Ronald Benjamin
The Malaysian Insider
May 12, 2011
MAY 12 — The ongoing brain drain has become a topic of intense debate since a World Bank official said that Malaysia would have had five times the foreign direct investment if not for its pro-Bumiputera policy. This comes at a time where there are about a million skilled Malaysian workers overseas who have no intention of coming back to the country.
Perkasa has claimed that even the Malays are leaving Malaysia due to the discrimination in the private sector, but fell short of providing detailed arguments on what it means by private sector discrimination.
All these debates only deal with positions that interest a particular political position without any serious attempt to resolve the issues through objective criteria that require politicians to accept truths about the real situation.
Politicians need to have the courage to take the nation along the right path — especially in creating an environment and cultural mindset for work excellence and in reducing the chronic brain drain.
Some of the problems include ethnic and neo-liberal policies that favour big business, a low-cost labour pool, poor work culture among the Malaysian workforce, the mismatch of supply from the education institutions and the needs of the market, and the gulf in power relations between the management and employees in the private sector.
These clearly show that development in Malaysia is basically physical and material at the expense of human development resulting in a brain drain from the country.
The first thing that the government should do if its honest in tackling the brain drain is to conduct a serious survey of local perceptions of discriminatory policies in the public and private sector. It is vital to conduct this survey to understand the realities on the ground.
Complaints of discrimination often centre on the ethnic Chinese and Malays, while there is hardly any comment of how other ethnic groups such as the Indians, Kadazans, and Dayaks perceive their situation in the public and private sectors.
Second, it is vital for the government to take a closer look at our education system and its content, which seems geared towards theories while failing to create well-rounded individuals capable of progress through intangible skills such as drive, desire, diplomacy, playfulness, humour, awareness and insight.
There are co-curricular activities in schools that help in these skills, but are the teachers qualified and do they take interest in reigniting and explaining learning experiences to students after these activities?
Understanding behaviour that creates success is vital, and teachers should be role models in facilitating such behaviour in schools. Are our current teachers in schools meeting these criteria? Is this not one of the underlying reasons for the brain drain taking place?
Many Malaysian parents are concerned about the type of education their children are receiving in this country. There is a preoccupation with ethnicity and religious ideology over meritocracy and excellence.
There is also the unresolved mismatch between the skills required by the private sector and the type of vocational training given in training institutes. For example, during my interview sessions for recruitment among college students, I found that students have gone though robotics studies, but the majority of SMEs are still dependent on manually operated machines. How can skilled workers remain in the country when there are limited avenues to use their skills?
Third, from my experience in the manufacturing sector, I find that Malaysian workers lack the necessary culture of excellence to succeed. This is made difficult through a hierarchy-based management structure that is “top down” with wide power differentials and where there are no common goals between management and employees.
Such a management structure creates a win-lose situation made worse by the policy of employment of foreign workers that keeps wages low. Such power differentials in the private sector have prompted highly educated individuals who prefer a “flat” organisation with greater empowerment to leave the country. They leave behind disgruntled low-wage workers who do not feel a sense of belonging to their organisation and whose only concern centres around wages.
Finally, it is vital to look at supply-and-demand and the resulting productivity of workers within ethnic groups in Malaysia that keeps wages low. We need to examine how the private sector employers evaluate their employees in terms of productivity and recruitment — and how ethnic perceptions come into play — and how these employees are paid accordingly.
This is where the missing link is when academics and government officials discuss increasing productivity, without elaborating on the mindset of employers on how they pay their workers.
The ethnic Chinese community are no takers of low salary, and this is proven when they make up the least numbers in low-end operations jobs. This is the context of how the brain drain takes place; low wages are linked to low productivity and it is also linked to employers’ perceptions of the work culture of the various ethnic groups.
Therefore it is vital to understand not only the macro aspect of the brain drain issue but also the micro aspect of it. Unless the government and the private sector tackle these issues honestly, the brain drain will continue to haunt Malaysia.
The Talent Corp that is formed by the government will not succeed unless critical issues are expounded in detail. Solutions must be found that encourage a human development perspective instead of regressive ethnic sentiments that do not do the nation a service. — Aliran.com
* Ronald Benjamin is an Aliran member based in Ipoh.
Brain drain? no. Don’t call it brain drain. brain drain are those perkosa, pembela, cow head stomping, and utusan meloya types of brain. their brain is totally drain. As for utusan meloya, the brain is in the drain.
call it brain train. they took the train and left.
Sung to the tune “Only You”
To Jib aka Geromino
.
.
.
Only you
can make this world go wrong
Only you
can make the brightness dark
Only you and you alone
can disgust me like you do
and fill my heart with scorn for only you
Only you
can make this change in me
For it’s true
you are the new Geromino
When you open your mouth, I understand
the evils that you do
You’re my nightmare come true
my one and only you, only you
I disagree. The root cause is known, well-known. The solution on the other hand is either political or difficult. The easy solution is the political one and that is why its the one that need to be fixed before anything else. BUT because the other problems are difficult, when it gets dragged into the political solution, it becomes a mess. Its the proverbial the crab dragging down everyone because it can’t get up on its own.
You don’t fix problems by making it complicated, you fix it by dealing with the obvious first and then the rest later. If you try and fix everything all at once, NOTHING gets done.
THERE IS NON SO BLIND AS THOSE WHO WOULD NOT SEE.
Maybe it is greed that made them not to see. Maybe it is arrogance.
We need to change the tenant at Putrajaya, as soon as possible.
