Break down the walls of fear to lift up the nation

Friday, 23 December 2011 | Filed under Nation Building

It’s a funny thing about walls.

The very ones that we think are there to protect us, are the very ones that often hold us back.

The most insidious are never the physical ones that we construct, but the invisible ones that imprison ideas, competition and innovation.

Brick by brick as the walls go up, we start believing that come what may, the bricks are impenetrable and will protect those within its walls from imagined foes and threats.

But history has shown us that walls built to keep people out, also stunt energy, ideas, competition. When people feel shut in, often times they shut down.

Walls of fear

There are many valid concerns about the quality of the public school education system in the country.

We see the walls of racial polarization in schools increasingly being defined by one race or another, making it a breeding ground for racial intolerance.

In tertiary education, the walls of obsolete rules and regulations devised for an industrial age education system continue to be used to benchmark k-economy programmes.

We see the walls that surround the issue of meritocracy in education and at work, effectively rendering our competitive and innovative muscles weak from atrophy.

Walls go up because of fear.

As long as it remains in place, it allows fear to fester and to be festered in the weak.

The fearful and weak-minded cannot build a strong country.

Innovation cannot happen without high quality human capital

The Prime Minister in the 10th Malaysia Plan outlined the following:

“The success of the innovation agenda hinges on a Malaysian citizenry that values openness, embraces critical thinking and encourages risk taking and experimentation. This will require an education system that nurtures creative and analytical human capital. An important step is to develop world-class educational institutions with world-class leadership, particularly universities.” -  Chapter 3

Unfortunately, the reality on the ground is different.

Openness, risk-taking, experimentation cannot be pigeonholed and ‘taught’ in a curriculum.

We cannot say openness is important, when many of our schools and teachers continue to prize conformity, and our social culture frowns on those who do not toe some imaginary line.

We want world-class institutions, but we lack in a world-class mindset in most universities.

We want innovation, but we fear change.

We want innovation, but we keep putting up walls to ensure status quo.

We want innovation, but our education system continues to be infiltrated by narrow political views, instead of what’s best for our children and the country.

We are not taking solid steps to define the human capital we need.

We are in the biggest growth region of the world

All the countries in the region are growing as fast, if not faster than us.

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Chinese economy will expand another USD8 trillion to USD $19 trillion by 2016, making China the largest economy in the world within five years.

India is poised to become the world’s largest economy by 2050, with its working age population will rise more than 40 per cent in the next 40 years making it a real economic superpower.

Indonesia, the largest economy in South East Asia, it is now on track for sustained growth.

One of the world’s top innovation nations is South Korea, and economists say that by 2050, South Korea will have a GDP per capita of more than USD90,000 (all figures U.S.), virtually identical to the United States.

These are facts of some of the biggest and most innovative economies on our doorstep.

A World Bank report said in November that Malaysia’s biggest advantage was its relatively low-cost base and its weakness was the skills of its human resources.

The report said that while Malaysia is a very competitive country in the sense that it can provide businesses with an attractive package with which to compete in global markets, the country could realise larger gains by tackling structural reforms to increase competition and competencies in the economy rather than improving the business environment.

But herein lies the problem. If we are working very, very hard to become innovative, so is every other country in the region, and the world.

There is no time for catch-up. We must catch on.

We must change. We must do what’s right.

We must reinvent now for the future.

The walls must come down - literally and figuratively.

It must start with our education system.