Chapter 7: Enhancing Human Capital
Adding Value to a Routine Airport Taxi Ride
The second anecdote concerns an airport trip in Atlanta my wife and I took after a medical convention. On discovering that a limousine was only slightly more expensive than a taxi, we decided to go in style. We stepped into this luxurious limousine, with the driver in tuxedo no less, dutifully opening the door and helping us in. I felt like a celebrity, or perhaps a sultan. The driver inquired of our flight and he immediately phoned ahead to find its status. As the flight was going to be delayed, he suggested we take the scenic country road. Normally he would charge extra for such a detour but since he would be saving gas by not getting stuck on the freeway at peak commuting time, he would dispense with it. Delighted, we cheered him on. He also welcomed us to some complimentary beverages and fresh fruits from his small fridge. We felt vindicated; the extra cost more than compensated by the freebies!
The driver too was very informative. We drove by some stately historical mansions around the city with his giving us a running commentary on the history. We felt as if we were being taken through the Civil War, tracing the destructive path General Sherman took. It turned out that our driver was a history major at the local university. The point is, he was more than just a driver. Because of his education he was an informative tour guide and a history lecturer to boot! He added value to a routine airport trip, and we tipped him accordingly.
Contrast that with our experience recently at Malaysia’s spanking new multibillion-dollar Sepang airport. First, the “limousine” was nothing more than a fancy taxi. Second, the poor driver spoke not a word of English (imagine serving an international airport!) and only a smattering of Malay. As we had not been to Malaysia for sometime, we were suitably impressed first with the airport and then with the gleaming new freeways and all the new constructions. But for every question we asked the driver, we received a grunting, “Tak tau” (Don’t know). And when we reached our hotel, because of the lineup at the entrance, he tried to drop us by the curb. After we protested, he reluctantly drove us up to the lobby. He never so much as got out of his seat to help us. And this character expected a generous tip from us! Unlike my Atlanta driver, this Malaysian driver was probably a school dropout.
My last example is from Japan, a country famed for producing top quality goods. One of the reasons is that Japanese workers are highly trained and well educated. They all have at least a high school education. William Deming, the American quality control guru, was revered there for his work on statistical quality control. He wrote about a factory that tried very hard to improve the already high quality of its products. But it reached a plateau. Try as the workers might, they could not better their figures.
One day one of the workers noted the machines were shaking from the rolling of a nearby freight train. She immediately sensed the significance and intuited the cause of the factory’s product defects. Sure enough, on further analysis she found that statistically, goods produced on days the train was not running had a lower rejection rate. Supported by this finding the company decided to build a deep moat around the factory to shield it from the train’s vibrations. It worked, further dropping the already low rejection rate of the factory’s products.
If factory workers were merely simpletons working like robots, the significance of the train would have been missed. Again this proves the importance of education and training even for factory workers. Training and education alone are not enough by themselves. Workers in authoritarian countries may be equally well educated and highly trained, but because of their environment of repression and tight control, it is unlikely for them even if they were aware of the problem to even think of alerting their superiors.
These three anecdotes give a qualitative sense to the differences in the caliber of the workforce in different countries. The UN Development Program (UNDP) has created its Human Development Index (HDI) to quantify these differences. The HDI is actually a measure of the quality of the populace and thus indirectly, the workforce. Marked variations occur not only between but also within nations. The UNDP used a variety of measures to assess HDI, among them health indices, literacy rate, percentage of students completing high school, and per capita income.
According to the 2001 Index, Norway leads the way with United States, sixth. At the bottom are the three African states of Burundi, Niger, and Sierra Leone. Malaysia stands at 56 (it was 61 in 2000, and 56 way back in 1999). We are right behind Russia but ahead of Bulgaria. The three model states I discussed earlier stand at: South Korea, 15; Ireland, 18; and Argentina, 34. Our ASEAN neighbors are headed by Singapore at 26; Brunei, 32; while Thailand, Philippines, and Indonesia rank respectively at 60, 70 and 102.
Within Malaysia I would anticipate significant differences between regions, sexes, and most significantly from the political viewpoint, between Bumiputras and non-Bumiputras. As an aside, because of the sensitive issue of race in Malaysia, it is important that we appreciate the nuances and differences in these figures and be cautious in attributing the differences purely to race. Apparent differences in the school dropout rates between Malays and non-Malays for example, may not be due to race, rather to urban and rural factors. Until we can sharpen our statistical analysis, we should not be quick to attribute differences purely to race.
Another equally important factor is how the nation treats its talented and gifted. Every year we read in the popular press about students, usually non-Bumiputras, who have done well in their public examinations, only to be denied admission into Malaysian universities. A lucky few would be offered scholarships by foreign entities. Not surprisingly these individuals rarely return, their talent forever lost to the country. Nor is the treatment of bright young Bumiputras any better. It is widely acknowledged that Petronas scholars are among the best. Having met many of them, I agree. I congratulate Petronas for its ability to attract these promising young Malaysians. But when I meet these students I am struck that many of them are pursuing a field of study that is not their first choice or even one they really like. They simply accept the scholarship because that is the only way to get their studies funded or for going overseas. I wonder at the missed opportunities and unfulfilled dreams had these students been given the freedom to choose their own courses.