//Perkasa has claimed that even the Malays are leaving Malaysia due to the discrimination in the private sector, but fell short of providing detailed arguments on what it means by private sector discrimination.//
Making profit is the ultimate goal in private sector. IF one proves to be a good candidate, why would the private sector discriminate against the person? Won’t that result in being penalised for not meeting certain quota in HR recruitment?
Let us not conceptualise and theorise the issue in order to understand the problem. Let us be practical. I prefer to be practical. The problem is umno and umno’s idiotic politicies. Nothing else.
“Perkasa has claimed that even the Malays are leaving Malaysia due to the discrimination in the private sector, but fell short of providing detailed arguments on what it means by private sector discrimination.”
————————
It is true that some Malays are being discriminated by UMNO in the “private parts” sector e.g. by Datuk T, Saifool, Umi Halfilda, and other UMNO culprits
Malays discriminated in the private sector? That is true. Really but it should not be counted as discrimination but more as mismatch. Mismatch because their command of english is bad. Their general knowledge of science and maths is bad. All of these again point towards umno’s idiotic policies.
These UMNO Ketuanan Melayu fully aware of the causes, they created the causes, they were designed
to keep the brainy away and deceive the ignorant. So that they can continue to clinch on to power and merrily plunder the nation. To them, their belief is, “In the kingdom of the blinds, the one eyed is the king”
To all the opportunists, self-interested individuals and UMNO/BN apologists, search your conscience, do the correct thing…vote for change!
But the problem is the government knows the root causes of brain drain; it however refuses to the acknowledge them. Talent Corp said that it was a global phenomenon for professionals to migrate to other countries.
Why worry about brain drain when the country has brains like Ibrahim Ali, Yusri, Hishammuddin and Khir Toyo?
They prefer a poor Malay country than a rich Malaysian country.
Off-topic but of public interest—-
The two acid-splashing psychos had struck again in consecutive attacks last Friday, bringing the number of victims of the seemingly random attacks to 25 in just a few weeks.
These 2 have yet to be caught. They have very good brains to have evaded the police for so long. There is a simple way to get them. Just offer a reward of say RM1million for info leading to their capture and presto! there will be throngs of people queuing up to offer such info. Everyone wants to be a millionaire nowadays.
And when those 2 have been apprehended, please make sure that they are adequately punished by having their rambutan trees immersed in acid………The RM1 million reward money would then have been well spent.
Really almost everybody knows what the main causes of the brain drain are including the UMNO government and the fat toad in Perkasa. The causes cited in this article are secondary and as such the problem will never be solved if the primary cause is not tackled first. However, the primary causes cannot be removed because doing so will take away the cake from those in power and who are feeding on it exclusively. The only way as someone mentioned is really political. Kick BN out and let PR in.
For d young ones, with reference 2 #2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r2pEdc1_lI
///The first thing …. if its honest in tackling the brain drain is to conduct a serious survey of local perceptions of discriminatory policies in the public and private sector. It is vital to conduct this survey to understand the realities on the ground.///
Discrimination is a perception and not reality? What perception study do you need? You may have inadvertently asked Idris Jala to waste a couple of million on APCO to do this study you know.
///Second, it is vital for the government to take a closer look at our education system and its content, which seems geared towards theories while failing to create well-rounded individuals capable of progress through intangible skills such as drive, desire, diplomacy, playfulness, humour, awareness and insight.///
The failing of our education system is not about the content or too much emphasis on theories. No education system is able to provide specific skills and competency to cater to the exact requirements of the job market. That is how nincompoop educators and employers in Malaysia have persistently argued and have wanted us to believe. The reality is we have an education system where the blind is leading blind and the half baked is teaching the unbaked. We have academic programmes that are unchallenging, easy to pass and score distinctions but instilling nothing on the students the ability to learn how to learn, to thinking, to articulate and to write coherently.
The failing of our education system is not about the content or too much emphasis on theories. No education system is able to provide specific skills and competency to cater to the exact requirements of the job market. That is how nincompoop educators and employers in Malaysia have persistently argued and have wanted us to believe. The reality is we have an education system where the blind is leading blind and the half baked is teaching the unbaked. We have academic programmes that are unchallenging, easy to pass and score distinctions but instilling nothing on the students the ability to learn how to learn, to think, to articulate and to write coherently.
#12 by k1980.
Friend, RM 1million can buy many people in a lot of buy elections as opposed to 2 jerks. The brainy gomen of bolehland is not so stupid one ….
You have stupid moderation criteria here. I withdraw my posting above. No need for you to release later.
Everybody aware of the roof cause due to the implementation of biased policy in education, business…etc.
They need a preventive measures rather than a lip service trying to cure the illness with incentive of tax or grant those spouse a citizenship. No parent wanted to save a big bulk of money to send their children to over sea for education and ask them not to return.
The preventive measures is to implement a fair policy with equal change in education and business to all races and no tongkat like AP, Alibaba contract to reduce the wastage.
Anyway, despite our G telling all races that all will be fairly treated (talk only) under the constitution but their action and system had discriminated other by taking the university place and not renewing their business license and free hand out for AP/contract…etc.
Auto Correction (fair policy to attract investor and prevent brain drain) will take place in when the country resources run dry in year 2018 due to the following:-
1) Wastage on Corruption.
2) Increase expenditure for free hand out due to increased bumi population (more AP and contracts for them)
3) Increase expenditure for useless graduate.(G need to employ them if every year maintain the quantity production instead of quality graduate)
4) reduce tax collection due to brain drain
5) Reduce foreign investor due to rotten policy.
With the reduction in collection of tax for country revenue and increase in expenditure.
Do you expect the country to grow or go backward?