SABAH STANDOFF, invaders from the Philippines shoot dead!

At least 14 people have reportedly been killed, after Malaysian police ended a standoff with nearly 200 members of a Filipino Muslim group.

Malaysia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry says police launched an assault on a coastal village in the eastern Malaysian state of Sabah early on Friday morning.

The village of Lahad Datu had been occupied by a group led by Agbimuddin Kiram, a brother of the head of a Filipino Muslim royal clan. The group from the southern Philippines landed in the coastal village on February 9th, claiming the territory as their own.

They cited documents from the late 1800s to back up their claim. The owner of the house where Kiram stayed was killed, and the Filipino group was reportedly chased towards the sea.



Najib: All-out action will now be taken against the intruders

Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said he was saddened by the deaths in the shootout at Tanduo village in Lahad Datu, because there had been bloodshed despite the Government's attempts to prevent it.

Expressing his sadness over the deaths of two police commandos who were killed and the three who were injured, the Prime Minister said the group of Sulu gunmen had opened fire at the security forces.

He said that with the deadline for them to leave now over, all-out action would be taken against the intruders, who had caused the deaths of the policemen.

“I have given the full mandate to Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Ismail Omar and Armed Forces Chief Tan Sri Zulkefli Mohd Zin to take whatever action is deemed necessary,” he told a press conference.

“They have been given full powers. It is up to them and the ground commanders can take action.

“There will be no compromise; either they surrender or face the consequences.”

Najib said security had been strengthened and the intruders totally surrounded, adding that vessels of the Royal Malaysian Navy were patrolling the sea to prevent them from escaping.

“What is important now is that whatever means must be used to cripple the group,” he added.

Najib said he had received reports that 12 people from the armed group were also killed in the exchange of fire.

Source: Asia News Network

Related post:

Filipinos’ Sulu militant group in Sabah must leave Malaysia today 

Raising productivity growth

I REFER to the report “Malaysians lag in productivity” (see the related posts below). The recent findings by the Malaysian Productivity Corporation (MPC) shows that our worker productivity levels, productivity growth and productivity value are lower than several leading industrialised economies and even some developing countries in our region.

That’s serious and calls for a more specific analysis of the situation to identify the real causes and institute urgent remedial measures involving all factors that influence productivity. MPC is of the view that even with our 2011 productivity growth rate of 4.55%, we are still on track to become a high-income nation by 2020.

It must, however, be understood that when any single factor of productivity or total factor productivity is low, economic growth will not be sustainable over the long-term and will instead decline and with it bring down both employment and incomes.

Some reasons have been cited for our low worker productivity levels, such as workers who prolong working time to perform a job thus increasing costs, poor working conditions, low-level of worker motivation and lack of incentives, among others.

As the Malaysian Trades Union Congress (MTUC) and the SME Corp have pointed out, a major factor that keeps worker productivity levels low is the massive hiring and continuing dependence on low-skilled, especially foreign, workers, who make up a fifth to a third, or even more, of the workforce in various industries.

Also, the use of low, or even medium, level technology and the preponderance of low value-added industries dominating the economy, contribute to low worker productivity levels.

Clearly, in order to boost overall productivity levels, there is an urgent need to pursue quality growth by investing in and providing incentives for:

1. > Upgrading skills;
2. > Increasing local worker employment levels;
3. > Encouraging high value-added industries in all sectors of the economy; and,
4. > Tightening foreign worker policies.

Other measures should include increased partnerships with leading global companies, developing the talents and skills needed to support such businesses, promoting high-end local enterprises and investing in a strong 21st century education system.

While rewarding employees through increases in wages and benefits might please them, it should never be done on an adhoc basis nor as a mere handout exercise for whatever reason.

If rewards are to serve as incentives to increase productivity levels, such benefits must be for better performance that is measurable, and that leads to higher level and quality of output and gains.

Underlying the need to raise productivity growth and worker productivity levels is the importance of cooperation between the management or employers and workers in fostering a conducive working environment and increasing the quantum and value of goods produced or services delivered.

