World Bank: Worsening education obstacle to Malaysia’s high-income hopes

The Malay Mail Online

December 11, 2013

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 11 — Education standards that were deteriorating despite Putrajaya spending twice as much as neighbouring countries on schools could stand in the way of Malaysia’s plans to join the ranks of developed nations, according to a recent World Bank report.

In a report titled “Malaysia Economic Monitor: High Performing Education” that echoes criticism over the recent performance of Malaysian schools, the World Bank highlighted the critical role quality education plays in a country’s aims to gain a high-income status.

In 2011, Malaysia spent the equivalent of 3.8 per cent of its gross domestic product on education, or more than twice the average 1.8 per cent within Asean nations.

“A nation’s human capital, which is largely built by its education system, is a fundamental driver of economic growth,” it said in the report.

“The quality of cognitive skills of Malaysian students, as measured by standardized international tests, is not on par with the country’s aspirations to become a high-income economy.”

In its report, the World Bank noted that while Malaysia has extensive coverage with its schools and achieved near-universal access that has nine in 10 Malaysian adults undergoing at least lower secondary education, a commensurate increase in quality was not observed.

“In addition to ensuring the system has the broadest possible coverage (quantity), the quality of education is perhaps even more critical.”

Pointing to the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey results were released last week, the World Bank was blunt with its assessment of Malaysia’s underperformance.

It said Malaysia did not only trail high-performing education systems in East Asia, but also poorer nations such as Vietnam, which outperformed the country by a significant margin.

In the latest edition of PISA, Malaysian students lagged far behind their peers in Singapore, who placed second behind top-scorers in Shanghai, China, as well as 15-year-olds in Thailand.

While Malaysian students registered marginal improvement for mathematics, they lost ground in both science and reading ability.

The combined results meant Malaysia was 52nd overall out of the 65 countries, and firmly entrenched in the bottom third of the survey.

Aside from the stagnant PISA performance, the World Bank also highlighted Malaysia’s continued decline in the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) benchmark in which the country once performed well.

“Learning outcomes in the TIMSS were above the international average between 1999 and 2003, but declined sharply in 2007 and further in 2011,” it said.

To arrest the decline, the World Bank said Malaysia needed to prioritise teacher quality over quantity, noting that the sharpest fall in education standards coincided with an aggressively expanded recruitment programme for educators.

It noted that the teacher population shot up by 30 per cent between 2004 and 2013, an issue that it said may have since worsened; the number of trainees enrolled in teacher training institutes have ballooned from 37,439 in 2011 to 46,491 this year.

Another problem was the low standards of those seeking to become teachers. It noted that 93 per cent of those applying for the Bachelor of Education programme did not have the necessary academic qualifications (3 distinctions or more at SPM level), while 70 per cent offered a place in the programme also fell into the category.

Only 3 per cent of offers went to applicants considered high-performers.

A lack of autonomy at schools was another noted weakness, saying that rigidity in both the syllabuses and their delivery were not conducive to the nature of education.

Explaining the teaching was “highly discretionary, variable, and transaction-intensive”, it said these characteristics made it difficult to pre-programme student-teacher interaction.

“The high level of centralisation in the Malaysian education system prevents efficient production and distribution of education services,” it concluded.

But the World Bank also pointed out that Malaysia already has a notion of how to arrest the decline, in the form of the Malaysian Education Blueprint 2013-2025 that was launched last month.

It noted that, among others, the blueprint contained a progression towards a school-based management system that would encourage greater autonomy, although it noted a lack of specificity about how such a system would operate.

It also lauded the blueprint’s plan to raise the profile of the teaching profession as well as entry requirements, but suggested the Education Ministry instead prioritise attempts to entice “high-ability” candidates to become teachers.

The World Bank further suggested an overhaul of the country’s teacher training colleges, noting that there existed “deep weaknesses in core skills” in the current set of graduates from such institutes.

The Malaysian Education Blueprint 2013-2025 aims to uplift the performance of Malaysian students from their current place in the bottom third of the PISA ranking to the opposite end.

Malaysia is also aiming to become a high-income nation by 2020.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 11 December 2013, 12:28 pm and is filed under
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Malaysia does not need any more robotic responses to  sliding educational standards but innovative reactions like making public the minimum passing marks of public exams and allowing parents to decide whether to adopt PPMSI

Malaysia’s declining educational standards is presently a taboo subject for the Deputy Prime Minister-cum-Education Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, who does not want to talk or to be asked about it, especially after two events in December which highlighted the sad reality that the  Malaysia education system  is facing a real crisis of confidence, unable to achieve the quality of education necessary to nurture skilled,  inquisitive and innovative workers for Malaysia to break out of the middle-income trap to reach the goal of becoming a high-income nation.

These two events were the release of the 2012 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) results on December 3, the first day of the week of UMNO general meetings, and the official release of World Bank’s latest Malaysian Economic Monitor themed “High-Performing Education”.

Instead of delegating to the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department. Datuk Seri Wahid Omar, Muhyiddin should have personally officiated at the release of the World Bank’s
“Malaysia Economic Monitor: High-Performing Education”
 which highlighted the importance of building a high-performance education system for Malaysia’s transformation into a high income, sustainable and inclusive economy.

In fact, the World Bank report  is not about Malaysia’s “high-performing education” but how Malaysia has fallen short of producing a high-performing education system based on Malaysia’s poor performances in two international education assessments – the 2011 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) where Malaysia’s scores were  significantly lower than those in 2003 and 2007 for both Math and Science, and  the 2012 PISA, where the Science and Reading scores fell compared to 2010 although the Math score showed improvement.

As the World Bank report pointed out: “Among East Asian countries that participated in the 2012 PISA, Malaysian students only outperform their Indonesian peers, and lag even lower-income countries (including by a wide margin, Vietnam).”

Malaysia suffers from three failures as a result of its poor performances in international educational benchmarks, below what would be expected of a country with its income per capita or level of educational expenditures, and well below the performance of the high-income economies that Malaysia aspires to compete against for innovation and knowledge-based investments.

Having failed to make a single mention of Malaysia’s poor performance in the 2012 PISA at the week-long UMNO general assemblies, whether in his opening speech of the Joint Annual General Meetings of Umno Youth, Wanita and Puteri on the night of Dec. 3 or the winding-up debate during the Umno General Assembly the following Saturday, Muhyiddin should have taken the opportunity of the release the World Bank’s Malaysia Economic Monitor: High-Performing Education in Kuala Lumpur yesterday to convince Malaysians that the Malaysian Education Blueprint (MEB) for Malaysia to be among the top one-third world-class education systems in the world by 2012  is a serious undertaking and commitment.

Instead, Muhyiddin evaded the best opportunity for him to assure Malaysians that despite the poor performances of Malaysia’s 15-year-olds in 2012 PISA – falling below the international average in the three critical subjects of Math, Science and Reading (or literacy), as well as   three or five years behind their peers in the top performing PISA countries/regions in Shanghai, Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan – Malaysia’s MEB plan to be a world-class international education hub to be among the top third best education systems in the world is no “pie in the sky” .

Be that as it may, the constant bombardment on Muhyiddin and the Education Ministry for  the poor Malaysian performances in the 2012 PISA since its results were released on Dec. 3 had certain effect, for it was announced in yesterday’s media that the Education Ministry has formed a special committee to elevate the ranking of Malaysian students in PISA.

Large groans could be heard all over the country at  this announcement as Malaysia does not need any more robotic responses to  sliding educational standards like establishment of another toothless committee but political will for genuine educational reforms and innovative reactions to firstly ensure greater educational accountability like making public the minimum passing marks of public exams and secondly, greater parental participation and ownership of national education systems as allowing parents to decide whether to adopt PPMSI.

In its response to the 2012 PISA results, the Education Ministry said in its statement: “Although the results of PISA 2012 were not so encouraging, the ministry is confident that Malaysia is capable of getting a better position in PISA 2015 through the implementation of Malaysia Education Blueprint, which was launched on Sept 6.”

Clearly, the person responsible for the Education Ministry statement does not know what is in the Malaysian Education Blueprint, for it is not about “getting a better position in PISA 2015” but breaking out of the  bottom-third PISA bracket and achieving the international PISA average in the 2015 PISA and 2018 PISA and breaking into a top-third PISA bracket in the 2021 PISA.

In other words, can Malaysia become a “wonder nation” to achieve what  no other country had ever achieved in four PISAs – a double quantum jump from bottom-third to top-third PISA brackets?

Are these PISA 2015, 1018 and 2021 targets for maths, science and reading still in place after the poor PISA 2012 results and the World Bank’s most adverse reports on “High Performing Education” in Malaysia?

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 12 December 2013, 5:04 pm and is filed under
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Questions for Umno delegates

Azly Rahman

Malaysiakini

Dec 11, 2013

Malaysia’s most exciting political party of the old, United Malays National Organisation (Umno) just had its general assembly. A ritual of the political blood transfusion and the annual health check and administration of medications and treatments of a body politics ageing and grumbling. Too much good food and good life. Too sedentary of a life after its early years of “winning the war of independence” through a victory presented essentially and arguably, on a silver platter.

With the advent of mega-issues such as the most hegemonic and imperialistic US-imposed proposal of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), the rise of fascist and hate-mongering groups, the disillusionment about our education system, run amuck and latah behaviors displayed in our Parliament, massive growth of the underclass amongst the overpopulated nation on immigrants shipped en masse to build the country to such giddy heights, a daily rise of cases of mindless crimes, a slackening and weakening school system that is criticised for not preparing the next generation for a competitive economy requiring the cultivation of brainpower, resilience, and a sense of economic republicanism with a heart of social-democraticism, the clamour for a sense of unity reminiscent of the 70s – with all these and more, why are the speeches in this party assembly out of focus?

