If the teacher feels uncomfortable teaching in English, he or she may choose to get the lesson “over and done with” quickly, covering the bare minimum without going the extra mile to include other good-to-know’s or tips. I’m not saying learning in English is a bad thing. I’m all for English as a medium of instruction, even if it’s just for Science and Math. But the fact remains that we do not have enough qualified teachers to do that. Furthermore, I personally find learning in BM is just as effective.

I agree that we tend to use strange terms like “janjang” (“series” in English), “penyahpecutan” (BM for “deceleration”) and so on, but at the end of the day it’s the concept that’s important. It doesn’t really matter how it’s delivered, as long as it gets delivered. And if it helps to make the delivery more effective, the teacher can throw in its English-equivalent terms as an added bonus. I grew up learning everything in BM and when I entered uni, I found the BM-to-English transition both redundant and enlightening.

Everytime I came across a new English term, I felt joy in successfully relating it to its BM-equivalent word. Japan, Germany and China are examples of technologically-advanced nations that do not use English as a medium of instruction in their education system. Practically, I think we should not be too worked up about the whole PPSMI issue. We can instead focus on what is being taught in schools (factual/accurate History syallbus?) rather than how it’s taught.

Honestly, learning stuff in BM is not the end of the world. Many people turned out fine. There are more pressing issues that need our attention. PPSMI is not going to stop brain-drain. PPSMI is not going to stop our kids from having to sit for IELTS or TOEFL when entering universities. I just think that the PPSMI is a little too far fetched an idea and our country isn’t quite ready for it. Don’t you think so?

Tahanan-tahanan tersebut dikatakan pernah bersubahat dengan pengganas-pengganas lain dalam melancarkan serangan bom di Bali, Indonesia, dan pernah menjalani latihan di bawah pimpinan kumpulan pengganas antarabangsa. Walaupun belum disabit kesalahan secara sah, bukti-bukti pergaulan kedua-dua orang tersebut dengan pengganas-pengganas lain cukup meletakkan mereka dalam kategori ‘individu-individu berbahaya’, di mana mereka mampu berhubung dengan ahli-ahli pengganas yang lain pada bila-bila masa sahaja. Apa buruknya jika tahanan mereka dilanjutkan dengan sabitan kesalahan bersubahat dengan ahli-ahli pengganas lain dalam melancarkan serangan bom di tempat awam? Jika dibandingkan dengan ISA di Malaysia, pusat tahanan di Guantanamo tidak banyak bezanya.

Mungkin kerajaan Malaysia ingin melaksanakan tanggungjawabnya dalam mempertahankan hak kedua-dua pengganas itu sebagai warganegara Malaysia. Mungkin kerajaan ingin memastikan supaya mereka diberi peluang pembicaraan yang adil. Selain daripada kemungkinan yang dikemukakan, saya langsung tidak dapat membayangkan sebab-sebab lain yang menyebabkan kerajaan kita bertekad ingin membawa pulang kedua-dua ahli pengganas itu. Namun, hairan juga saya apabila mendapati seorang warganegara Malaysia yang baru-baru ini tidak diberi peluang pembicaraan yang sewajarnya apabila disyaki terlibat dalam sindiket pencurian kereta. Apa yang lebih menggemparkan adalah nasib yang menimpanya semasa dalam tahanan pihak polis – mati didera walaupun telah bekerjasama dengan pihak polis dalam siasatan mereka.

Jika benar mangsa tersebut merupakan seorang ahli sindiket pencurian kereta, apakah dia perlu dijatuhkan hukuman mati? Jenayah yang dilakukannya jauh lebih ringan berbanding kepada jenayah yang dilakukan oleh kedua-dua orang ahli pengganas Malaysia yang ditahan di Guantanamo itu. Ahli-ahli pengganas itu telah menyebabkan lebih 200 nyawa terkorban, dan mungkin lebih banyak lagi jika mereka tidak ditahan pihak tentera AS. Pada pendapat saya, kedua-dua orang pengganas rakyat Malaysia itu patut dilucutkan kewarganegaraan mereka dan dibiarkan dalam tahanan kerajaan AS. Malu saya apabila mendapat tahu rakyat Malaysia terlibat dalam aktiviti keganasan dan mengancam nyawa orang ramai. Lebih malu lagi apabila saya membaca laporan berita yang menyatakan kerajaan Malaysia sedang berusaha membawa pulang dua orang ahli pangganas tahanan tentera AS dan dipenjarakan di Malaysia.