There has to be genuine scope for ongoing mutual dialogue among these “social partners” that promotes consensus-building and the democratic involvement of those with vital stakes in raising performance, productivity, profitability and personal rewards.

RUEBEN DUDLEY Former United Nations / ILO Regional Deputy Director for Asia & the Pacific

Related posts:
Malaysians lag in productivity 

Performance culture lacking, Malaysian workers!

Are we competent with competencies?  

Shy boys given rooms to grow as they are lagging girls

 

Schoolboys do relaxation exercises in an all boys class at the government-run Shanghai Number Eight High School. Shanghai, whose school system produces the world's top test-scorers, has launched China's first all-boys high school program with an eye on elite overseas institutions like Eton. Source: AFP

SHANGHAI: Teenage boys in a Shanghai school are on the front line of teaching reform after the world's top-scoring education system introduced male-only classes over worries they are lagging girls.

Rows of white-shirted boys are put through their paces as they are called up individually to complete a chemical formula by teacher Shen Huimin, who hopes that a switch to male-only classes will help them overcome their reticence.

"We give boys a chance to change," she said.

The Shanghai school system topped the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development's (OECD) worldwide assessment tests of 15-year-olds in 2009, the most recent available, ahead of Korea, Finland, Hong Kong and Singapore.

But even so officials are concerned that some male students may be slower than their female counterparts in development and certain academic areas, such as language, and the shift towards single sex classes aims to boost boys' confidence.

Girls do better than boys in secondary school across the developed world, an OECD report found.

A prominent Chinese educator, Sun Yunxiao, found the proportion of boys classed among the top scholars in the country's "gaokao" university entrance exams plunged from 66.2 percent to 39.7 percent between 1999 and 2008.

Across the developed world, girls do better than boys in secondary school, the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) found in a 2009 report on the educational performances of 15-year-olds.

"There are significant gender differences in educational outcomes," it said, adding that high school graduation rates across the OECD were 87 percent for girls but only 79 percent for boys.

In response, Shanghai's elite Number Eight High School is halfway through the initial year of an experiment, putting 60 boys into two classes of their own - a quarter of its first-year students - and teaching them with a special curriculum.

Schoolboys solve a math problem in an all boys class at the government-run Shanghai Number Eight High School in Shanghai.

 "This is a big breakthrough," said principal Lu Qisheng. "There's lots of hope - hope that boys will grow up better.

"Boys when they are young do not spend enough time studying," he explained. "Boys' maturity, especially for language and showing self-control, lags behind girls."

-- "We lack confidence" -

China shut most same-sex schools after the Communist Party came to power in 1949, and the only all-boys junior high schools in the country are privately run.

The number of male students scoring top marks in China's university entrance exams has plunged from 66 per cent to 49 per cent

Shanghai does have an all-girls state-run high school, the former McTyeire School for Girls, which marked its 120th anniversary last year and counts the three Soong sisters - Qing-ling, Ai-ling and Mei-ling - among its former pupils.

Between them they married two leaders and an industrialist. Qing-ling married Sun Yat-sen, the first President of the Republic of China, while Mei-ling wed Chiang Kai-shek, who would also later become president.

Student Li Zhongyang, 15, said he felt less shy about answering questions in his all-boys class, but drew hoots of laughter from his fellows by suggesting an absence of girls let them concentrate more on study.

"We lack confidence," he said. "The teachers like girls, who answer more questions in class. This programme lets us realise we are not worse than girls."

It is something of a contrast to males' traditionally dominant roles in Chinese culture, but principal Lu said the programme "doesn't have much relationship to equality in society".

The scheme was launched after China's government called for more "diversification" in educational choices within the state system.

A Peking University professor has called for an even bolder reform, suggesting in September that boys should start school one or two years later than girls.

"The Chinese education system needs to improve and allow various education methods," Wu Bihu said on his microblog. Now Lu hopes to create China's first all-boys school one day.

"Ten or twenty years ago, there was no need for an all-boys class - just put everyone together," he said.

In an increasingly aspirational society, he added, some families saw the new programme as having connotations of top overseas private schools, and so promising an advantage in the highly competitive gaokao.

"The parents know: England has Eton," he said. - AFP