Here are my questions to the Umno delegates:

Why can’t your speeches be about:

•Coming up with strategies to create a better understanding between the races, since we’ve been together for centuries?

•Designing our education system to be inclusive of all Malaysians with each race treated on equal terms,

•Helping any group progress, regardless of race, religion or political affiliation, since we are all lawful citizens and we are not going back to “where we belong”,

•Stopping this nonsense called ‘1Malay’ as a greeting since 1Malaysia is already enough as a meaningless slogan and even 1Mandela would be better,

•Dismantling all systems that will perpetuate hatred amongst us and redesign our lives around celebrating our strength in diversity,

•Find ways to unify all races as one dignified race of Malaysians united against any threats from outside (if there are any real or imagined),

•Coming together as Malaysians to redesign our education system that will truly enhance children’s understanding of concepts, skills, attitude to become good learners, global and transcultural in outlook, and will grow up to see each other as a human race with a common humane destiny, rather than see more divisions and destructions,

•Collaborating with all races to see how best we can help those who are marginalized regardless of race and religion, and how best we can design an economic system that will promote cooperation, collaboration, and the enculturalisation of conscience and conscientiousness amongst us, rather that perpetually create competitions that lead to hatred and warmongering,

•Mediating the differences between Muslims of different interpretive practices, schools of thoughts, ways of leading their ‘Islamic life’ rather than create bogeymen and bogey-women for the purpose of witch-hunting and persecuting each other of the things we cannot fully understand,

•Stopping the total closing of the Malay mind by constantly instilling fear of themselves since time immemorial, since feudal times, so that the Malays can be spared of being called stupid, weak, lazy, and dependent on Umno as savior – all these a perfect model of a Master-Slave Narrative.

We need new speeches, Umno, saner ones.

You are a political party more intelligent than this.

Umno is a party my beloved grandfather, a good ol’ Johorean, was proud of back in the days of its early struggle, back in Johor Baru where it all started. That was one grandfather whom I saw cried profusely in a corner by his old Sanyo radiogram, the day Abdul Razak Hussein died.

Behave now like an adult, Umno, you are almost 60!

Or – are your days numbered, and better dismantled altogether or reduced to an NGO?

Message to the prime minister

Mr Malaysian prime minister, here is my plea – help all Malaysians not just Malays. We’re all bumiputras now. We’ve toiled for the soil. And you’re prime minister for all.

Poverty now cuts across racial lines, with an increasing number of those in the middle class now falling below the poverty line. There is no strong rationale any more, after more than 50 years of independence, to continue policies that are based on racial lines. Doing this will guarantee another 50 years of race and class antagonism.

In education especially, scholarships need to be give based on merit, talent, and needs, not because one is a bumiputra or a Malay or because of the birthright of one’s race. Many of those in privileged boarding schools such as MRSM are not from families who are poor or who could not afford good and quality education. Many are from wealthy families.

There are deserving children from all races that must be given all the opportunities to excel, just like how the Malays from even the abject poor were given the chance back in the early 1970s when the MRSM system first started its first three schools.

Mr prime minister, you must be fair to all races. Open up the privileged MRSMs and other well-funded schools to more children of all races. It will be better for the nation.

Look at the plight other Malaysians. Promising a billion or so Ringgit in educational, entrepreneurial, and economic aid to only one race defined by one-dimensional construct is a wrong political act done with ill intentions. Be wise, in the remaining political time you and your party is given. Reverse the trend of apartheid-isation of education – for the sake of the future of our children.

The New Economic Policy has been replaced with the New Economic Agenda which promises fairness for all, not just the Malays and bumiputras. Honour that. There is enough to go around for everybody’s needs and not just to feed the few’s greed.

Aren’t most of your speeches filled with misplaced and uninformed hatred?

DR AZLY RAHMAN, born in Singapore and grew up in Johor Baru, holds a Columbia University (New York City) doctorate in International Education Development and Masters degrees in four areas: Education, International Affairs, Peace Studies and Communication. He has taught more than 40 courses in six different departments and has written more than 350 analyses on Malaysia. His teaching experience in Malaysia and the United States spans over a wide range of subjects, from elementary to graduate education. He has edited and authored four books; Multiethnic Malaysia: Past, Present, Future (2009), Thesis on Cyberjaya: Hegemony and Utopianism in a Southeast Asian State (2012), The Allah Controversy and Other Essays on Malaysian Hypermodernity (2013), and the latest Dark Spring: Ideological Roots of Malaysia’s GE-13 (2013). He currently resides in the United States. Twitter,

blog.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 12 December 2013, 6:34 am and is filed under
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Latest government research confirms 2012 PISA and World Bank report that Malaysia will not produce the highly-skilled workers for the country to become a high-income nation unless there is an educational transformation in pursuit of excellence

The latest government research has confirmed 2012 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) and World Bank report on
“Malaysia Economic Monitor: High-Performing Education”
 that Malaysia will not produce the highly-skilled workers for the country to become a high-income nation unless there is an educational transformation in Malaysia in pursuit of excellence and not just  mediocrity.

Lee Chee Sung, the adviser of Institute of Labour Market Information and Analysis (ILMIA) – which comes under the direct purview of the Ministry of Human Resources – said at the launch of the official ILMIA portal in Kuala Lumpur yesterday that although more than 400,000 job opportunities were created last year, Malaysia is still not a high income nation because it lacks highly skilled workers.

At the same function, the Human Resources Minister Datuk Richard Riot Jaem acknowledged that at the moment, about 28 per cent  out of the 12.7 million strong labour force in the country is made up of high-skilled workers and the government’s target is to bring the number of high-skilled workers up to 50 per cent of the total workforce by 2020.

However, both the two important international education benchmarks – 2011 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and the 2012 PISA – have shown that Malaysia is doing a poor job in developing the nation’s human capital although it is a fundamental driver of economic growth.

As pointed out by the World Bank’s latest Malaysia Economic Monitor, education systems build cognitive skills, equipping workers with knowledge that makes them more productive and allows innovation to emerge.  From basic literacy to advanced engineering, the knowledge transmitted in schools is critical for a society’s economic and social progress.

The problem facing education in Malaysia is not quantity or access to education but quality or access to quality education, and the World Bank has described ensuring Malaysia has a high-performing education system as “a lynchpin of Malaysia’s transformation into a high-income, sustainable and inclusive economy”.

This is why all Malaysians must be seriously concerned about the crisis of the Malaysian education system when  Malaysia’s performance in standard international student assessments is below what would be expected of a country with its income per capita or level of educational expenditures, and well below the performance of the high-income economies that Malaysia aspires to compete against for innovation and knowledge-based investments.

Malaysia faces a twin “miracle” problem in  achieving a high-performing education system, to pull the education system up by its bootstraps to ensure:

1.  that Malaysia’s 15-year-olds who under 2012 PISA are below the international average in the three critical subjects of Math, Science and Reading, as well as   three or five years behind their peers in the top performing PISA countries/regions in Shanghai, Singapore, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan could make the double quantum jump  in 2021 PISA from the bottom-third to the top-third of PISA system; and

2. a multiple increase in the percentage of students who are  top-performers in math, science and reading.

In the 2012 PISA mathematics, Shanghai-China has the largest proportion of students who are top performers, i.e. at Level 5 or 6 (55.4%) followed by 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.

In contrast, only a mere 1.3% of the students in Malaysia are “top performers”, while more than half of Malaysian students (51.8%) do not reach basic proficiency levels in Mathematics (i.e. Below Level 2).

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

Noteworthy is that Malaysia’s performance is well below that of lower-income Vietnam, which participated in the PISA for the first time in 2012, registering 13.3% of the Vietnamese students as “top performers” with only 14.2% of the students below the basic proficiency level in Mathematics.

The comparative  2012 PISA scores for Vietnam and Malaysia deserve close study by  Malaysian political leaders, education planners and parents:

 		Maths  	     Science 	Reading

Vietnam	        511		528 		508

Malaysia	421		420		398

Has Malaysia the political will to transform the Malaysian education system into high-performing one in the pursuit of excellence and not just mediocrity so that Malaysia can achieve the goal of a high-income, sustainable and inclusive economy in 2020?

                This entry was posted on Friday, 13 December 2013, 4:20 pm and is filed under
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Has the Malaysian Education Blueprint 2013-2025  become “Miracle Education Blueprint”?

The 2012 PISA results assessing 510,000 15-year-old students in 65 countries in mathematics, science and reading have been hailed as “wake-up” calls in the United Kingdom and the United States provoking much national soul-searching about the mediocrity of their education systems compared to top-performers like Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan.

In Malaysia, however, the government and the education authorities are very complacent and  continue to slumber away although Malaysian students are far behind their peers in UK and US in the assessment in  all the three subjects.

Compared to the 2009 PISA, Malaysia improved in math but fell in scores for science and reading: math 421, science 420 and reading 398.

These compare  unfavourably with the scores for 15-year-old students in UK (math  494, science 514, reading 499) and US (math 481, science 497, reading 498).

Based on the difference of 38 points on the PISA scale being equivalent to one year of schooling, the 2012 PISA results indicate that Malaysian 15-year-old students are  1.9 to 2.7 years  behind their peers in UK in the three subjects: math behind by 1.9 years; science behind by 2.4 years and reading behind by 2.7 years.

