Kam Raslan’s Talking Edge

(Reprinted from The Edge – Options pullout, 4 August 2014 issue)

You were a bit harsh on the government regarding the MH17 tragedy last week. I think the PM did very well.
Standing Proud

In last week’s Talking Edge, I wrote about the MH17 tragedy and I was critical of the Malaysian government’s earlier handling of the MH370 tragedy. I think it was inept and therefore I had absolutely no faith in its ability to handle the MH17 crisis any differently. I thought the outcome would be yet more embarrassment for Malaysia. But then, a few hours after The Edge had gone to press, the PM surprised me, and I think, the world, by announcing that the Malaysian government had negotiated directly with pro-Russian separatists to secure the release of the victims’ remains, give access to the crash site and return MH17’s black boxes. This was truly excellent news, and for what it’s worth, I offer my heartfelt congratulations and thanks to the PM and his staff for negotiating this important deal in difficult circumstances. This success goes a long way towards restoring Malaysia’s reputation after the disaster of MH370. I would also like to congratulate the people who came up with the idea for Malaysian athletes to wear MAS uniforms at the Commonwealth Games’ opening ceremony. It was a moving, symbolic gesture. I don’t know about you but I really needed that. Well done, and I take back some of what I said in last week’s Talking Edge.

The problem is, my expectations have become so low. Nowadays, I am surprised by examples of intelligent statesmanship and clever uniting symbols. I might be completely alone in this but nowadays, I have absolutely no expectations of any government agency. I assume that all agencies have degraded from the halcyon days of yesteryear when, if you were told that something was built by the PWD (Public Works Department), then you understood that it had a genuine purpose and that it was built to last forever and not for, er, any other reason. I simply assume that the machine of government is bloated and self-serving and I have quite happily adapted to work with that, but I came back to Malaysia in 1990 and I don’t know any better.

My cynicism can lead to personal embarrassment. My WiFi appeared to be not working but I refused to call the supplier because I had no faith that it could fix it. So, I privately cursed it and suffered through dreadful Internet connection. Eventually, I did some Internet research and found that the problem lay not with the WiFi connection but with my computer. I didn’t understand what I was doing (what on earth is a “DSL”?) but I followed the instructions on the Internet and suddenly, I had excellent WiFi connection again. My Internet supplier was never at fault. Sorry about that.

I am sorry that my expectations have dropped so low. I congratulate examples of competence and efficiency and I want to be able to do it a lot more. But all too often, I see examples of behaviour that is divisive. When the Malaysian athletes entered the Commonwealth Games arena in Glasgow wearing MAS uniforms, I was deeply moved by the symbolic gesture. Unfortunately, Ibrahim Ali managed to steal the headlines a few days later by complaining that the athletes were led out by a dog — a Scottish Terrier wearing tartan, a symbol of the host nation of Scotland. His ridiculous utterances do not in themselves negate all the good work done but sadly for me, this kind of unnecessary divisiveness has become my expectation.

I hate to end on a downer, so congratulations again for all the excellent achievements in seeking solutions to the MH17 tragedy.

Dear Kam,
I was struck by a strange thought the other day. Why am I spending money on extra tuition for my child?
Single Parent

I’m working on a radio documentary about education around the world and what we in Malaysia might be able to take from these examples. We interviewed a British education consultant who spoke about top achievers such as Finland and Singapore but cautioned that there is no “one size fits all” solution for improving an education system. Each country has its own cultural and legacy issues, but he did point out what he considers to be three common factors in a successful system.

Most importantly, the education system must have the best possible teachers and be able to attract the best possible human capital to join the teaching profession. They must be trained to the highest standards, held to those standards and be rewarded accordingly.

Secondly, there must be an expectation of the government, teachers, parents and children that all students can and will achieve the highest levels of competence. The aim of education should be to reach for the highest standards and not just a basic level. It’s not enough that students leave school with a basic ability to read, they must be able to enter the world with the best possible advantages. It’s about the system’s basic aspiration. Aim high.

Finally, grades must be globally translatable and have genuine meaning. An A grade in one country must be equivalent to an A grade in another. It is self-defeating to lower standards just to raise supposed results. If everybody can get an A grade, then what is an A grade? Students will leave school with the understandable supposition that they have achieved genuine good results, but they haven’t. If the standards are not high and the grades don’t really mean anything, then you’ll have that strange and horrible combination of arrogance and incompetence. The losers in that situation will be the students and the country as a whole because this would be a “lost generation” that must be re-schooled.

Education is a topic that animates people, even if they are not students themselves or have school-going children. Education is about the future of a nation because the children who are in school today will be the workforce and leaders of tomorrow. If you see a broken education system churning out incapable graduates, then how else can you greet the future other than with a sense of despair?

I believe that forging a decent education system is not rocket science. It’s about priorities. Do you want to create drones or do you want to help mould young people who can think on their feet, adapt quickly and effectively to change, can work individually and in teams and can lead as well as follow (effective following is an underrated art)? Do you want young people who can confidently embrace the challenges of the future or young people who are fearful of the outside world?

The time has long since passed when the corporate sector could guarantee a job for life, and it’s probably only a matter of time before the same thing happens to the public sector as well. If today’s schoolchildren are not given the tools to be able to cope with a difficult future, then they are not going to thank us for the choices we made for them today.

Reprinted with the kind permission of