I was welcomed by the thick haze at KLIA yesterday, and my small daughter, being a winter baby, has started to show some complaints with the heat. Otherwise, it's home sweet home baby! For a while at least, before going back to Hong Kong this Friday and another trip to Shanghai and Beijing next week. They want to learn about how to plan and develop a new high-speed rail (HSR) system. I've involved in a HSR feasibility study before, but it's interesting that they want to learn about how to do the planning better even though they have already have a HSR system, and from a Malaysian who works in the U.S. where HSR is non-existence in both Malaysia and USA. I'm being mentored by a world-renowned expert in the field though, so I'm happy to share what I've learned. After all, the best way to learn is to teach. I'm just a student of the field.
My first visit to Hong Kong (HK) was great. Besides teaching all day Saturday and Sunday, we explored the city in the evening and went to the Disneyland. The transit system is efficient and super clean. People might not know that it's also financially sustainable. Like Singapore and Japan, HK used a lot of revenue capture and joint property development strategies to cover the cost to run the system, and some to cover the construction cost too. Anyway, I had a few thoughts running around my head since the last time I wrote so I want to share these now before I forget.
The biggest news in HK was the Snowden guy, a security analysts who ran to HK to disclose some U.S. confidential information. Having read the New Digital Age early this year, this saga is quite interesting to me. China is having a field day criticizing U.S. based on the disclosure. China and other countries need to worry though as there is nothing to stop someone in their countries to do the same thing, especially if they read a related article showing Ecuador's sunny beaches with some scantily clad girls in the background. Rules are there for reasons. When it comes to confidential and security-sensitive information nobody should bend them. The bad guys are having a field day too figuring out what they think they know what the the good guys know and don't know.
Yesterday, I got my hands on some Malaysian newspapers on board of the new A380 upper-deck (this flying machine is impressive by the way). I saw quite a number of articles on education systems especially related to multi-racial relations in Malaysia, specifically about the vernacular system, reminiscent of the old English schools and about the status of Malay language. I think the vernacular system especially Chinese schools are here to stay without better alternatives. The government needs to address the supply side before meddling the demand side. Meanwhile, I do think sharing a language is indeed something special so it's a good thing if all of us can converse in Malay. Having said that, there are a lot more sources of knowledge, books etc in English than in Malay. There are also a lot more people in the world speak English than Malay. Young educated parents, Malay or non-Malay, know this and have already taken proactive role to emphasize English to their kids from small. The current education system doesn't do justice to young kids from low and middle-income students from rural areas. They will miss out without a stronger emphasis on English. I want to give a tip of the hat to respect Malaysian Airport Holding Berhad (MAHB) for their Beyond Borders initiative to help underprivileged children to learn and use English at a handful of schools. I saw and article in the Star yesterday about their success just in the last 3-5 years or so to improve the passing rate at these schools from about 50% to high 70s - if only we could have a national implementation.
Do you know that elite schools in the West have also emphasizing Chinese Mandarin language? A private kindergarten in NY allocate one day per week for their students to learn and communicate in Chinese. There is a sheer number of people in China and more and more of them are started to have something we call money! It makes economic sense. Malays without full mastery of English will have a double-whammy as compared to Chinese Malaysians in the very new future to survive in the global economy.
Last but not least, a friend of mine shared an online article about some groups who claimed that Malays are losing out with the meritocracy policy to enter universities in Malaysia. Affirmative action at higher education institutions has always been quite contentious. It's somewhat coincidence that the U.S. Supreme Court recently has just "punt" the issue back to a lower court, in essence refusing to make a final judgement. Anyway, the article said Malay only account for 35% of the total university students in Malaysia. There was a 55% allocation to all Bumis before the meritocracy policy was implemented in 2002. I wonder if meritocracy has actually screened out the unqualified Malays from getting in OR rejected the qualified, but not as good as other Malays and non-Malays. It's acceptable if it's the former as for example, you don't want to accept Pangkat 2 SPM students to a medic program - they will struggle and fail (similar cases when Harvard lowered their entry requirements to their law school for underprivileged groups). There are more suitable places like politeknik for the mediocre students to be technicians, mechanics or entrepreneurs. If it's the latter, it's actually a failure to provide enough infrastructure or opportunities to accommodate qualified students, no matter what race, to higher education institutions. This is where a color-blind affirmative action is needed to help the not so rich no matter from any race to get good education.
In any case, I believe affirmative action is like a medicine - you take it in a small amount to get well from a sickness, but you may get addicted if you take too much. I truly understand the need for affirmative action in education as I was highly benefited from it. I have 5 siblings and my dad was a driver with the old Sri Jaya bus company in KL. I wouldn't be half of myself today without some of the help from the government. But, as I said give preference to the needy, not based on the skin of the color.
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