It is not only Malaysian 15-year-olds who are 1.9 to 2.7 years behind their peers in the United Kingdom in math, science, and reading (and three to five years behind their peers in Shanghai, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Macao and Japan), it is clear that the Malaysian political leaders and education planners are many years behind their counterparts in UK and US in their poor response to the 2012 PISA results.

For instance, up to now, there is not a single word from the Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, with regard to Malaysia’s poor performance in the 2012 PISA!

Muhyiddin cannot just fall back on the Malaysian Education Blueprint 2013-2025 (MEB), for the 2012 PISA results have exposed the utopian nature of its objective to make a double quantum jump from the bottom third to the top third of the PISA assessment by the 2021 PISA  – a feat no nation had achieved in four triennial PISAs.

May be the MEB should more appropriately termed “Miracle Education Blueprint” for expecting the Malaysian education to achieve a miracle by 2021.

Malaysia is presently stuck in the bottom third of the PISA system for all three subjects, i.e. 421 for maths, 420 for science and 398 for reading, when Malaysia needs to achieve scores of 450 for maths, 442 for science and 446 for reading to get into the middle third and scores of 532 for maths, 511 for science and 508 for reading to get into the top third of the PISA assessment.

This is based on 2012 PISA as from the four triennial PISA tests of 2003, 2006, 2009 and 2012, the threshold for each third of the assessment rises, for instance, the top performer in maths in 2003 was Hong Kong with a score of 550 while Shanghai topped the 2012 PISA with 613.

Similarly, the top performer in science in 2003 was Finland with a score of 548 while the top performer in 2012 PISA is Shanghai with a score of 580; and the top performer in reading in 2003 was Finland with a score of 543 while Shanghai topped the 2012 PISA with 570.

Based on the 2012 PISA without taking account that the thresholds for each level would be raised in the next ten years, Malaysia would have to improve a minimum of 111 points for math, 91 points for science and 110 points for reading between the 2012 PISA and the 2015, 2018 and  2021 PISA to get into the top third of the assessment.

This is virtually asking for a miracle from the Malaysian education system, why the MEB is more fit to be described as “Miracle Education Blueprint”.

As a result of constant bombardment and criticism for the 2012 PISA since its publication on Dec 3, the Education Ministry has announced a special committee to “elevate” the ranking of Malaysian students in PISA.

The first thing that this special PISA committee should examine is whether the MEB objective for Malaysia to make the double quantum jump from the bottom third to the top third of the international education benchmarking by 2021 PISA is a realistic and achievable one, or whether it is too utopian and impossible to achieve and should be scrapped and replaced by another  more practical and realistic target.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 14 December 2013, 4:22 pm and is filed under
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DAP calls for genuine educational transformation to ensure “educational excellence for all students” and not just for 1.3% of the student population with over  51% failures

Both the current Education Minister, Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and his predecessor Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein must be held responsible for the decline and deterioration of educational standards in Malaysia in the past decade, as illustrated by the 2007 and 2011 TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) and the 2009 and 2012 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment).

This is because Hishammuddin was Education Minister from 2004 – 2009, and must be held solidly responsible for Malaysia’s poor performance in the 2007 TIMSS and 2009 PISA while Muhyiddin, who had taken over the Education Ministry in April 2009, must bear full responsibility for Malaysia’s educational performance in the 2011 TIMSS and 2012 PISA.

I have a vested interest in the performance of Malaysian students in international educational benchmarking, as I was responsible in getting Malaysia involved in the global educational assessments in the first place.

In 1996, I met the then Education Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Run Razak, and persuaded him that Malaysia should  participate in TIMSS, as I had emailed the organisers of TIMSS, the Netherlands-based International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), inquiring about Malaysia’s participation in TIMSS as Malaysia had not participated in the four-yearly TIMSS assessment for eight-grade (Form Two) students.

Najib agreed with me that Malaysia should participate in the international educational assessments so that we know where Malaysian students stand with their peers in other countries, resulting in Malaysia’s first participation in a global educational assessment in the 1999 TIMSS.

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.

In 2003 TIMSS, Malaysia’s performance was similar to that of 1999. The Science score actually increased, remaining well-above the international average, while the Mathematics score dropped somewhat but also stayed above the international average  and the country’s rank actually improved to 10th place among 45 countries.

I still remember that in my response to the 2003 TIMSS results in December 2004, I  cautioned Hishammuddin from being too euphoric at Malaysia’s performance, suggesting that a special committee should be formed  to analyse the results of the TIMSS 2003 as well as  to work out a strategy to emplace Malaysia among the top five scorers in future TIMSS surveys, as there is no reason why Malaysia cannot be ranked among the top five scorers whether for mathematics or science.

In the 2003 TIMSS, Asian students dominated the maths and science tests, with Singapore leading top performers in both mathematics and science, as illustrated by the following results:

Grade-Eight Students:

Top Five in Maths (with score)

1.

Singapore

605

2.

South Korea

589

3.

Hong Kong

586

4.

Taiwan

585

5.

Japan

570

International Average

466

Top Five in Science

1.

Singapore

578

2.

Taiwan

571

3.

South Korea

558

4.

Hong Kong

556

5.

Estonia & Japan

552

International Average

473

I said in December 2004 that if  Malaysia cannot squeeze into the top five, we should at least be world’s No. 6 in both the international  maths and science tests.

Unfortunately, this was not the case  and the 2007 and 2011 TIMSS showed a significant  deterioration in performance for Malaysian students as compared to their peers in other countries.

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.

Malaysia participated  in the triennial  PISA assessments for 15-year-old students in 2009 and 2012 and performed poorly, stuck in the bottom third for Reading, Mathematics and Science, well below the international and OECD averages, as well as the level of performance expected  given Malaysia’s income level and that of high income economies that Malaysia aspires to join.

What is most disturbing from the 2012 PISA results is that more than half of Malaysian students (51.8%) do not reach basic proficiency levels in Mathematics, i.e. “low performers below Level 2” in 2012 PISA  and only 1.3% of the students are “top performers” (at Level 5 or 6 in 2012 PISA).

In contrast,  Shanghai-China (55.4%) has the largest proportion of students who are top performers, i.e. at Level 5 or 6 for mathematics  followed by 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.

These 2012 PISA figures do not tally with the local data as according to the 2012 Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR), the failure rate for maths is only 6.3% as compared to the 51.8% in 2012 PISA.

Muhyiddin and the Education Ministry officials should explain this discrepancy but what is very obvious, and which the DAP urgently calls for, is genuine educational transformation to ensure  that the objective of our education system is “educational excellence for all students” and not just for 1.3% of the student population with over  51% failures.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 15 December 2013, 9:14 am and is filed under
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Saluting M’sia’s Mandelas

Dean Johns

Malaysiakini

Dec 14, 2013

In the wake of the death of the man who led South Africa to freedom from apartheid, many here have wondered whether there will ever be a Mandela-style leader to liberate Malaysia from the curse of Barisan Nasional.

Of course this robber-regime has already made a brazen bid to steal the spirit of Mandela for itself, with Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak ludicrously claiming that his Umno party’s ‘struggle’ is similar to that of South Africa’s ANC.

A claim that was neatly rebutted by US President Barack Obama in his speech in celebration of the life of Nelson Mandela, in which his statement that “there are too many leaders who claim solidarity with Madiba’s struggle for freedom, but do not tolerate dissent from their own people” was clearly directed at the Najibs of the world.

In any event, there was never much of a struggle to free Malaysia from colonial rule, except by socialists, trade unionists and communists.

And the Alliance that finally achieved Merdeka under the benevolent and broad-minded leadership of Tunku Abdul Rahman all too soon degenerated into the Umno-dominated Barisan Nasional that has ever since so disgracefully re-colonised the nation for its own and its cronies’ benefit.

So that just as Mandela’s dream of a resurgent South Africa has degenerated into the current reality of a sink-hole of gross inequality, rampant crime and corruption under the unlovely Jacob Zuma, so has Tunku Abdul Rahman’s idea and ideal of Malaysia descended into today’s Najib-style nightmare.

Vastly aided and accelerated in this descent by 22 years under the prime-ministership of Mahathir Mohamad, a cynical, self-serving autocrat who modelled himself not on South Africa’s Nelson Mandela, but on his old pal Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, in his efforts to turn Malaysia into some kind of personal Zimbabi.

And he claimed to be doing it all, as his successors have similarly pretended, in ‘defence’ of the Malays and Islam. When in fact as any intelligent person, Malay, Muslim or otherwise, very well knows, the BN regime would be an absolute disgrace to any race or religion.

BN has also by implication insulted Malays by falsely patronising them as backward, ignorant and ineffectual, and, considering they compose the majority of the nation’s citizens systematically robbed them even more unmercifully than Malaysians of other races.

Stealing so many countless billions of ringgit that should otherwise be spent on health, education, public infrastructure and social services that Malaysia has for years led the world in illicit capital outflow per capita.

And otherwise misappropriating such a fortune in public funds for such purposes as buying votes, funding regime-propagandist media and supporting regime ministers, members and cronies in their preposterously profligate lifestyles that the country can no longer afford even the pretence of properly caring for the people.

Attempts to keep up the pretence

Though of course the regime makes strenuous attempts to keep up the pretence, as with Prime Minister Najib’s laughable claim that removal of the subsidy on sugar sold by BN monopolists is an anti-diabetes initiative, and increases in electricity tariffs are necessary for the continuing profitability of filthy-rich crony power companies.