Perlukah kita berusaha membawa pulang dua orang ahli pengganas warganegara Malaysia yang kini ditahan di Guantanamo? Terbeliak mata jiran dan kawan-kawan kita di Thailand, Singapura dan negara-negara lain apabila mendapat tahu hasrat pelik kerajaan kita. Apakah pengganas-pengganas di pusat tahanan Guantanamo tersebut penting bagi negara Malaysia, sedangkan terdapat banyak lagi masalah-masalah lain yang lebih patut diberi perhatian? Sebagai contoh, masalah kemelesetan ekonomi, kelumpuhan politik, perselisihan perkauman dan bencana alam. Bagi saya, perkara-perkara ‘remeh’ yang tidak memanfaatkan kebanyakan rakyat tidak patut diberi perhatian yang berat. Ini termasuklah hasrat Malaysia yang ingin mempamerkan lukisan Mona Lisa di Kuala Lumpur. Usaha yang ditaruh dalam mencapai permintaan-permintaan tersebut tidak setimpal dengan manfaatnya kepada rakyat Malaysia secara menyeluruh.

Di manakah letaknya keutamaan kerajaan Malaysia sebenarnya?

Tujuan saya menggunakan Bahasa Malaysia adalah supaya pendapat-pendapat saya hanya dapat direnungi mereka yang faham Bahasa Malaysia, iaitu rakyat Malaysia.

She’s going to do what her kor kor and jie jie used to do (and more) – study Accounting on her own and sit for the paper as an extra subject. Apart from that, she’ll also be taking some extra subjects which we think will be helpful in scoring more As. This made me think. As much as I like to say that scoring a string of As doesn’t mean you’re smart, both sis (the one graduating from her bachelor’s soon) and I are still advising her to go for as many as possible. “Take that one lah, free A wor!” I heard myself said.

That’s the reality of the education system in our country. Everybody’s doing it, you cannot afford to not join in. Furthermore, sis is much luckier. She can turn to me or my other sis for help. In fact I have prepared a whole stack of used (printed on one side) A4 papers to be re-used for teaching purposes. The papers are about knee-level high. We also like to use the whiteboards we have in our rooms. At the end of the day, what matters most is not the As that she scores, but whether she understands what, why and how things happen. The As will then come automatically (this theory is applicable up to STPM level only I think!).

Sadly, a certain group of people in Malaysia have begun to work the other way around – Target the As, nevermind if the students don’t really understand the subject. And a large number of these students have landed on my blog in recent months (since the UPSR week), no thanks to my commentary on spotting questions and distributing them in public. Since I did not agree to the idea, some of these hopefuls left lousy comments in that entry – some suggesting that I closed down my site. I have since removed those comments and closed the comment box.

I realized that although there’re differences in the way these students get (or try to get) their As, they have one thing in common – they’re all victims of our age-old education system that hardly promotes thinking in students, but kiasuism. When I told sis to take a particular subject simply because it’s easy to score an A, that’s kiasuism. Because a large number of students are turning to question-spotting tuition centers for help, many others decide to do the same because they just don’t want to lose out to their peers. That’s kiasuism. It’s the system that’s made us this way.

Sad but true. Can we not bow to peer pressure? Despite telling these students that what’s most important in life is attitude rather than As, are you prepared to let your siblings and children lose out on the rat race? I’m not…

Footer: Narrowband has two younger sisters and he believes that the Malaysian education system has much room for improvement. That said, he’s very impressed with the severe punishment in place for students who cheat, because recently one of his sister’s schoolmates was caught cheating during a PMR paper and has since been barred from taking public exams for three years! Also, despite having left school almost 8 years ago, he still looks forward to the scrapping of Moral Education from the SPM subjects line up for non-Muslim students.

Don’t forget, all it took for the police to deploy 15 vehicles and a team of ski-masked policemen to arrest an unarmed Malaysian was an accusation by a 23-year old university drop-out saying that this 60-year old Malaysian had sodomised him. Who’d buy this story? The police. And in Malaysia, it is almost correct to equate the police with the ruling government. Do they really think that the People are incapable of exercising even a little bit of common sense? Everybody knows that if there was another case with similar circumstances – ie. someone accusing his boss of sexual misconduct – the police will not act in a high-handed manner like how they did to the former deputy prime minister. In fact, I think they would not even be bothered to investigate. Hell, if everyone starts making report saying that they have been sodomised, then the police will really be in for quite a bit of work. Given the facts and after all that the government and the police have done, our so-called leaders can still proclaim that whatever that took place were not politically-motivated. “We have got an entrenched, recognized system of criminal law administration”. If this is true, that means the system has been flawed all along.