Malaysia has considered development mainly in physical terms – factories, roads, ports and airports. A more enduring and effective strategy would be to improve the nation’s greatest asset: its people. Enhancing the quality of the citizens, quite apart from being the “right thing” to do, would also better prepare the nation to meet the challenges of globalization.
Next: Enhancing Human Capital Through Better Health
Dear DR, the basic issue is if one is purposeful in one’s endeavour to achieve one’s objective. The core thought of the leadership of the nation is far from wanting to build the nation in the most efficient manner. One good example is the KTM double tracking: sudah berapa lama belum lagi siap? China in fact started many of their rail projects much later than us and yet they have completed them so much faster and even cheaper notwithstanding the higher speed! They form a core expert team and toured EU, USA, Japan and Australia and went back to quantify and qualify their studies and today I bet you they will control the Asian-Suto land mass within the nexr generation! They realize that the rails will give them both geopolitical clout, the efficiency and cost effectiveness necessary for the country to develope the western sector which incidentally also allows them to bring the required ebergy resources from the land-locked Central Asian Countries! By 2014, they have agreed to complete the Thai-Railway up to Kayu Bukit Hitam. Where would KTM be then? It is not that Malaysians could not have done a better job but that we have wanting political leadership! Say what you may, Egypt with the current happening, if she does not follow the path of Iran to ideological rhetorics, will change to lead the Arab world again!
” Asian Euro land-mass”
///Malaysia has considered development mainly in physical terms – factories, roads, ports and airports. A more enduring and effective strategy would be to improve the nation’s greatest asset: its people. Enhancing the quality of the citizens, quite apart from being the “right thing” to do, would also better prepare the nation to meet the challenges of globalization/// – Bakri
For the above to happen the people in charge of or having an influence over the nation’s affairs must put nation’s interest first and subordinate their private interest.
Unfortunately it is not so here. It is the opposite case. They are bent on protecting their vested interest by communal objectives and politics even if that chases our brightest and the best away…..
A former premier (Pak Lah) who coined our problem as first world infrastructure and third world mindset and who said that strengthening human capital and bringing about a cultural and mindset change was the key challenge soon found his own position challenged and was ushered into premature retirement by the oligarchy of interests..
For a country to pursue and realise the laudable objectives of developing human capital, it must first have the prerequisite of a sufficient stock of “moral” capital amongst its leaders and those who vote and maintain them in power, lacking which developing human capital is just talk and more talk.
you envy the students who went overseas, i think this is a real failure of our education system. why we cannot teach the very basic part of our higher education, and these people have to be sent overseas? look at China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand, the Asian countries that are more advanced than us. Do they do it, sending students overseas for just a bachelor’s degree?
make sure we know how to teach one to walk, before we can all fly one day. the current situation is, we don’t know how to teach a person to walk….
soon we all Malaysians will need High Income to sustain High Cost of Living….
The cost of education in private colleges/iniversities had risen so high and we will find the banks will soon earn more money by lending the money for the students to study…
Hence, high income to help us to sustain high cost of living will be the way of Malaysians to live in 2020!!!
So sad……
///Apparent differences in the school dropout rates between Malays and non-Malays for example, may not be due to race, rather to urban and rural factors. Until we can sharpen our statistical analysis, we should not be quick to attribute differences purely to race.///–Bakri
Simple logic; a Malay has on average more children to look after, and hence more of them will fail. But then UMNOputras needed Malays to produce more children so that they are assured of Malay unity in votes, like Mamakthir showed them hoe to get elected.
Big oil find in Sarawak!
Najib and gang must be jumping with great joy by now.
White haired “rajah” will fight on to stay in power and other BN parties in Sarawak will try to outwit each other to grab bigger shares.
A find is deemed as no find to the nation and to its people for all monies are vastly distributed among cronies and building more white elephants on pretext as developement.
Fuel prices will continues on to soar quitely as our consumer’s prices are totally based according to middle east output even though it’s our very own oil.
People of sarawak must no longer live in “jungles” anymore as it’s their time to take control of their future.
Spread the message across and boot those “robbers” out in this coming election.
Sent the white haired “rajah” packing for good.
As for pakatan “famillies”, this is the right time to go for a “kill” for the powerful ” vampire” is in “hibernation”.
Bring more “stake” and “silver bullet” along and strike it hard into its “heart” once and with full force.
This is the perfect time to end its rule for our whole country’s future starts there.