However, none of Najib’s endless flow of frauds or falsehoods are as low as his attempt during the recent Umno general assembly to pass off BN’s 52 to 47 loss of the national vote as ‘proof’ that Umno is the “bravest and most popular party in Malaysia”.

Everybody is patently aware that this alleged popularity was achieved through blatant voter bribery and every other conceivable kind of electoral corruption and fraud.

And as for the claim of bravery, just how brave does a party have to be to fight elections, in blatant breach of the democratic principle of the fundamental democratic principle of the separation of powers, with the entire might of the police, judiciary, civil services, election commission and mainstream media on its side?

With such overwhelmingly superior forces ranged against the rakyat, Malay and non-Malay alike, and with the whole corrupt and criminal system illegally funded with public money, it’s no wonder so many Malaysians have taken to hoping and praying for a Mandela-style saviour.

But what’s the point of waiting for the kind of charismatic leader who arises as rarely as a Nelson Mandela? In any case, as I’m sure the great man himself in his legendary humility would have been the first to concede he was just the foremost among many.

Hundreds if not thousands of black, coloured and even white South Africans suffered, and a great many died for the anti-apartheid cause. In fact one of the common ways in which the white regime’s jailers killed anti-apartheid activists in their custody was by what they called “defenestration”: throwing them out through high windows.

A practice later allegedly adopted by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission in several cases, most notoriously that of the young DAP “witness”, Teoh Beng Hock, whose ‘fall’ from a 14th-floor window of the MACC building was subsequently deemed by the BN regime as “neither murder nor suicide”, and whose interrogators have never been charged with his killing.

But back to the point I’m ineptly endeavouring to make, which is that it takes more than one man or woman, even one as gifted and courageous as Nelson Mandela, to overthrow a corrupt, criminal, racist and repressive government.

And it’s clearly evident that Malaysia is blessed with countless such honest, upstanding, tolerant, truth-loving people. From many if not most of the leadership of opposition parties PAS, PKR and the DAP through unprecedented numbers of activists in opposition NGOs to countless individuals who blog, write, cartoon and otherwise fearlessly express the Malaysian Mandela spirit.

I mention no names for fear of missing some out, and in any case there’s not space here to list even a small fraction of them. But I will take a line or two to pay particular personal tribute to the Malaysian family in which I am proud to have married.

A family currently headed by my 90-year-old Chinese father-in-law and much younger Malay mother-in law, and so dedicated to the concept of racial equality as to welcome not just me, an Australian, but other members from afar afield as Botswana and Germany.

But of course Malaysians and their families don’t have to intermarry with other races to demonstrate their enlightened, egalitarian natures.

All they and the individuals of which they are composed have to do is proselytise, protest and above all vote at every opportunity in the spirit of Mandela and out of love for an honest, clean, inclusive and thus, by definition, BN-free Malaysia.

As a majority did in GE13, and as I’m willing to bet almost anything you like overwhelming numbers will do come the increasingly eagerly-awaited GE14.

DEAN JOHNS, after many years in Asia, currently lives with his Malaysian-born wife and daughter in Sydney, where he coaches and mentors writers and authors and practises as a writing therapist. Published books of his columns for Malaysiakini include ‘Mad about Malaysia’, ‘Even Madder about Malaysia’, ‘Missing Malaysia’, ‘1Malaysia.con’ and ‘Malaysia Mania’.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 15 December 2013, 11:48 am and is filed under
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The wrath of a losing ‘winner’

Richard Loh

December 15, 2013

Malaysians should be very proud of their country, a nation where they are born into, raised and will die and buried here irrespective of what kind of government they have. But sadly many still could not differentiate between the country that they owned (belong to) and an elected government that are supposed to serve. The long serving one party (precisely 56 years) has gone overboard and arrogant to remind the rakyat that they must be grateful and be patriotic to the powers that be.

 Most Malaysians are moving forward fast and are adapting well to the various changes that are ongoing together with the outside world but are pulled back or hindered by a restrictive government that are not willing to open up and face the present day reality. The results of the 12th and 13th General Elections have shown that most Malaysians wanted to move along with the rest of the world but post 308 and 505 gave you a more opaque and an intolerance government.

 They are still using the old formula of divide and rule, enhancing their racism and religious intolerance including veiled threats which they thought can still work to their advantage and hold on to power. We wish them all the best except not to create chaos and ‘crushed bodies and lives lost’ to fulfill their wish of holding on to power.

 Are Malaysians really that blind, dumb and deaf to fall yet again to all these antics? Yes, there are still 47% of the voters that believe in them.
 What then can we do to make the ruling government listen to us? Guess there is not much we can do individually but to lend support to a greater force that can challenged the ruling government to ensure that they served the rakyat and not the reverse and if possible a total change in GE 14. Presently we have this greater force by the name of Pakatan Rakyat.

 Many would not agree that Pakatan Rakyat is the greater force. Let me just ask one question and let you decide if PR is or is not the greater force. Why is the ruling government going all out to kill-off DAP, activating their ‘speculative moles’ inside PKR and enticing PAS in talks? The motive is very clear for all to see, “TO BREAK UP or DESTROYED PAKATAN RAKYAT” before GE 14.

 With the reintroduction of ‘detention without trial’, The Peaceful Assembly Act 2012, fuelling anti-Shia sentiments, no intention of removing the sedition act and the daily doses of veiled threats against anything that are challenging their stay in power comes GE 14, Pakatan Rakyat must be at their toes at all times.

 The machinery “TO BREAK UP or DESTROYED PAKATAN RAKYAT” before GE 14 has gain momentum each passing day and I would like to provide PR my 2sen worth of suggestion.

 Their modus operandi is very simple, to keep PR coalition parties busy fighting the fires which are thrown at them be it lies or slanders ranging from racial, religious issues to just about anything that they can think of to ensure that PR is broken or destroyed by GE 14.

 PR must form a council or committee comprising members from all the three parties and on full time basis. The members should be from the younger generation that are trustworthy, with integrity and are presently not elected MPs or Adun. Elected representatives will be busy with their work functions to serve the rakyat and nation on pressing daily issues. The senior leaders can act as advisers. The council job functions are to study all the attacks from the opponent collectively, work out counter solutions and response to the attacks on PR platform. If time permit and if experienced enough, this council should also be on the look out and identify suspected moles.

 No doubt there may be such a council in each party where each party will response to the attacks individually. It may work that way but at times there are conflicting responses from each other that gave more bullets to the opponent for further attacks.

 The new PR council should be able to identify if the attack is very specific to a certain party but will still study together to provide solution and response. This response will be conveyed to that particular party leader before any statement is issued publicly. Most attacks are interlinked within the three parties, it would be better to study, resolve and make a final PR stand to ward of the attacks. PR must be able to work together, to help each other and resolve matters on a standard platform no matter how hard the attacks are.

 Pakatan Rakyat is a coalition of three parties that are supposed to be equal partners but sometimes we still read about party members going after each others throat. Should there be any disagreement, the problems can be forwarded to the new PR council to try and find a solution before any of these go to the press. One thing PR politicians must learn is, try not to talk too much to the press (especially in this country) on personal and party issues should there be any differences among you all, one minute of fame can destroy you if not the party!

 Unless there are any hidden agenda within each individual party or lack of credible members, I see no problem in forming a new PR council or committee to work in tandem and proving to Malaysians that PR is the greater force that can bring down a very much disliked present government in GE 14.

 This is not the case of ‘too many cooks spoil the soup’ but ‘united we stand, divided we fall’.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 15 December 2013, 4:35 pm and is filed under
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‘Why I had to leave Malaysia’

Neal K| October 11, 2013

Free Malaysia Today

Malaysia Truly Asia…what about Malaysia being TRULY Malaysia first?
COMMENT

“Lima tiga pound,” says the souvenir vendor in busy Oxford Street London. That many Malaysians throng to England’s capital.

The bargain hunters are mainly tourists travelling in groups or two in one holiday makers who’ve either just settled or visited their children studying here.

You can clearly tell them apart from the upper crusts…and the newly minted Malaysian elites who waltz into the city. The upper crusts, including seasoned business classes, will not be posing in front Selfridges or Harrods for ‘say cheese’ pictures. That’s reserved for the majority of the citizenry…as well as benefactors of ill-gotten wealth who simply cannot hide their simple natures, even in their posh new lifestyles.

Then there’s the section of Malaysians who have made Britain their adopted home. They watch. They feel. And they still talk about ‘back home’. Home is still Malaysia, even for those forced into giving up their citizenship.

Raven, in his 40’s now, came to England to study while in his 20’s, met a beautiful French lady and eventually married her in 1997. Thankfully, his wife Phillipa liked Malaysia and was agreeable to settling down in her husband’s birthplace. As the first born son with filial obligations Raven couldn’t be happier and he quickly got a lecturing job in KL.

Six years and two children later Phillipa was still with her social visa, which meant annual renewal and no right to work to support her husband. Besides being a trained accountant she was also a qualified French teacher…both skills she was eager to use but vehemently being denied by her host country.

As for her PR application, which she was eligible for after five years, the response was always the same…‘there’s a long wait…. more than 20,000 people waiting, this could take 20 years’.

Today, sitting in the cosy lounge of his own three-bed flat in south London, Raven laughs as he remembers. “How can I forget those days lah? It was always ‘ini susah ni, ada banyak fail encik’. And then the most frustrating thing is when you see obviously Indonesian looking people excitedly showing off their new ICs! Ask them how long they’ve been in the country and they tell you a year and a half!”

