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Monday, 7 February 2011

Home, not so sweet home

Ceritalah By Karim Raslan



Many students abroad are thinking of staying back to work in London, New York or other cities, with their parents agreeing — and some even encouraging their kids not to return.

LAST month, just before I went to Davos, I gave a talk at Cambridge University. I first went there in 1982, some 28 years ago, and this visit made me feel very old. I suddenly realised that for the current students, I was like a relic.

Still, Cambridge — even after a gap of almost three decades — remains a lovely place. The town has barely changed, with students on bicycles everywhere. Indeed, the centre has been almost entirely pedestrianised, and ancient College buildings scrubbed clean.

The morning after the talk I found myself walking along King’s Parade — the town’s most prominent thoroughfare and through my old college, St Johns. It was a beautiful wintry morning, misty and with a light frost on the ground.

To my surprise, the colleges now charge tourists an entrance fee. However, with all the bravado of a former student, I just marched through the entrance, striding from one pebbled courtyard to another, past buildings that had seen the test of time.

It’s hard to express the sense of time passing. Here I was 28 years older, striding past buildings and a landscape (the trees and the river Cam) that has remained seemingly unchanged. I couldn’t help but wonder how I’d spent all the years.

I was in Cambridge to give a talk on Indonesia. It was also a thinly veiled opportunity for me to recruit people for my consulting practice, and indeed I was to do the same with students from Kings’ College, London, and from a dynamic Malaysian students group called UKEC.

My small business depends on drawing in bright, curious and hard-working young people who are willing to challenge assumptions, hit the ground, talk to businessmen, politicians, regulators and media practitioners while also ploughing through thousands of newspaper articles and reports.

In short, it’s not easy work; and the boss is very, very demanding.

I used to worry about recruiting, but nowadays, I’ve begun to realise that my regional focus — advising corporates, individuals and funds across South-East Asia — is an exciting proposition for young people hankering after experience and exposure.

Indeed, being in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand as well as Singapore has given me an enormous advantage in terms of recruitment in that, I’m able to offer the young people a real taste of doing business both inside and outside Malaysia.

Back when I was a young student, I couldn’t wait to return home to Malaysia. My enthusiasm to go home was infectious. I’d sit up all night with friends and talk about what I wanted to do with my country.

To be frank (and this is one of life’s little lessons), I’ve forgotten and/or failed to achieve the things I had set out to do. Instead, I’ve gone on and done other things.

However, nowadays when I meet with students, I sense a growing reluctance to return home. Many of the students are thinking of working elsewhere and making plans to get jobs in London, New York or other cities.

Indeed, when I check with friends whose kids are studying abroad, virtually all of them have agreed to let their kids stay on and work. Some have actually encouraged their kids not to return.

In the 1980s, this was a non-Malay phenomenon. In the 2010s, it’s a Malaysian trend as Malays have also joined the ranks of those who have elected to stay abroad.

Many of the students who choose not to return are sons and daughters of the middle class. Maybe there’s nothing wrong with us losing these young people? Maybe they’re not loyal enough? Maybe their semangat ke-Malaysia-an is too weak?

However, having chatted with the students, I’ve come to see that they love their home country as much as anyone else. But, when presented with alternative options, they chose not to return.

Isn’t this something we should be concerned about? Shouldn’t we be trying to make Malaysia more attractive for our bright, well-educated, young people? Shouldn’t we address the issues they face?

Top of the list is salary. Malaysian wages are caught in a deflationary trap — especially when compared with what’s on offer in the UK, the US or even Singapore.

Next up is a sense of frustration with the unnecessarily bureaucratic and unresponsive government machinery as well as the controls on personal freedom.

The breakdown between public and private morality also causes anguish for many, especially those still experimenting with life’s endless possibilities.

Young people don’t want to demonstrate all the time — they just want to know there’s a real and effective legal and political system that offers them a choice of leaders.

Malaysia won’t lure back the many tens of thousands of young people till we address these problems.

Despite all these hurdles, I’ve found that bright, ambitious young men and women will jump at a chance to work — even if the salaries aren’t great — so long as they’re given exposure and experience across South-East Asia, its 11 countries and 500 million people.

In short, we have to tell our young people that Kuala Lumpur, indeed Malaysia, can be a platform to explore the whole of Asean. Then they’ll come, and in their thousands.

Raise the bar for future doctors

By JOSHUA FOONG joshuafoong@thestar.com.my

MMA concerned about quality of local medical graduates



PETALING JAYA: There is growing concern about the quality of doctors that the country is churning out.

