiddin is completely unconcerned, indifferent and disinterested about the country’s educational woes highlighted by the 2012 PISA, 2011 TIMSS and World Bank’s adverse report on “High-Performing Education”?

*Which assessments should Malaysians believe – PMR or PISA/TIMSS?

The Curriculum Development Centre director, who is a civil servant, cannot answer these questions.

Only Muhyiddin as the No. 2 political leader  in the government and the Education Minister can  answer them.

When will Muhyiddin stop scurrying for cover and come forward to assume his Ministerial responsibilities for the national educational crisis of deteriorating educational standards confronting the nation in the years he is Education Minister?

In PISA, a 38 point difference is the equivalent of one schooling year of learning. This means that in the 2009 PISA, 15-year-olds in Malaysia are performing as though they have had three years’ less schooling than 15-year-olds in Shanghai, Singapore, Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong as Malaysia’s performance was  at least 100 points below that of their regional peers.

Instead of closing this gap under Muhyiddin’s stewardship in the Eduction Ministry, there is an even greater gulf between the performance of Malaysian students and their regional peers in 2012 PISA, even ranging from four to five years behind their peers in the  top-performing PISA countries/regions particularly in Shanghai, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan n the three critical subjects of maths, science and reading.

As Education Minister, isn’t Muhyiddin going to assume full responsibility for such shocking  retrogression in the standards of the Malaysian education system in the past four years, instead of passing the responsibility to the civil servants?

                This entry was posted on Monday, 23 December 2013, 1:43 pm and is filed under
Education
,
Muhyiddin Yassin
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


MCA’s reforms hollow without Umno’s, analysts say

By Syed Jaymal Zahiid

The Malay Mail Online

December 22, 2013

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 22 — MCA is unlikely to succeed with planned reforms to win back the Chinese community so long as Barisan Nasional (BN) lynchpin Umno continues to thrive on communal politics, said two political analysts.

Despite the winds of change blowing through the party that yesterday elected a new line-up of leaders, they said Umno’s dominance over government policies meant it was difficult for MCA to shake its seemingly subservient role to the Malay nationalist party that has disenchanted its traditional support base.

Since reinforcing its position by winning 88 of the 133 federal seats the coalition managed to retain in Election 2013, Umno has also gained a stranglehold over country’s administration by controlling 17 of the 25 ministerial posts in the government.

“Reform in MCA is dependent on Umno,” Prof James Chin, a political analyst with Monash University, told The Malay Mail Online yesterday.

“The reform would only go as internal party reform and not government policies,” Chin said of MCA’s planned transformation.

In yesterday’s party polls, MCA delegates voted in a new line of leadership in an election that is meant to resuscitate the ailing party and restore its former glory as Malaysia’s main Chinese party.

Some 2,300 delegates elected Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai as president and former Youth chief Datuk Wee Ka Siong as his deputy, both of whom are among the only seven MCA candidates that survived an opposition onslaught in the May 5 polls that saw its remaining 27 federal candidates were annihilated.

Liow had campaigned for the presidency on “meaningful and effective reforms” necessary to prevent the party from “fading into oblivion” and allow MCA to have the last word on matter affecting the Chinese community.

His victory yesterday also closed another chapter on MCA’s chronic infighting, ending a months-long feud with outgoing president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek.

This issue was highlighted by political analyst Khoo Kay Peng, who said MCA must first rid itself of factional politics if it plans to reform, noting that the warring camps were more interested in positions and their privileges than achieving change.

But Khoo said even if MCA were genuine in its desire for reform, its success would be dependent on Umno discarding the communal politics that seen as a major cause of the Chinese rejection of BN and the MCA.

“All the BN component parties will have to go back to the BN platform… MCA has to tell Umno that it must go back to fighting for the interests of all and not just the Malays.

“If Umno goes back to its BN principle of inclusiveness, it can get the support of the Chinese back,” Khoo told The Malay Mail Online.

Khoo noted that, in 1999, Umno and BN had survived a Malay voter backlash that followed the sacking of then deputy prime minister and current Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim on the back of Chinese support.