There was of course the ‘friendlier’ means of getting things done but the young couple could not afford ‘that way’, and neither would their conscience allow for it.

So Raven and Phillipa chose conscience over corruption and decided to give the system more time. After putting up with it unsuccessfully for another two years, the panic button began to flash as the children were ready for formal education.

Worrying education system

The heavily polarized Malaysian education system worried them-as it did all young non-Malay Malaysian families. There were too many stories from family and friends of their sad experiences with national schools.

“I knew myself how things had changed in the school my brothers and I attended-even in a former mission school. As non Malays, the options were only two-put your children in a Chinese school or be prepared to burn a hole in your pocket for private education. With me being the sole bread winner on a lecturer’s salary, the situation was very, very worrying,” says Raven.

Raven also couldn’t answer his wife’s questions about knowingly raising their children in an environment where the playing field will never be equal. No amount of ‘think about the lovely weather, wonderful food, low cost of living, holidays’ would assuage her anymore. Besides, his own voice was beginning to ring hollow to himself.

As an accountant he did what comes naturally-calculation. The cost of putting two children through private education in Malaysia and then sending them abroad for higher education was staggering. The couple started to look at the only other option in hand.

In 2003 Raven got himself a lecturing job in a college in London. For 15 months he lived alone, away from his family as he couldn’t afford to bring them with him. His hard work paid off and in early 2005 Phillipa and the two children joined Raven in England.

The children went to local government schools where both became high achievers within four years and were selected for entry into elite grammar schools. “I saved them the heart-break of seeing less qualified bumi students going off to elite boarding schools, didn’t I?” Raven asks and I can only smile sheepishly.

Phillipa taught French in various institutions and is now happily settled as a housewife since her son and daughter are in their early teens, already aiming for grades that will get them into universities of their choice.

“It broke my heart to fill up the Borang K to give up my Malaysian citizenship. My head was spinning….and ok lah I admit I cried a bit. My whole family, friends that I grew up with, all my wonderful memories-I didn’t want to leave all that, but what choice did I have? Looking at the progress my kids have made in this country I know from every nerve in my body that they would not have stood the same chance in Malaysia.”

I know I can’t argue with Raven. I try another approach-isn’t there racism in England, and how can you bear this balmy weather all the time!?

“Do you really think today’s Malaysians can dare question any other country about racism? Look at your civil service as well as your private sector. And surely you can’t tell me you haven’t heard about the children that were forced to eat in the ‘shower area’? The day that story broke out my daughter gave me a hug and said ‘thank you dad’.”

“Of course I miss my roti canai, teh tarik and char kuey teow,” Raven concludes broodingly, yet he leaves me wondering how long more Malaysia as a nation can survive on the good food, great weather and lovely people slogan.

Malaysia Truly Asia…what about Malaysia being TRULY Malaysia first?

“Watch it with what you write there….you might be the next one asked to ‘leave the country if you are not happy’,” warns the former Malaysian.

The writer is doing a course with a leading newspaper in the British capital and seizes the opportunity to ‘lepak’ and lookout for all things us in this new column called ‘London Lookout’.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 15 December 2013, 4:00 pm and is filed under
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Muhyiddin’s MEB – “Miracle Education Blueprint” – expects Malaysian students to perform  three educational  miracles in his 13-year Three-Wave Educational Transformation Plan

The 2012 PISA results have been regarded as a “wake-up” call in many countries, provoking national soul-searching about the efficacy and competitiveness of their education systems compared to other countries, including Finland which fell from its pedestal as the top-performing  OECD country, scoring  519 points for mathematics, Canada (518), Australia (504), New Zealand (500), United Kingdom (494) and the United States (481).

Although the first four countries are above the OECD average for mathematics, i.e. 494 points while UK’s score is the same as the OECD average,  the US score of  481 is  below the OECD average.

Malaysia with maths score at 421  is far behind these countries with our  15-year-old students behind their peers in Finland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK and US by 1.6 to 2.6 school years.

Yet the Finnish, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, UK and US political leaders including Education Ministers or their equivalents, education planners and parents are having a major debate over the 2012 PISA results but in Malaysia, led by the Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister, there is disgusting complacency and indifference about Malaysia’s poor performance in 2012 PISA.

It is coming to two full weeks but  Muhyiddin has yet to say a single word about the 2012 PISA results released on Dec. 3 although the main objective for the quality of our education system in Muhyiddin’s Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2015 (MEB) is to be ranked the top third of countries participating in PISA and TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Survey).

Instead of boldly stepping forward to assume responsibility for the poor 2012 PISA results as he was already Education Minister since the previous 2009 PISA, Muhyiddin has “run for  cover” avoiding any  discussion of the 2012 PISA.

Instead, he got the Education Ministry to come out with a statement a week after the release of the 2012 PISA results which befuddled  rather than clarified the educational woes faced by the country.

An unsourced and unquoted  Education Ministry statement on Tuesday, 10th December said:

“Although the results of PISA 2012 were not so encouraging, the ministry is confident that Malaysia is capable of getting a better position in PISA 2015 through the implementation of MEB, which was launched on Sept 6”.

According to the statement, as an immediate move, the ministry had set up a special committee to elevate the ranking of the Malaysian students in PISA.

This Committee on Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and PISA would be  led by the ministry’s Curriculum Development Division and would identify and monitor the initiatives needed to be implemented for a programme for international student assessments.

Who are these faceless, nameless and headless “miracle people” who will be responsible for the double quantum jump of Malaysian students in the bottom third to the top third of international educational assessments like PISA and TIMSS?

This is in fact a most dishonest and irresponsible statement as a special task force on PISA and TIMSS had been formed not after the 2012 PISA results were released on Dec. 3, 2013  but after 2007 TIMSS and 2009 PISA to ensure that Malaysia can improve on our performances in the 2011 TIMSS and 2012 PISA.

But this TIMSS and PISA Task Force was a dismal failure, as both the  2011 TIMSS and the 2012 PISA  results were even worse for Malaysia than their previous counterparts, i.e. 2007 TIMSS and 2009 PISA.

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

In 2003 TIMSS, Malaysia’s performance was similar to that of 1999. The Science score actually increased, remaining well-above the international average, while the Mathematics score dropped somewhat but also stayed above the international average and the country’s rank actually improved to 10th place among 45 countries.

The 2007 and 2011 TIMSS showed a significant deterioration in performance for Malaysian students as compared to their peers in other countries.

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).

In the four TIMSS 1999-2011, Malaysia is the country which suffered the biggest drop in scores among all participating countries for both maths and science: in maths dropping by 79 points from 519 in 1999 to 440 in 2011; in science, dropping by 66 points from 492 in 1999 to 426 points in 2011.

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.

For PISA 2009 and 2012, Malaysia performed in the bottom third for maths, science and reading, well below the international and OECD averages, as well as the level of performance expected given Malaysia’s income level and that of high income economies that Malaysia aspires to join. More than half of Malaysian students do not reach proficiency levels in maths – or in simple terms, they failed.

The Education Ministry TIMSS and PISA Task Force to improve on Malaysia’s performances in the 2011 TIMSS and 2012 PISS as a prelude to the implementation of MEB was therefore a big flop, and gives no cause for the unwarranted complacency and unfounded over-confidence in the Education Ministry statement of Dec. 10  about Malaysia “capable of getting a better position in PISA 2015 through the implementation of MEB”.

In fact, Muhyiddin owes Malaysians an explanation why the Education Ministry’s TIMSS and PISA Task Force was such a failure in failing to improve on the performances of Malaysian students in the 2011 TIMSS and 2012 PISA.

The Education Ministry is guilty of sophistry when it implies that it would be  satisfied if Malaysia improves on its scores in the PISA 2015.

Let us examine what is promised in the MEB. Malaysians have been promised “three waves of reform” in 13 years in  the MEB educational transformation – Wave 1 (2013-15), Wave 2 (2016-2020) and Wave 3 (2021-25).

Wave 1 is to “turn around system by supporting teachers and focusing on core skills”; Wave 2 to “accelerate system improvement” and Wave 3 to “Move towards excellence with increased operational flexibility.”

By Wave 2 (2016 – 2020), Malaysia’s performance will be at par with the international average at the next PISA and TIMMS  cycle and by Wave 3 (2021-2025), Malaysia performance on PISA and TIMMS will be in the top third of the systems.

What does this mean in practical terms?

If Malaysia is to at par with the  PISA international average (500 Points) in Wave 2 (2016-2020), then Malaysia must achieve at least 500 points in the 2018 PISA.

Malaysia is presently stuck in the  bottom third of the PISA system for all three subjects, i.e. 421 for maths, 420 for science and 398 for reading or occupying the middle or lower half of the bottom third of PISA scores.

If Malaysia is to attain the PISA international average of 500 points in 2018 PISA, then in the next 2015 PISA, Malaysia must at least elevate from its lowly bottom-third ranking to the middle-third ranking, which means getting at least 450 points for maths, 446 for science and 442 reading so that it could be positioned in Wave 2 to elevate its scores to be at par with the international average of 500 points in the 2018 PISA.

This would mean that in the 2015 PISA,  Malaysia would have to achieve a miraculous performance and improvement of at least 29 points for maths, 26 points for science, and 44 points for reading; and another miraculous performance to reach the international average of 500 points and improvement of at least 50 points for maths, 54 points for science and 58 for reading in the 2018 PISA.