This is due to the low prerequisites allowed for preparatory medical colleges, known to accept SPM-level students with the minimum requirement of Bs in sciences.

From there, the students have a high chance of getting into universities in countries like Russia and Indonesia.

“There must be some quality or level of excellence before one can realistically aspire to be a doctor,” Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) president Dr David Quek told The Star.

“If one is not good enough there will be problems of quality later on when he or she becomes a doctor.

“It is not simply about getting a degree or a name. It has bearings on human life and patient safety,” he added.
“The association is unhappy that we are having so many routes to medical schools.

“We are creating an unrealistic atmosphere of easy entry for anyone who can afford to pay but whose scholastic ability may be way off the mark,” added Dr Quek.

Readers of The Star have also written in to express their concern on the many “shoplot medical schools.”

While medical universities require recognition by the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC) before their graduates can practise medicine, the council does not have the authority to regulate pre-university courses tied with medical degree programmes.

“We are now looking into the entry criteria for medical students, and if these are too low, then we have recommended remedial measures to limit these medical colleges from being recognised as acceptable standards,” said Dr Quek, who is a council member.

“We are also working with the Higher Education Ministry and its agencies to ensure that foundation courses be of acceptable standards and duration, and that only sufficiently qualified students are accepted,” he added.

Universiti Malaya physiology professor Dr Cheng Hwee Ming said a student also had to master the art of decision making besides having clinical skills.

Rheumatologist Dr Pagalavan Letchumanan, who has trained housemen and lectured for 13 years, said the key point should be clear standardisation for entrance requirements.

“If we regulate the intake of medical students, say through MMC-certified prerequisites, just like our medical degrees, we can be more assured of the quality of our future graduates,” he added.

Sunday, 6 February 2011

Malaysians left high and dry


 
WE HAD gone to Egypt for our family holiday to show our children one of the ancient wonders of the world with its rich and famous history.

Little did we expect to be part of another history that is taking part in Cairo right now.

It was most unfortunate that our holiday ended abruptly but we didn’t expect it to end with such a bad taste in our mouths – caused by our own people.

The riots started in full on Friday, Jan 28 after the afternoon prayers and we were informed by both our tour guide as well as the hotel authorities, to stay in and not go out.

All mobile phone lines and Internet services were cut by the Egyptian Government and our only contact with the outside world was watching CNN and Aljazeera.

The next morning at breakfast, the other guests of the hotel were instructed by their respective embassies on what to do.

We then tried to contact our embassy, especially when we heard all Egyptian Airlines tickets were cancelled.
‘TRIED’ is the operative word here. We finally got through in the evening (it was 1600hrs by which time the curfew was in force) - needless to say, we did not get any helpful advise or even simple information.

Instead, we were told to inform the embassy on the situation at the airport when we got there!

They didn’t ask our names, our hotel, whether we had any children with us or even if there were other Malaysians in the same hotel.

By this time, the United States, India and Turkey had already announced on TV that they were sending their own aircraft to help their respective citizens.

The next day, as soon as the curfew was lifted, our tour guide took us to the airport and helped us there among all the chaos.

We found out all Egyptian Airlines flights were indeed cancelled.


Meanwhile, since the mobile services were back, our travel agent (from Malaysia) texted us that our flights were confirmed from Dubai to Kuala Lumpur but to contact the Malaysian Embassy for help to get to Dubai.

She also gave us another number at the embassy, specially set up for this situation – needless to say, the person who was manning the phones was of NO help – he could hardly speak recognisable English and could speak NO Bahasa Malaysia at all!

My husband got fed up and just went to the Emirates counter and bought our tickets to Dubai.

There were so many Malaysian students at the airport and as a mother, my heart went out to them – especially the girls, as the Cairo airport was truly scary, no place to sit, no food and a security nightmare – so many bags just left lying around.

While waiting to check-in, we were approached by the various embassy personnel that were there – the US, British, Indian and even New Zealand – whether we were their citizens and whether we needed help.

I had no answer when my children asked me where were the Malaysian Embassy personnel.

Today I read in the papers that all Malaysian students are back safely – after 10 days? Hurrah!

But what about Malaysian tourists? What happened to the Malaysian Embassy personnel?

I would like answers on the service, or lack thereof, by the Malaysian Embassy to help us in our hour of need, as Malaysians.

PREMAH MUNUSAMY-PHILIP,
Malacca.