I was told that Malaysia is fast moving towards a national social disaster. Apparently, there is a serious misallocation of resources between/within the public and private sector. It seems that in the rush to make the numbers (x thousand engineers, y thousand doctors and z thousand biotechnologists by the year 2020), we have neglected to review the outcomes of such nation-building programmes - that while we may hit the target here and there, what percentage of skilled manpower is appropriately assigned?
This goes back to the personal dilemma that some state-sponsored graduates (like myself) face upon graduation. Some of us find ourselves making rash decisions - accept job offers that we CAN do, but not necessarily what we were
TRAINED to do. Some common discrepancies include engineering graduates going into IT, and some are as severe as architecture graduates going into mass media. Where are the jobs?
Some industry experts argue that the jobs are there, but there aren't enough qualified applicants. So where did they all go? It has been said that some of our
locally-produced scientists are not fit to do lab work and hence, while they have the 'right' qualification, they may not necessarily possess the right skills. I have personally reviewed the quality of students who have worked with me as trainees.
The problem is not so much with the students themselves, as with any student community, there will be those who are highly self-motivated and there will be those who are in it to just be in university. The flaws, in my opinion, lie in other
areas. While their course content may appear to be comprehensive, I find that some assignments or projects which are assigned to them as part as coursework are not demanding enough of these students to force them to adopt independent thought and critical thinking into their way of life. This, in itself, is a serious and obvious flaw in our academic culture.
There are also rumours of lecturers who are forced to lower the bar of excellence to ensure that the overall output of their respective universities hit management-specified targets - as opposed to maintaining the level of expectations irrespective of how many
students actually qualify.
Secondly, local universities may not necessarily have the resources to sustain 'quality' educators and education facilities. True, our national spending on education is the highest in years, but where does it all go?
Posted by Najah Nasseri at 2002年12月18日 11:17