Malaysia will have to perform a third educational miracle if we are to achieve Wave 3 objective to reach the “top third” of PISA, as the threshold to get into the top third of PISA will be 532 for maths, 511 for science and 508 for reading.

No country had ever achieved even one such educational miracle in  improvement of PISA scores but Muhyiddin expects Malaysian students to perform three educational miracles in the next 13 years!

All these figures are based on the 2012 PISA results, as from the four triennial PISA tests of 2003, 2006, 2009 and 2012, the threshold for each third bracket of the assessment rises, for instance, the top performer in maths in 2003 was Hong Kong with a score of 550 while Shanghai topped the 2012 PISA with 613.

What does the Education Ministry mean when it says it is confident that Malaysia can do better in the 2015 PISA?

As Malaysia 2012 PISA score for maths is 421, science  420 and reading 398,  would the Education Ministry claim vindication if the 2015 PISA scores are one-point improvement for each subject, i.e. 422 for Maths, 421 for science and 399 for reading.

This will completely ignore the 13-year MEB objective to reach the top third of PISA score in 2021, which would require Malaysia in Wave 1 of MEB and the 2015 PISA to achieve a  minimum score of 450 for maths, 446 for science and 442 for reading!

Can Muhyiddin’s MEB achieve three educational miracles for Malaysia in the next 13 years?

On further reflection, the description of Muhyiddin’s MEB as “ Miracle Education Blueprint” is quite appropriate and pertinent.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 16 December 2013, 4:29 pm and is filed under
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Debunking the Umno Baru myths

Mariam Mokhtar

Malaysiakini

Dec 16, 2013

Malay apathy is one of the most depressing features of Malaysian life. It is widely known that many Malays are work-shy, addicted to drugs and in long-term unemployment. Despite the early introduction of religious indoctrination, many Malays are said to be promiscuous and involved in incestuous relationships.

Some Malays are not afraid to say what our politicians are fearful of revealing. Perhaps, it is time to debunk Umno Baru’s lies. You may wish to add to the list below.

1. Only Umno Baru can protect the Malays

Umno Baru only protects the Malays who are beholden to them. The critical Malay does not win tenders for projects. He may find all manner of problems with his business licence. His application for government permits may be delayed or rejected.

A civil servant who dares to openly criticise may be demoted or sacked, and find his income tax being scrutinised, as punishment. Meritocracy, intellect and hard-work count for nothing in the Umno Baru world, only blind allegiance does.

When will the Malays realise that Umno Baru would cease to exist without the Malays?

2. Janji di tepati (Fulfilled promises)

In the run-up to GE13, Mat Sabu of PAS claimed that despite warning the rakyat about a petrol hike if BN were to win, the Malays said that Pakatan leaders were telling lies about BN in order to garner votes.

In the coming weeks, we will be further burdened with the Goods and Services Tax (GST), and crippled by increased costs of daily goods, travel and energy. Things that were abolished before GE13 are returning in a recycled version – the abolished Internal Security Act (ISA) will be replaced with the Prevention of Crime Act (PCA). There is no further news about BR1M, version 2, worth RM1,200.

3. Malays benefit from the NEP

Most ordinary Malays cannot afford good cars. The cheapest car may be a Proton, but in the long run, the cost of replacing substandard parts is high. Homes in good locations are overpriced and people spend hours commuting or trapped in traffic jams.

When top Malay civil servants allegedly ask housing developers to make “special arrangements” so they can purchase luxury homes that are designated solely for non-Malays, it is a subtle way of disagreeing with the government’s social engineering methods in housing.

When middle class Malays complain about houses being unaffordable, the government proposes the construction of more low-cost houses. Malays are angered by a government which thinks Malays are only worthy of cheap housing.

Would-be entrepreneurs without political connections lose out because only cronies win tenders for projects. Creative and hardworking people who want to boost the economy and create jobs, emigrate. Many Malays contribute significantly to the brain-drain.

4. Types of immigrant

If not for the millions of immigrants who helped develop the rubber and tin trade in Malaya, the Umno Baru politicians would not be here today, dictating policies to undermine the descendants of this first-wave of immigrants.

We should be grateful to the ‘pendatangs’ who worked in the mines, estates and in commerce, to build English companies like Sime Darby, Guthrie and Harrisons & Crossfields. These corporations have morphed into government-linked companies (GLCs), now controlled by Umno Baru.

The recent crop of immigrants from Muslim countries  do not share much of our history and are made welcome only because they help keep Umno Baru in power.

5. Malays want syariah law

Both young and old Malays are said to be opposed to syariah law, which is a bogey that Umno Baru uses to maximum effect to create fear amongst the Malays to make them vote for Umno Baru, (and not PAS) in elections.

Malays are averse to other areas of their lives being controlled by syariah laws, because they have seen that syariah laws concerning child maintenance and polygamous marriages are not strictly enforced.

6. Malays are stupid and lazy

Policies which benefit the Malays have created distrust and contempt. Non-Malays brand the Malay as lazy, stupid, ignorant and selfish. This is wrong and un-productive. Many decent Malays are disgusted with Umno Baru, but the people who insult the Malays crush any hope of solidarity. Malay bashing will not help get rid of a racist party like Umno Baru.

7. Malay quotas

Despite a lack of formal education, many of our grandparents spoke better English than most fresh Malaysian graduates and diplomatic staff.

Ordinary Malaysians are subject to educational quotas but the children of politicians, cronies and the rich, are allowed to excel and compete with other races and nationalities in elite and international schools in Malaysia, or abroad. Select Malays can hone their competitive skills, in an environment which develops their confidence. Why not other Malaysians? Meritocracy helps; quotas do not.

8. Handouts are good

Handouts are a ploy to make people waste their hard earned savings, to enrich the government and their cronies. The BR1M handout of RM500 may be accompanied by a smartphone discount. All of the RM500 is spent but more of the victim’s savings will be used to buy the smartphone. With an initial outlay of RM500, the government and his crony receives more money from the BR1M recipient.

The same abuse happens with the government book voucher scheme, where students trade them in to participating bookshops, for the value of the voucher, minus RM50 for ‘administrative’ purposes. The crony recoups the cost of the voucher from the government but is richer by RM50.  The student may have received some petty cash but the loser is the taxpayer, who funds these poorly managed schemes.

9. Umno Baru rewards Malays

Umno Baru conned the rakyat into giving money to the government, as if it were doing the rakyat a favour. In exchange, the rakyat’s money was used to fund the lifestyle of the jet-setting ministerial spouses, on their expensive foreign junkets and fashion shows. The ordinary rakyat have to make do with a nasi lemak bungkus and stale curry puffs, when they are ferried in coaches, to attend Umno Baru ceramahs.

10. Urban Malays are pro-opposition

The urban Malays are made up of middle-class Malays who are content in their comfort zones, and the very poor, who are desperately trying to survive. Many urban Malays are mesmerised by the lies perpetuated by Umno Baru. They enjoy the glamour of rubbing shoulders with Umno Baru leaders at government functions.

The urban Malays may have access to the alternative media, but have no time to think about injustice, human rights, good governance and equality. They are happier pursuing material goods.

Umno Baru and the selfish agendas of its leaders, sacrificed the nation’s interest and betrayed generations of Malays. If Malaysia is to progress, we must overcome the two threats posed by Umno Baru and the complacent Malays.

MARIAM MOKHTAR is a defender of the truth, the admiral-general of the Green Bean Army and president of the Perak Liberation Organisation (PLO).

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 17 December 2013, 9:28 am and is filed under
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Polls results set back democracy in Malaysia, say analysts

by Lee Shi-Ian

The Malaysian Insider

December 17, 2013

The May 5 general election results have set back democracy in Malaysia rather than advancing democratic change, as the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) has put more restrictive laws for politics, an analyst said in a Commonwealth magazine.

Professor William Case of the Hong Kong City University said Umno used the 13th general election results to instigate racial polarisation, which proved to be helpful in launching attacks on DAP and the Chinese community.

“If Umno elites had grown fractious after Malaysia’s 12th general election, they displayed new unity, even defiance, after Malaysia’s 13th general election (GE13). Thus, they perpetuated the ethnic suspicions of the Chinese that they had heightened during the campaigning; and they imposed new controls on opposition party leaders and organisers.

“Far from advancing democratic change, then, GE13 has served to roll democracy back,” Case said in the abstract of his analysis in the latest issue of The Round Table, the Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs.

In the general election, BN won 133 federal seats, seven fewer than in the elections in 2008. Pakatan Rakyat (PR) picked up the remaining 89 seats in Parliament.

Case noted that after the elections, Putrajaya had moved to reintroduce preventive detention, reversed its culture of tolerance towards the opposition when it had charged organisers of the Black 505 rallies under the Peaceful Assembly Act 2012, which was touted by Putrajaya as legislature that allowed for dissent to be expressed in public without much restriction.

Among those charged under the act included Parti Keadilan Rakyat’s communication director and Selangor assemblyman for Seri Setia, Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad. He was arrested under the Peaceful Assembly Bill 2012 (PAA) for failing to give police 10 days’ notice prior to helping organise a rally in Kelana Jaya, Selangor.

The DAP assistant organising secretary and Ipoh Timur MP Thomas Su, PKR Perak secretary Mohammad Anuar Zakaria, Solidariti Anak Muda Malaysia chief Badrul Hisham Shaharin, best known by his blogger handle of “Chegubard”, were charged for the same offence after organising rallies in Ipoh and Petaling Jaya.

Four more PR officials in Penang, Negri Sembilan, Johor and Pahang were also charged.