Petronas’s big discovery of an oil field, probably the biggest in the world is not helpful if it’s another excuse for financial profligacy. The richness of natural resources does not mean we care not for human capital. In today’s era of globalisation we need the human capital for technological change in scaling up the value-added ladder for income. However what we have done and are still doing is to perpetuate – indeed exacerbate- our patronage ridden political culture based on race and religion bearing heavy costs at the expense of human capital and the nation’s longer term well being.
How long can the government maintain affirmative policy of absorbing and feeding graduates and people unemployable in private sector for want of skills or English proficiency to compete? One cannot escape the effects of Globalisation including what’s happening in China & India and the changes of attitude in wanting to show and boast of wealth. For example Chinese not only now buy in unprecedented scale Hennessy XO, Louis Vuitton or Ferraris but also (for example) their meat consumption habits have increased. They buy lots of meat whenever they entertain guests (for face) even though much of it is wasted! It is not only the consumption driven masses demand more meat vegetables cooking oil and foodstuffs but even their livestocks have exponentially increased to supply the meat which leads to another exponential increase in demand for grains needed for livestock feed which empties the global grain stocks, pushing up generally food prices by forces of supply & demand! When human capital is not developed and people’s skills are not sufficient to generate income to buy basics including foodstuffs that are going up in prices due to Global changes (including what’s happening in rising economies of China & India), they will in turn, facilitated by sms, facebooks etc, have less tolerance threshold for mis-governance and take to protests in the Squares (as what happened in Tunisia, Egypt, and would likely follow in Algeria or Yemen – and even beyond to Italy and so on.
Of course the above is an oversimplified illustration of how the forces in globalised era are often inter-connected and react. It is meant to underscore the fact that to keep up, a country must pay attention to develop and retain its human capital or inevitably face instability and unrest in time to come generated by these swirling changes and inter-connected forces in the Global front.
I might as well respond on cintanegara’s behalf.
One word. Just one.
Lame.
Contrast that with our experience recently at Malaysia’s spanking new multibillion-dollar Sepang airport. First, the “limousine” was nothing more than a fancy taxi. Second, the poor driver spoke not a word of English (imagine serving an international airport!) and only a smattering of Malay. As we had not been to Malaysia for sometime, we were suitably impressed first with the airport and then with the gleaming new freeways and all the new constructions. But for every question we asked the driver, we received a grunting, “Tak tau” (Don’t know). And when we reached our hotel, because of the lineup at the entrance, he tried to drop us by the curb. After we protested, he reluctantly drove us up to the lobby. He never so much as got out of his seat to help us. And this character expected a generous tip from us! Unlike my Atlanta driver, this Malaysian driver was probably a school dropout. by Dr Bakri
Recently i went to TM centre to inquire its computer package with HP that i saw in their respective advertisement.I forgot to bring the the piece of paper i jotted down on the model.The manager was unhelpful and asked me to go back and print out the ad.I retorted and told her off.I said since i am using its service and why not she just check it out from their site.Finally she browsed through the site and reluctantly printed out and asked someone from the counter to brief me.This shows how inefficient this so call manager least to say her subordinates.Everything to them ‘tak tau’,besok,lusa and worst,not so entertaining attitude shown when they are not hands on.How to lure brain drain with this corporate hierarchy’s pea-brain attitude.I really did made a big scene there and hope it will teach them a lesson.
Farmer Jib had a nagging wife who made his life miserable . . .. . . The only real peace that he got was when he was out in the field plowing.
One day when he was out in the field, Jib’s wife brought his lunch to him. Then she stayed while he quietly ate and berated him with a constant stream of nagging and complaining. Suddenly, Jib’s old buffalo, sick of having to listen to the endless nagging, kicked up his back legs, striking the wife in the head and killing her instantly.
At the wake, Hatir noticed that when the women offered their sympathy to Jib he would nod his head up and down. But when the men came up and spoke quietly to him, he would shake his head from side to side.
When the wake was over and all the mourners had left, Hatir approached Jib and asked, “Why was it that you nodded your head up and down to all the women and shook your head from side to side to all the men?”
“Well,” Jib replied, “The women all said how nice she looked, and her hairstyle was so pretty, so I agreed by nodding my head up and down. But the men all asked, “Is that buffalo for sale?”
Enhancing Human Capital — Producing super malaysians who don’t poo and even don’t eat / drink for 2 whole days!
http://malaysiakini.com/news/156052
Of course we can lament on the need to do the basic degree overseas but then having come across the great majority of local basic degree holder we can conclude, maybe the top 25% are ok! well the rest are just churned out for stats. So pulau-sibu, without those with overseas degree, we will face even bigger problems. Even among the overseas graduates, I have come across some Red-bricks mechanical engineers who could not figure out simple estimates on strength of basic materials; maybe even in Uk they have succumbed to our quick-fix needs and this was more than 30 years ago! So we have roofs and buildings collapsing, so be surprised! The next time you have to enter some recently built Gomen buildings we may have to puyrchase extra clause for premium! Without doubt we have been bent on making the crowd happy with all As and 1st class advertisements in local papers!