I stumbled upon an article on "Education system not picking up" by Dr. Nungsari Ahmad Radhi, an economist and ex-MP, which appeared in TheEdge (September 12 – September 18, 2005).
"The ‘dumbing down’ of higher education produces neither technical competency nor entrepreneurial behaviour," he said.
Excerpt:
"Malaysia [...] is endowed with decent though not excellent human capital, sizeable reserves and even a vibrant entrepreneur class especially among some well-connected Chinese, Malay and Indian business communities.Yet, the education system has failed to gel these disparate cultures into something resembling a national identity. A ‘whole’ that is larger than the sum of its parts never materialised. As with many public policy initiatives, education has in recent years been driven more by the procurement incentives rather than the developmental imperatives — thus the proliferation of large university campuses populated by poor superstructures that end up turning whatever cheese they get into milk. The ‘dumbing down’ of higher education produces neither technical competency nor entrepreneurial behaviour.
Level of human capital in the country today is so uncompetitive that foreign capital and entrepreneurship is not coming in, where the nearly crisis state of university has thus far not attracted the attention it deserves.
Unless we put in radical changes into the way we educate and train our people, the country outlook is quite alarming, to say the least.
What you think?
Related posts:
*hmmm**
I say it is related. When the economy of a country is growing well and stable, the needs of the people are different.
But you also have to look in context of the culture of the country as well.
It is good to look at how well other countries develop, but at the same time,
it is not wise to make an impractical comparison.