Case also said the elected representatives’ future lay in the balance as the penalty on conviction under the PAA is a fine of up to RM10,000 and, hence, possible disqualification from elected office.

The PAA, once depicted as a reform measure, had become just another instrument of “draconian oppression”.

Case said the new Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar, worked closely with Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, and seemed to confirm the notion of control, commenting: “I admit that the police are quite tough in handling any issue and activities that can tarnish the country’s sovereignty”.

On the perpetual Umno claim that DAP used PKR and PAS to advance its reach, he said the reverse was what had actually happened.

“While DAP has often been accused of making use of Parti Keadilan Rakyat and PAS in a bid for power, it is actually a case of Umno making use of DAP.”

A closer look at the results of GE13 showed that it was only DAP which fared the best, with PKR barely holding its own and PAS suffering setbacks.

For BN, although it won fewer seats because of the poor performance of MCA and Gerakan, Umno continued to forge ahead.

The American professor argued that Umno’s dominant narrative of shock over a Chinese betrayal and tsunami had a hollow ring as the Chinese votes had been lost all along.

“Most of Umno’s political rhetoric since 2004 as well as its electoral strategy in 2013 ensured this.”

He also noted bitterness remained raw among many Malays over the perceived “Chinese betrayal” and anxieties over threats to their special rights were being kept alive.

“But was it wise, then, for the Chinese to vote en masse in ways that unleashed this tirade, however disingenuous, in the hope of Pakatan’s winning an election that it could not?

“Perhaps Mahathir is right: it was not the Chinese who betrayed the Malays, but instead DAP that seriously misled the Chinese,” he said, referring to former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s assessment of the election results.

Case added that before the dust had settled on GE13, Umno leaders elected to vigorously re-communalise politics rather than introduce reforms to reengage the non-Malays and middle-class Malays.

He noted that Ahmad Zahid said if PR supporters were unhappy with the first-past-the-post system, they should migrate elsewhere.

Datuk Seri Noh Omar, Selangor deputy BN chief, also said those unhappy with Malaysia’s electoral system should live in the jungle. A group of Islamic non-government organisations, including the Muslim Consumers Society, had also demanded the Malay community boycott Chinese-owned companies which had contributed to PR’s campaign.

“Pro-Umno bloggers took up the call, invoking a ‘Buy Malay first! Buy Chinese last!’ campaign,” Case said.

He said that though all the dynamics eventually subsided, sullenness remained within the non-Malay community.

The magazine also quoted Professor James Chin from Singapore’s Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), who said while PR employed the correct strategies for the polls, it failed to overcome three main obstacles.

“Pakatan Rakyat could not overcome the three biggest hurdles for opposition politics in Malaysia, which are Sabah and Sarawak, rural Malay votes and a biased electoral system,” he said.

Chin, who is the guest editor of the journal, also examined the strategies employed by BN and PR in GE13.

“Both the ruling coalition and the opposition went into the polls with vastly different electoral strategies. Both of them also executed their strategies perfectly,” Chin said. “Barisan Nasional concentrated on (Datuk Seri) Najib (Razak), the 1 Malaysia concept, rural Malays, Sabah and Sarawak. Their move paid dividends as they formed the Government with a simple majority.”

Chin said although BN lost the popular vote, this was because rural and semi-rural constituencies had a much smaller pool of voters compared with urban ones.

“Pakatan Rakyat’s strategy of taking the fight to Barisan Nasional strongholds in Johor and Sabah and Sarawak was the correct move to make.

“However, PR failed badly in executing this strategy in Sabah and Sarawak. PAS was also not able to win over a significant number of rural voters to overcome Umno’s formidable rural machinery.”

PR’s only success was greater support from the urban population, sweeping the Chinese votes and breaking into Johor, he added.

Chin said if PR failed to overcome the hurdle of rural Malay votes and rural non-Malay seats in Sabah and Sarawak, the outcome of the 14th general election would likely remain the same. – December 17, 2013.

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Shafee’s and Ramli’s affidavits: A criminal conspiracy?

 – Mat Zain Ibrahim

The Malaysian Insider

December 17, 2013

Many people may not realise that the affidavits affirmed by Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah and Datuk Ramli Yusoff, which are the subject of my police report last Sunday, were filed in court by the Attorney General’s Chambers.

Quite simply, what I am saying here is that the full contents of both the affidavits have been vetted, scrutinised and cleared for filing by the Chambers.

The people must also be told that on or about November 1, Ramli had filed a suit against Abdul Gani Patail, Musa Hassan and several others including the government, Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and the police claiming damages totalling RM128.5 million.

And the person who advised and encouraged Ramli to use the black-eye incident evidence as the main cause of action of the suit was none other than Shafee.

Incidentally, Shafee is also the person whom I’ve alleged in my report to have concealed material evidence against Gani and Musa which Shafee received from me on September 24, 2013.

Now, against this backdrop, Gani must explain how could he have allowed both Shafee’s and Ramli’s false affidavits to be filed in court through the AG’s Chambers? Especially Ramli’s, unless a deal was struck.

What kind of deal or game are the trio of Gani, Shafee and Ramli playing before the public eyes now?

Does this mean that by Ramli agreeing to file a false affidavit in this case, his claims would be settled?

I have stated about this suit very briefly in paragraph 55 (h) of my statutory declaration (SD) affirmed on October 7, 2013. If this is not a criminal conspiracy to fleece the government of RM128.5 million of public funds,then what is?

 As the AG who appointed Shafee, Gani should not have allowed the latter to make whatever affidavit he thinks fit, nor can the AG escape the responsibility of careful investigation or supervision over any affidavits that was filed in courts through his Chambers.

If Shafee has made a typo error or whatever error or misquoted a date, then he must be made to correct it by affirming another affidavit.

The AG surely remember when the Prime Minister himself, in his affidavit dated September 21, 2011, misquoted the date Saiful Bukhari met the then Deputy Prime Minister at his residence stating it as June 26, 2011, the PM was forced to affirm another affidavit on September 23, 2011, to correct the error to June 26, 2008.

Certainly the date August 1, 2013, quoted by Shafee in paragraph 7(q)(ii) was still within the month of Ramadan and not already the third day of Hari Raya when I was brought to meet Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Shafee should be made to correct it. If the PM has to make the correction through affirming another affidavit, who is Shafee to be exempted?.

If Shafee will not give the information which the AG is entitled to, or if Shafee insists on swearing an affidavit which the AG knows to be imperfect, then in order to protect the good name of the office of the Attorney General’s Chambers and the government, he should have terminated Shafee’s appointment as the lead prosecutor instantly.

Now that the AG have discovered Shafee’s affidavit to be false, or at the very least accepts that there are strong grounds to suspect that the senior lawyer’s affidavit is false, after testing it against my police report about the matter, the AG owes a duty to the court in putting the matter right at the earliest moment.

Should the AG chooses to remain silent nor willing to take any action,then he and the entire AG’s Chambers must bear the responsibility and consequences for filing false affidavits which was affirmed by Shafee and Ramli, and for allowing the affidavits to be used in the Court of Appeal proceeding.

The AG must be mindful of the fact that the punishment for abetting in the making of a false affidavit and/or allowing it to be used in a judicial proceeding is the same as making and using it himself.

Being the chief legal adviser to the government, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong and the Cabinet, the AG owes a duty to the court to facilitate the police to conduct an in-depth investigation over the report against Shafee in particular, as well as Ramli, for making and using false affidavits, which is a crime against public justice, as defined in the Penal Code, even to the extent of putting on hold the Court of Appeal proceedings.

As the AG, he must not allow any false evidence or material to be tendered at any level of a judicial proceeding, otherwise he deserved to be brought before a tribunal as provided for under the Federal Constitution.

Even as it is now, Gani seems to be unable to properly discharge the functions of his office and this is certainly not good for the country. The PM must step in and take command of the situation right away.

In the likely event that Gani still allows both Shafee’s and Ramli’s affidavits to continue being used in the current Court of Appeal hearing, knowing them to contain false averments, then we can safely deduced that it was the same Gani who in spite of knowing that the controversial Pulau Batu Puteh photograph taken from an anonymous blog was concocted, still continued to present it during the Court of International Justice (ICJ) proceedings. – December 17, 2013.

* Datuk Mat Zain Ibrahim is the former Kuala Lumpur CID chief.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 17 December 2013, 4:04 pm and is filed under
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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 and World Bank’s adverse report on “High-Performing Education”?

The country has had 15 Education Ministers in the past 58 years since 1955, and the second to the sixth Prime Ministers had all previously helmed this important Ministry starting with Tun Razak (1955-57), Tun Hussein Onn (1970-73), Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad (1974-78), Tun Abdullah Badawi  (1984-86) and Datuk Seri Najib Razak (1995-99).

Others who had been Education Ministers include Tan Sri Mohamed Khir Johari (1957-59, 1965-69), Tun Abdul Rahman Ya’kub (1969-70), Tun Musa Hitam (1978-81), Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim (1986-91) and Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein (2004-2009).

But it is Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, who took over the Education Ministry’s portfolio more than four years ago  in 2009, who is in danger of being known as  the worst and  the most irresponsible Education Minister in the nation’s 58-year history.

The question thinking and concerned Malaysians have been asking is 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 and the World Bank’s adverse report on “High-Performing Education” in the past two weeks?

Muhyiddin had not said a word about the 2012 PISA since the results were released two weeks ago on Dec. 3 or the publication of the World Bank’s Malaysia Economic Monitor themed “High-Performing Education” a week ago on Dec. 10.