Personally I’m not a fan of our former deputy prime minister. But I’d be lying if I say I do not wish to see him emerge victorious in this ridiculous, highly dramatic, political battle. Yes it’s been political all along. In fact, I think he has garnered more support from Malaysians nationwide than he ever had before he recently appeared live on a rare oil-price debate, which was beamed nationwide via satellite. The government must be kicking themselves in the behind for green-lighting the televised debate in the first place. It is widely assumed that he had won the debate hands down, although there was no official winner announced. He was subsequently arrested the following day over the unfounded claims brought forth by his former aide. To date, the police have not officially charged him for any crime, because, as many believe, an official report is still in the works, presumably due to the delay in obtaining a key (doctored?) document – the medical report of the said ‘victim’. To add spice into the drama, a copy of the medical report was recently leaked out to the media and, surprisingly, it says that the 23-year old victim had not been sodomised. As expected, the doctor and the hospital are now in hot soup. Instead of looking into the contradicting medical report, the authorities are looking at punishing the hospital and the doctor (who has since gone into hiding) for professional misconduct.

So is the report real or fake? If it is fake then why are the authorities taking the hospital and the doctor to task for “professional misconduct”? Who is the real victim? The famous doctor has now disappeared (according to news reports anyway), much like the way the famous private investigator did. Both are fearing for their safety. We have now become a laughing stock of the world community. A friend who’s studying in Korea yesterday told me that her coursemate had asked her about this case. The US government have also expressed concern. Our once-prided political stability is being eroded by the day. And I’m not referring to only the sodomy case, but the wanton murder of the Mongolian model as well. A powerful figure has been implicated in the murder, dramatically through a sworn statement, only to be negated by another sworn statement shortly after. It’s almost like in the movies. So many questions, but noone is making an effort to get answers. The fact that the authorities are averting certain leads leaves too much room for speculations. They can’t blame us, we’re not born yesterday. Our prime minister, whom I believe has not been able to sleep well in the past few weeks, is not of much help either. He’s still very much choked up with his party’s internal affairs since the elections in March. Not that we appreciate his meddling anyway. His recent directive to the Terengganu state government to use the 14 controversial Mercedes Benz E200K cars only to ferry “guests” drew scores of laughter.

I actually feel sorry for the ruling government for making themselves look so bad lately. You know what the country now badly needs? Royal intervention. I don’t agree that we should get the UN and/or other foreign bodies to step in and meddle in our domestic affairs. At least not now, becase I believe there’s still hope. If all fails, remember that we’re a democratic nation. You know what that means. I’m not saying that things will be better should the opposition come into power. In fact I don’t know for sure. But all I know is that, at the rate things are going, we’re definitely not in good shape.

Proton and I go way back. Yeah. The first Saga was rolled out shortly after I was born. Dad bought one of those Mitsubishi-powered Sagas back then and it served us well as far as I can remember. I hadn’t even entered kindergarten that time, so don’t ask me how good the car was. We upgraded to several Japanese brands in the years that followed. We did not have any major problems with our cars until one day, we got our second Proton. It was a brand new, high-spec Proton Waja 1.8, and it was a big mistake. As a matter of fact, Proton discontinued that model a few years later.

Problems after problems cropped up. The high-spec nature of the car meant that there was a lot of electronics involved. Sensors and electronic circuitries and automatic transmission. None of these was perfect. And because the model had been discontinued, sourcing for replacement parts was hell. Parts were rare, and expensive. About three years down the road, all sorts of colourful, error and warning indicators started to light. The head-up display became a vibrant display of the handbrake indicator light (the one with that red-coloured “!” symbol), ABS warning light (in solid amber, to indicate an error/malfunction), occasional flashing of the door-not-shut warning (in red), and sometimes if you’re lucky, you may even get to see the auto-gearbox error indicator light (in amber, together with the transmission going haywire). Quite a mouthful eh? Let’s look at each and every one of them separately.

Picture of Proton Waja 1.6. The 1.8 version comes with 16″ wheels as opposed to 15″ on 1.6 models.

For some reason, even though the handbrake has been lowered, the red “(!)” indicator never goes away. It’s supposed to tell you that you haven’t lowered your handbrake. Strangely enough, this indicator is always accompanied by yet another indicator – the ABS sensor indicator, which is in amber. According to the Owner’s Manual, once this light comes on, it means that there is something wrong with your ABS (anti-lock braking system). We’ve sent the car to Proton service centers numerous times, in both Glenmarie and Mutiara Damansara’s, but nobody could solve the problem. Some service personnel even had the cheek to tell us it was not within their scope, and that it would take a lot of hassle to repair, that it’d take a long time and that it may even mean replacing the whole car’s ABS completely. That wouldn’t be cheap.

