A “people first” transformation needed

Saturday, 2 October 2010 | Filed under Education, Human Capital

Transformation is never about a simple change.  It is more of a complete, 360 degree revolution. Transformation is not a word that should be taken lightly. It is a serious change that means a shedding of the old and the embracing of the new. Transformation is as dramatic as the caterpillar that becomes the butterfly.

Never in our history has there been so much talk about transformation than now. A lot of assumptions have been put forward, and numbers are being crunched in amazing ways.  Yet somehow I feel we have lost sight of the challenges facing us on the ground. We are still rooted in the reality that we exist in today. Most certainly we have not become the butterfly we want to be. But how would you describe where we are now? At what stage are we, caterpillar or cocoon?

No amount of projection or prediction that paints this wonderful vista of a transformed economy can change the stark reality of the world we live in today and the stage we are at this very moment.

Nothing has quite gelled into place. Everything is in a state of flux that it is hard to pinpoint what ground zero will be like in the next few years.

Malaysia’s global competitiveness weakened by status of higher education

The World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2010-2011 has not been very encouraging in its report on the state of the world. The after effects of the financial meltdown, the fragile state of global security still have their lingering effects on the world economy. The prospects are not all that rosy for many countries in the world.

Malaysia’s competitiveness is in a decline, down from 21st position in 2008/09 to 26th in the latest report. A number of weaknesses have been identified that require serious address. One particular area of concern is in training and education.

According to the Report, Malaysia will need to improve its higher education system in order to improve its competitiveness further, paying particular attention to the low enrolment rates at the secondary and tertiary levels. The Report advises greater technological adoption, particularly the use of ICT for productivity enhancement.

Higher education and training comprise the fifth of 12 pillars of competitiveness described by the Report that are fundamental elements for a healthy economy. Each is interrelated and a lack in one will disrupt the efficiency of another.

A well-educated and trained workforce adept at absorbing new technologies is pivotal to a country like Malaysia that is intent on moving its economy from efficiency-focused to innovation-led.

To me the diagnosis is serious because we are a country that prides itself on the enormous investment we make to improve the quality of our educational institutions.

Moreover the government has unveiled a whole series of programmes to move the country into high value, high income economy. Talent and skills underpin the whole plan but here is also where we are at a weak point.

I have often pointed out that the model upon which we are building our institutions of higher education have been sourced from countries that developed them over time to suit the needs of their societies.

These are societies whose culture and history are very different from our own. They have developed frameworks and systems in response to challenges they had faced over centuries. And these systems have been reviewed and adjusted as they progressed. Today these societies operate in a manner that is more sophisticated than our own.

We cannot replicate the systems that produced universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and MIT. They are too far ahead. The leading universities of the world run hospitals, develop space programmes and they consistently produce Nobel Laureates in the sciences and arts.

These are countries that grew their workforce in anticipation of the economic needs. Countries like the USA, Russia and China developed their education framework to match their own needs. They are all quite different in their emphasis, proving that this is the best way to go to develop a system that suits us the most.

We must develop an education system customized to fully develop the potential of Malaysians

Malaysia inherited its education system from the British and like the rest of the Commonwealth we have similar scales of assessment. Here is where we have to make that break. We need to develop our own model that will address shortcomings peculiar to our people. We need to bolster the confidence and capability of our youths and design an education system that empowers every individual to be creative and innovative.

We have to step out of the box and seriously revisit the system itself because the transformation that the government is aiming for will never happen without the full participation of our people.

Change must take place not only in the plush settings of corporate offices but also in the most remote villages of our rural heartland and it begins in the classrooms where our children are being nurtured as the country’s next generation of movers and shakers.