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No graduate in Kota Marudu village – DAP


by Mariah Doksil
Borneo Post
December 21, 2013

KOTA KINABALU: Likas assemblyman, Junz Wong has urged Deputy Education Minister Datuk Mary Yap to explain why more than 50 per cent of federal scholarships allocated to Sarawak and Sabah students to pursue their education in local universities allegedly had no takers and as such given to students in Peninsular Malaysia.

He said it is impossible for Sabah not to have students who qualified to receive federal scholarships, especially when the government is very proud to have one of the best education systems in the world.

“The ‘loss’ is not the latest story for Sabah and Sarawak, as Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Joseph Entulu has revealed that it has been going on since 2008.

“According to Entulu, only 499 out of 1,000 scholarships allocated for both states were successful in their application in 2008, while in 2009 only 402 successful. He also said the situation was the same for the years 2010, 2011 and 2012,” said Junz in a press conference at Bandaran Berjaya Shangri-la Hotel, yesterday.

Also present were DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang, DAP Sabah chief Jimmy Wong, Kepayan assemblyman Dr Edwin Bosi and Batu Kawan MP Kasthuriraani Patto.

Junz made the call after Kit Siang called on the government to set up a Parliament Select Committee for the amazing performance in the recent Penilaian Menangah Rendah (PMR) examinations. Continue reading “No graduate in Kota Marudu village – DAP”

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Greatest blooper for Muhyiddin as Education Minister is his cowardice to own up to deteriorating educational standards of Malaysian students evidenced in TIMSS 2011 and PISA 2012 which is ironically highlighted by the “superlative” 2013 PMR results

The greatest blooper for Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin is his cowardice to own up to the deteriorating educational standards of Malaysians students evidenced in the 2011 TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) released in December last year and 2012 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) released this month.

Ironically, the deteriorating educational standards of Malaysian students, particularly in the more than four years with Muhyiddin as Education Minister, has been ironically highlighted by the “superlative” 2013 Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR) results, to the extent that both the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and Muhyiddin had publicly congratulated students who excelled in the PMR exam.

The 2013 PMR results are better than last year, with 30,988 or 7.33 per cent of the over 462,940 PRR candidates nationwide who scored Grade A in all subjects – an increase of 0.41 per cent or 514 candidates over last year’s 30,474 Grade A straight scorers.

It is most ironical that the “superlative” 2013 PMR results with 30,988 or 7.33 of the students in the 2013 PMR attaining top scores of all As in all subjects stand in sharp contrast to the 2011 TIMSS, where only two per cent of Malaysian students reached the grade of “top scorers” and 2012 PISA with only 1.3 per cent of Malaysian students scaling the “top scorers” bracket.

Why such a vast contrast in the results of the local PMR examination and the two international educational assessment benchmarks? Continue reading “Greatest blooper for Muhyiddin as Education Minister is his cowardice to own up to deteriorating educational standards of Malaysian students evidenced in TIMSS 2011 and PISA 2012 which is ironically highlighted by the “superlative” 2013 PMR results”

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World Bank president calls corruption ‘Public Enemy No. 1’

Reuters
Thursday Dec 19, 2013

WASHINGTON – The World Bank took a bold stance on fighting corruption on Thursday, with President Jim Yong Kim saying that corruption at both the public and private level is the scourge of the developing world.

The development institution, which long shied away from tackling corruption because it wanted to steer clear of politics, on Thursday said it plans to hire more experts in the rule of law and other governance issues.

Kim said corruption must be at the center of the development lender’s work.

“Every dollar that a corrupt official or a corrupt business person puts in their pocket is a dollar stolen from a pregnant woman who needs health care,” Kim said during a panel. “In the developing world, corruption is public enemy No. 1.”

The announcement shows just how much the bank has changed since the 1990s, when corruption was a taboo subject in an institution that has 188 member countries and shuns picking sides. Continue reading “World Bank president calls corruption ‘Public Enemy No. 1’”

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Journalists, Fight for Your Freedom!

By Kee Thuan Chye
Yahoo! News
21.12.2013

The scourge is upon us. The Government is getting unreasonably authoritarian by suspending the publishing licence of the news weekly The Heat. We are seeing the beginnings of a return to Mahathirism, to the culture of fear that former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad imposed on us. It’s time to nip it in the bud before it gets more grim.

I call on the media and all journalists to do their part to stop the tyranny against media freedom. Stand up and take back your right to freedom of speech and expression. Push for the repeal of the Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA) which accords power to the Home Ministry to grant and revoke licences.

A friend of mine who works in the media suggests a sympathy strike by all journalists, with media owners in tacit support. Is that doable? Or is it too much to ask? Continue reading “Journalists, Fight for Your Freedom!”