Abdullah: Varsities need to have well-rounded students

Abdullah: Varsities need to have well-rounded students
http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/7/10/nation/18257000&sec=nation

BANGI: The Prime Minister wants public universities to have well-rounded students who are exposed to the outside world by having more attachment programmes with established universities overseas.

Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said students could be attached to foreign university for one or two semesters with credit transfer arrangements to give them time to gain new experiences and knowledge while proceeding with their academic studies.

He said that while academicians were sent for attachment programmes, it was also a good idea to send their excellent students to take up relevant courses at foreign universities.

“This will expose them to a different situation and let them get first-hand experience.

“This will give something meaningful to the students, and the universities will also forge cooperation with foreign universities,” Abdullah said at the Institutions of Higher Learning Students Representative Council Convention 2007.

Higher Education Minister Datuk Mustapa Mohamed, who was also present, said the ministry was expanding the attachment programme, which was currently run on an ad hoc basis and with a small number of students.

“We are studying the capabilities of these universities, as it involves cost,” he said, adding that students who obtained double degrees from the foreign universities through the attachment programme were in high demand for jobs.

He said the ministry would heed Abdullah’s call and make the attachment programme a permanent feature, with preference given to excellent students.

Speaking at the opening of the convention, Abdullah also said that local public universities could no longer operate within their own campus walls but must keep pace with the changes that globalisation had brought.

Hence, it was imperative for them to forge cooperation with established universities overseas and the private sector to produce students of international standard, he said.

“Without providing such opportunities and introducing new courses such as biotechnology and nanotechnology that did not exist in the past, we will be denying our students such knowledge,” he said.

He said that going global was the only way for Malaysia to become an education hub.

“For R&D in particular, we will need cooperation and link-ups with foreign universities, including those more developed than us.

“Instead, we should think that because they are big we can learn from them and although we are small, there will be something they can learn from us,” he said.

Abdullah said the Government wanted to provide the best education infrastructure and hence, a large part of the annual budget had always been allocated for education.

I think the government is in a process of doublethink here. On one hand, they want to promote the country as a hub of educational excellence. On the other, they want to limit university freedom via repressive laws (UUCA) and centralized bureaucracy (ministry of higher education). With these roadblocks in place, no matter how many initiatives are started by the government, university students will never reach great heights. What is needed is a complete revamp of the education system and not ad-hoc patch jobs to layer the cake with more icing to make it more enticing to investors.

Ultimately, the government is looking for new ways to make money. Look at that last paragraph. So it's all about infrastructure and spending lots of cash to enrich the crony companies that will supply construction efforts, contracts for government projects and other services related to this so-called hub initiative.

The media seems to parrot perfectly the speech by the prime minister, but one wonders if there will ever be any analysis done to this piece?

BLA BLA BLA!