It was obvious that they were not keen to do it. Besides, we were not ready to send our car away for an extended period of time. We needed to use the car. The people at the service center added that the car would still brake normally, and that there was no cause to worry. We could only leave the service center in disbelief and disappointment. FYI, the problem was never solved. It’s been so long that we’ve gotten used to it now. I think none of us remember that we actually paid for the ABS feature, which has never been fully utilized.

And then the occasional flashing of the door-not-shut indicator only adds to the disco-like ambient in the head-up display, especially at night. The indicator is supposed to tell you that at least one door has not been tightly shut. It’s definitely a wiring problem, because the light comes on even though our doors have been properly shut. We got it fixed once but the problem came back. Since it doesn’t really affect our driving or comfort, we began to ignore it as well. Since this door-sensor and the cabin-light (at the ceiling in the car) are wired together, we sometimes get the disco-light effect at night too. And since we’ve decided to ignore this warning, we have to force-off the cabin light.

Next, let’s move on the transmission problem. This one takes the cake, I tell you. The automatic transmission would ‘hang’ while you’re driving, sometimes jerking the whole car so strongly that you’d have thought you ran over something hard. That’s when the automatic-transmission warning light comes on. This ‘rock-hard jerking’ has frightened not only my passengers numerous times, but also myself, even! It’s like this – while you’re cruising at gear 4 for example, the gearbox suddenly drops back to 3rd and it stays there. Even if you try to floor the accelerator, the gear will never shift back up to 4th. You can try, but the engine will sound so damn loud you’d think it’s on the verge of exploding. Red-lining a stock-standard Proton is a no-no.

When slowing down (like approaching a toll booth), the gear may drop to 2nd. When you finally stop the car, you’ll realize that it’s very difficult to get the car moving again. That’s because the gear is stuck at 2nd gear. It’s like you’re trying to drag a reluctant cow to move. The deep growl of the engine only contributes to the analogy. You don’t know what I’m talking about? Try moving your car from standstill in 2nd gear (not 1st!) – the pickup will be much slower and your engine will feel ‘heavy’. When we told the Proton Service Centers about our problem, the mechanics could actually reply confidently, “Oh! Just stop by the roadside, and switch off the engine, and then restart it. The light will be gone and your transmission will be fine again!”. Hello? We really didn’t need them to tell us that, because that’s exactly what we had been doing everytime we encountered the problem. The thing is, it kept recurring so frequently!

We wanted to get it repaired once and for all. Again, the staff at the Service Centers could not solve the problem. They did try to change some oil here and there, changed some parts that we had to pay on our own, but at the end of the day the problem still persisted. They later gave up and said that the gearbox was sourced from Renault, and that we should go back to Renault for their expertise. We knew that some parts of the car was sourced from the French carmaker, including the engine and the gearbox. But hey, did we buy a Proton or a Renault in the first place? We eventually went to Renault to try and get it done – the car was okay for a while, but then the problem came back not long after. To say that we were frustrated is an understatement. We’ve given up. A new car is inevitable. [Addendum (Feb 4th, 2008): I came across a story related to my case. I believe the complainant had been suffering from exactly the same problem. Hop on over to blog.thestar.com.my to read it. His car was a Proton Satria Neo.]

My experience with Proton and its Service Centers and the mentality of its service personnel has been far from satisfactory. The purchasing power ultimately lies in hands of the consumer and as a disgruntled customer, I’m steering clear of Proton the next time I’m thinking of buying a new car. Forget about it being a national pride, an “everybody’s car”, that it looks good (surprisingly Proton has won the hearts of many Malaysians simply by playing the cosmetic game), and nonsense like that. I’m all for practicality, quality, safety, reliability, and excellent after-sales support. Right now it’s as if everything in a Proton car has a pre-set lifespan (like a ticking time-bomb), which will give way after some time, and you’ll need to go back and purchase a replacement part. Especially door handles, power window motors, and other poorly-designed mechanisms that shouldn’t be giving so many problems the way they have. I’m inclined to think that this is a deliberate attempt to help sustain the income of its vendors and create jobs for aspiring mechanics.

By the by…

One Flaming Hot Neo

That’s Jen’s car. You can read about her misfortune on her blog. Her car’s electrical circuitry had been accidentally shorted by one of Proton’s authorized service centers, and it caused her car’s engine bay to catch fire (with a small explosion, no less). Imagine a girl driving the car alone – had she not pulled over, don’t you think her life would have been in great danger? And now she’s being victimized even though it wasn’t her fault at all. What utter codswallop!