A responsible and conscientious  Education Minister would have gone to Parliament whether on Dec. 4 or 5 (as the Dewan Rakyat was still in session and the Education Ministry would have advanced information about the 2012 PISA results) to give a Ministerial statement on Malaysia’s performance in the 2012 PISA, especially in relation not only to the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025 (MEB) but also why the Education Ministry’s TIMSS and PISA Task Force which he had set up  to improve on Malaysia’s performances in the 2011 TIMSS and 2012 PISS had been such dismal failures.

When I moved a RM10 salary cut motion against Hishammuddin as Education Minister in Parliament on 27th November 2006, I gave three reasons for the motion of censure and no-confidence against him.

A censure and no-confidence motion against Muhyiddin as Education Minister will have more than ten reasons as justification, which is an indictment of his stewardship of one of the most important and critical Ministries in government as it will affect the future of our country and the new generation of Malaysians.

Yesterday, even the Minister for International Trade and Industry, Datuk Seri Mustapha Mohamad has joined in the chorus in a forum to commemorate the third anniversary of the Economic Transformation Programme  calling for an “urgent overhaul” of the country’s educational system to produce the skills and human capital urgently needed for inclusive and sustainable economic growth.

May be the time has come for a national debate whether Muhyiddin should step down as Education Minister if Malaysia is really serious about wanting to become a high-income, sustainable and inclusive economy with concerned Malaysian stakeholders giving their reasons why the country urgently needs a committed, dedicated and visionary Education Minister who can arrest the slide in Malaysian educational standards at all levels in the past decade, from primary, secondary to tertiary, and transform Malaysia from a nation of increasing educational mediocrity into a world-class nation of educational excellence.

I am shocked by the statement by the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Idris Jala who said that despite Malaysia’s goal to be a high income nation by 2020, the Malaysia Education Blueprint (MEB) will only start bearing fruit in 20 years’ time.

It would appear that the RM20 million spent on McKinsey & Co to prepare the MEB has resulted in a con-job, as Malaysians had been told until now that it is a 13-year educational transformation plan which would achieve full results by 2025.

Idris appears to be  endorsing my critique of the MEB as “Miracle Education Blueprint”, setting goals which are not practical, realistic or achievable in its three Waves of transformation in the 13-year education plan from 2013-2025:

•	Wave 1 (2013-15)  to “turn around system by supporting teachers and focusing on core skills”;

•	Wave 2 (2016- 20) to “accelerate system improvement”; and

•	Wave 3 (2021-25) to “Move towards excellence with increased operational flexibility”.

I had said that the MEB should more appropriately be known as “Miracle Education Blueprint” as the objective of MEB to raise the quality of the education system in 13 years to be ranked the top third of countries participating in PISA and TIMSS would require three educational miracles by Malaysian students , i.e. a miracle  to be performed in each of the next PISA tests in 2015, 2018 and 2021:

•	In 2015 PISA, leap out of the bottom third of countries, i.e. getting at least 450 points for maths or an improvement of 29 points from the 421-point score in 2012 PISA;

•	In 2018 PISA, achieve at least PISA international average of 500 points; and an increase of 50 points; and

•	In 2021 PISA, achieve the threshold of 532 points for the top third of countries, i.e an increase of 32 points.

In other words, in the next three PISA tests in 2015, 2018 and 2021, Malaysian students must perform three educational miracles, i.e. an  educational miracle in each PISA test as to collectively increase the  maths score by 111 points from 421 in 2012  to 532 in 2021.

No country had ever achieved such a single educational miracle to improve on its previous scores in PISA, as in the 2003, 2006, 2009 and 2012 PISA series, countries which chalked up the biggest improvements in maths through four PISAs are Brazil (35 points), Tunisia (29), Poland (28) Mexico (28) Turkey (25) and Portugal (21).

I fully agree with Idris that no one should play politics with education and that Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat must work together to ensure that the education system is a success – that BN and PR may disagree on other issues but this should not cover education which must be improved to ensure Malaysia remains competitive.

But do the other BN Ministers and leaders agree with Idris – to put party politics aside and put the interests of the educational future of our children as the topmost priority so that Malaysia can succeed as a competitive, high-income, sustainable and inclusive economy?

For a start, is the Cabinet and the Barisan Nasional leadership prepared to end the educational mirage of the MEB, and to work with the Pakatan Rakyat to arrest the slide of our educational standards by  introducing genuine educational reforms to ensure educational excellence for all students and not just for 1.3% of the student population with over 51% failures as highlighted by 2012 PISA?

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 17 December 2013, 1:22 pm and is filed under
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Why we must support Mat Sabu

Zaid Ibrahim

The Malaysian Insider

December 17, 2013

The ongoing religious persecution of Mat Sabu and many others before him portends a grave future for religious freedom in this country. We are not only denied political freedom (in the manner that governs the media and the electoral process), but also liberty in matters of personal belief.

We are already witnessing a new wave of attacks against Shias which are more commonly associated with the Middle East and Pakistan. Sunni-Shia warfare has turned the Muslim world upside-down with senseless killings and now it has arrived on our shores, thanks to our Minister in charge of security.

I believe that religious freedom as a legal right has been denied, bastardised and distorted in this country. Many years ago, when Kamariah Ali and her husband pleaded before the judges to allow them to be the kind of Muslims that they understood God meant for them to be, they were denied.

The judges ruled that the State had the right to define Islam, and that only this version was acceptable. The judges went on to say the State also had the right to punish those who deviated from this version of Islam.

So Kamariah Ali spent many years in jail for following her conscience. When her husband died the State would not grant him a proper burial ground, so Kamariah had to bury him under her house. The State obviously did not consider him to be a Muslim who deserved a proper burial, yet it believed it had the power to punish him for being a “deviant” Muslim.

The State had its cake and ate it too: one day it declared a person a bad Muslim who needed to be punished, and the next day it declared that this person was not a Muslim. And the judges agreed!

A few of us cried foul. There is either religious freedom under the Federal Constitution or there is none. Today there is none, which explains why something like the “Allah” issue was able to unfold before the world’s disbelieving eyes. Home Affairs Minister Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi and Sunni warriors are probably willing to die for the akidah but there are other believers who are also “brave” enough to die for their beliefs.

That is why we have religious wars and that is why we have suicide bombers.

In countries with secular constitutions like the US and England, Muslims do not kill each other. They can be Sunni or Shia or whatever they want, so long as they do not break the law. Religious freedom is important because it protects all believers and this is the only way to prevent religious wars.

Zahid should reconsider the idea of wiping out Shias in Malaysia if he really cares about peace and stability in the country!

What happened to Mat Sabu and others like him would never have come to pass if our judges had been brave enough to base their decisions on the law. They would have then ruled that Kamariah Ali had the right to religious freedom, even as a “deviant” Muslim. But these judges felt they had to be Muslims themselves first, which only closed the door to real religious freedom and opened another one for religious persecutors to walk through.

Our so-called “moderate” country is actually religiously-fascist. It’s up to Malaysians either to allow this trend to continue or to defend religious freedom. When I first said Mat Sabu should not bother to defend himself when he was accused of being a Shia, my Muslim friends felt he needed to, regardless of the quality of evidence his accusers could provide. They felt that being a Shia was bad for his image.

I, on the other hand, believed his response should have been, “It’s none of your business. I say I am a Sunni but if you think I am not, do what you want!” Whether Mat Sabu is a Shia or a Sunni is of no concern to Zahid or anyone else.

If Zahid and Jakim think Shia are not Muslims, then why not petition the OIC and the UN and whatever international body they think is appropriate, to bar Iranians from doing the pilgrimage to Mecca. Take on the central stage of the Muslim world if you truly want to be a Sunni warrior. Do not bully local Muslims like Mat Sabu.

It’s up to Muslims in this country to decide for themselves what kind of Muslims they want to be. I believe they have that right under the Constitution. I am a Muslim and that’s all there is to it. The State may define Islam as the Sunnah Wal Jumaah variety, but that definition cannot supersede Article 8 in the Constitution on religious freedom. The state can advise on what variety is “pure” but it cannot punish Muslims if they prefer a different variety.

Punishment is God’s work, not government officials’, and that’s central to a country that has a secular Constitution governing matters of faith. And Malaysia is secular.

This is the principle of religious freedom, and even as Muslims we have that protection and that right in this country. Whether Muslims like Mat Sabu and other Malaysians want to reclaim that right is up to them.

This country will eventually explode like Lebanon and Syria if the Prime Minister is only interested in fast trains to Singapore and trade agreements. We have had many disturbing incidents such as Memali, the Al Ma’unah movement and other “deviant groups”. Religion is not important just to Zahid but to many people. Everybody believes theirs is the true faith, and is therefore better or purer.

Everybody believes God has asked them to do what they can to protect the faith. To add to that, we have vested interests who will promote a particular belief to preserve their rule. The Saudi King, for example, would not last a day if the Shia controlled the Middle East. It’s political power play, with nothing religious about it.

So how do we manage this potentially difficult and dangerous conflict? The Prime Minister says he is a moderate. If that is true then he should speak out a lot more about the subject in Malaysia. He should also have Ministers who are moderate and capable of engaging with difficult subjects.

He should defend the Federal Constitution, but not as it is interpreted by the Muslim Lawyers Association. On the other hand if he were to have more Sunni warriors are in the Cabinet, the fast train to Singapore will have fewer passengers. Of that I am sure! – December 17, 2013.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 17 December 2013, 9:12 am and is filed under
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