When opening MCA’s assembly yesterday, Umno president and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak at least was cognisant of the damage friendly fire from his party could do wreak on MCA.

“Especially Umno, we should not say things that hurt the feelings of the Chinese. This is not rocket science. If we want to uphold harmony, we cannot hurt the feelings of others and others should not hurt our feelings,” he said when reminding the various communities to be mindful of unseen boundaries when pressing their interests.

But gorged on its relative success in Election 2013 that saw most of its other allies lose ground, analysts believe Umno was unlikely to change its ways.

Since the May 5 polls, sections of the party have become bolder in calling for the Malay community to be rewarded for its support during Election 2013 and for others to be ostracised for failing to vote BN.

Although corruption and economic issues were credited with the urban vote going against BN, Umno leaders had sought to frame the result as a “Chinese tsunami”; at its annual general assembly earlier this month, delegates even suggested for “1 Melayu” to replace Putrajaya’s “1 Malaysia” and for the government to sideline the Chinese for voting against the ruling coalition.

Pointing to these and MCA’s perceived reluctance to confront Umno, Chin said it was clear why reforming MCA alone will not regain the Chinese vote for BN.

“You can see, the Chinese have completely abandoned MCA. There’s no point for reform,” he said.

Chin was also less than charitable about MCA’s professed intention to reform.

Just like others in BN parties, he said the second-largest component party was wracked by factionalism and warring camps made of self-serving leaders interested only in positions.

“The MCA polls is not about reform. It is about who is the successor to Soi Lek. Nothing more than that”.

The party’s political fortunes has been on a decline since 2008 but eyes continue to watch developments at the head of the party as it entails control over the billions of ringgit in assets and shares that include Malaysia’s best-selling English language newspaper, The Star.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 23 December 2013, 5:48 am and is filed under
1Malaysia
,
MCA
,
Najib Razak
,
UMNO
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.


Let Malaysians of all creeds embrace the universal message of “Peace on Earth, Goodwill to All” to build a united,  tolerant,  purposeful  and prosperous Malaysia with ever lessening racial hatred  and religious animosities in the coming years

Happy Christmas to all Christians  and all other Malaysians who share in the spirit of festivity and goodwill of all the important religious occasions in the country as part and parcel of our proud national heritage.

Let Malaysians of all creeds embrace the universal message of “Peace on Earth, Goodwill to All” to build a united, tolerant, purposeful and prosperous Malaysia with  ever lessening  racial hatred and religious animosities in the coming years.

It is sad but true that never before in the 56-year history of the nation have more racial hatred and religious animosities been propagated in the months before and after the 13th General Elections –  such as the dangerous and incendiary lies and falsehoods about the  attempt to establish a Christian Malaysia, the baseless conspiracy of the Chinese to oust the political power of the Malays or the fictitious secret agenda to abolish the Malay Rulers and set up a republic.

These are just lies, lies, lies but they are being spread and amplified in reckless abandon with official connivance on the social media and establishment printed media, starting before the 13th General Elections but with increasing abandon after May 5, 2013.

There had always been  such false and dangerous notions in the country preaching racial hatred and religious intolerance since the nation was founded in 1957 and Malaysia formed in 1963, but until recently they  had been firmly isolated at  the lunatic fringe of society.

It is a grave concern to all  thinking and patriotic Malaysians that in recent times, this lunatic fringe of society seems to have moved closer to the citadels of power securing  space and patronage for the propagation of its  message of racial hatred and religious intolerance.

Not only mainstream media but even  national conventions of ruling political parties have become platforms for such message of racial hatred and religious intolerance – as illustrated recently.

Malaysians of goodwill and sanity from all faiths must come forward to unite their energies and resources  to prevent these voices of unreason, hatred and intolerance from destroying Malaysia as a model of multi-racial, multi-religious and multi-cultural diversity in the globalised world.

This is  now the great challenge to all patriotic Malaysians, regardless of race, religion or region.

(2013 Christmas Message in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday, December 24, 2013)

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 24 December 2013, 6:44 am and is filed under
nation building
,
Religion
. You can follow any responses to this entry through
RSS 2.0
.