Day: January 27, 2010

(How many of the 20 high-performance schools picked by Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin would have been your choice?

May be, lets open a debate as to which were the top 20 “high-performance” schools when the country achieved Merdeka in 1957 and became Malaysia in 1963, how many of them are in Muhyiddin’s Top 20 schools and why the rest have lost out in the placings?

Reproduced below is one view by Lee Wei Lian in Malaysian Insider)

The tragic tale of Malaysian education
by Lee Wei Lian
Malaysian Insider
January 27 2010

What do Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, Malaysia’s founding father Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia’s second richest man T. Ananda Krishnan and YTL chairman Tan Sri Francis Yeoh have in common?

The answer: all four studied at once famous schools that are now glaringly absent from the list of 20 high performance schools recently announced by the government.

Victoria Institution (Ananda, Yeoh), St John’s Institution (Najib), Penang Free School (Tunku Abdul Rahman) and others like Malacca High School and St Michael’s Institution are all storied schools that have been allowed to fall behind until they are no longer counted as among the elite educational institutions in the country.

Just imagine if Eton College in the UK or Raffles Institution in Singapore was not recognised as one of the top schools in their respective countries.

That is the equivalent of what has befallen what were once the most respected schools in Malaysia. Today, they do not even rate a mention on a list of the top 20 high performance schools.

It is a crying shame as these schools produced many leaders that were influential in the development of Malaysia and to a lesser extent even in Singapore. Continue reading “Which were the top 20 schools in the early years of the nation?”

The desecration of two mosques in Petaling Jaya, the Masjid Jumhuriyah in Taman Dato Harun and the Al- Imam Tirmizi mosque at Taman Sri Sentosa this morning, must be condemned in no uncertain terms – no ifs and buts – by all Malaysians, regardless of race, religion or political affiliation.

Again, for the past four weeks since the beginning of the year, Malaysia is hogging the international limelight for all the wrong reasons – the 16th and 17th cases of desecration of places of worship involving arson attempts and acts of vandalism which now involve 11 churches, a Sikh gurdwara, three mosques and two surau.

This has aggravated Malaysia’s crisis of confidence to attract foreign investors, tourists and students, undermining Malaysia’s international competitiveness and tarnishing Malaysia as a safe and secure haven for FDIs and as an ideal location for tourists and students.

Clearly there are irresponsible people out to cause mischief and create inter-religious strife arising from the Dec. 31 judgment of the Kuala Lumpur High Court judge Datuk Lau Bee Lan lifting the 2007 Home Ministry ban on the Catholic Church weekly Herald and allowing the use of the word “Allah” in its Bahasa Malaysia version, and it is most unfortunate that the lack of firm commitment by the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Hishamuddin Hussein to uphold the rule of law had sent out the wrong message to these mischief makers.
Continue reading “More important for Najib to convene all-party all-religion RTC to demonstrate Malaysian unity and condemnation of religious intolerance giving real meaning to 1Malaysia than to officiate launching of hollow-sounding GTP”

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin

I would like to reply to Shamsul’s article that appeared in today’s New Straits Times. You can read the full text of the article below. The parts in brackets (Point number 1, 2, 3, etc.) are my own additions for easy reference — so that you know which part of the article I am replying to.

Point number 1: Ex-Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has been lamenting about the problem with the Malays his entire life. His letters to First Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman (which I have already published in the Internet back in 2001-2002) and his book, The Malay Dilemma, show that his opinion of the Malays go way back to the 1960s.

During one Umno general assembly, Mahathir cried because, according to him, he was disappointed about the attitude of the Malays. When asked by a journalist soon after he retired what he would consider his greatest regret in 22 years as Prime Minister, Mahathir replied that his greatest regret is that he could not change the attitude of the Malays.

And which part of the attitude of the Malays is Mahathir so upset about? He said it in his letters to Tunku Rahman, he said it in his book, The Malay Dilemma, and he said it many times more after that.
Continue reading “Ripping to shreds Shamsul Akmar’s arguments”