Some of us have to work our asses off at sites. Sometimes, I heard, we may even need to work 7 days a week! Like most projects in every company, time is a luxury. And I was warned that our time away can stretch for as long as 6 months, sometimes even longer. All these traveling, therefore, will leave us engineers with little time for anything else – say, dating. My friend said something like “Act quickly… or else, be prepared to be a 40-year old bachelor.” Guys, if this doesn’t sound worrisome to you, you probably have about 70% of Brad Pitt’s looks. Unless of course, you’ve already secured yourself a soulmate – like what my colleague (the one who warned me all these things) did.

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend his wedding reception. I tried not to think about all his warnings and enjoyed myself that night. And I did. My table had 7 ladies, and I was among the 3 guys (vastly) outnumbered. I really admired this colleague (the groom) of mine. At 26, he’s begun to settle down – something that many men can only do after hitting 30 years old. He married his high school beau and had hundreds of friends and relatives invited to the dinner. Heck, even a new colleague who has only known him for about 3 months was also invited! I was elated when he handed me the invitation card – no not because I could finally give an angpow for the first time in my life, but because I actually felt a sense of belonging in the company.

Ok so back to what I was saying – my table. Seven absolutely cool ladies sat with me, and I almost cried when they knew my name even without me introducing myself. There was so much noise at our table, and everyone drank like the vineyard was just next door. We emptied two bottles of red wine in less than two hours. It was *that* good. The lovely ladies – mostly my colleagues from other departments – had some of the best senses of humour I’ve ever seen. I was actually very thankful for not being arranged to sit with my bosses. Nevermind the fact that our table was directly behind some humongous pillar – so huge that it perfectly blocked our view of the stage – because we didn’t miss anything anyway as there were two huge projector screens at both sides of the hall. I cannot imagine the sort of topics of conversation that went on over at my bosses’ table ;p

By the way, speaking of the projector screens, I must commend the photo slideshow that the wedding photographers made. It was heart-warmingly beautiful! Among the places they went to was the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia (FRIM) somewhere in Kepong. That location provided some very breathtaking backgrounds for the photoshoot. We asked for the name of the wedding photographer, and for a moment – having forgotten the likelihood that I was going to stay single for a long, long time – I told myself that I *must* go to the same photographer when my time comes. Until today, I can still recall the slideshow presentation with the matching background songs.

Another remarkable thing about the event that night was the newlyweds’ eloquence. They both gave their own speeches and, having heard hundreds of speeches in as many Toastmasters events, I must say that they spoke very well! Mind you, they prepared their speeches in both Mandarin and English – for the benefit of everyone present. The Mandarin version was more moving, because they expressed their gratitude and appreciation towards their parents for all the love and sacrifice they’ve given them. They also thanked each other’s parents for consenting to their union. The English version was directed more at friends and colleagues. After the speeches, the groom also displayed his vocal prowess by singing a song to his wife.

So…! How did I feel that night? Hot. The wine made me look like a walking tomato. But I didn’t get drunk – I hardly do. The ladies from my table loved to drink – and I turned out to be their loyal drinking companion even though I appeared quiet most of the time. After the dinner, there were even talks of going to a nearby club for a party. But that didn’t realize as it was too crazy an idea. I went home thinking about the wedding, my colleagues, my job and my life. Is my job really gonna doom me to be single til I’m 40? Looking at the female population here in my company, I think there’s still hope. But I’ve only one gripe…: that night at the wedding alone, I was the youngest at the table. So you can roughly guess the average age (relative to mine) back in the office……

Have a fantastic week ahead, everyone!

I was on my way home from buying groceries when I heard a special announcement on the radio just now. No it had nothing to do with the National Budget, it’s something more interesting, less predictable. Do you remember my entry about SPM tips and the craze for more A’s in today’s exams? Someone took it a step further by announcing exam tips on the radio today. Well actually, he made the announcement over the telephone, and it was broadcast to public.

Apparently this man, more popularly known as Mr Andrew Choo, had ‘accurately predicted’ this year’s UPSR questions, and now he’s doing it again for the upcoming PMR paper. He is also said to have predicted last year’s exam questions accurately. The radio station I was listening to was 988, a local Chinese radio station. He was actually invited to make the announcement on-air. He also has a website, which seems to be quite a hit itself.

Now isn’t that interesting? Haven’t we just heard about this year’s UPSR leaks? In case you’ve forgotten, students who sit for the UPSR exam are mostly 12 year-olds. The people who bocor-ed the questions clearly wanted to start these kids young! After all, there never seems to be a shortage of ‘tip-providers’ for PMR and SPM exams, every year. The announcement by Mr Andrew Choo on the radio, at one part, actually went something like this (spoken in Cantonese):

“Our recent predictions for the UPSR had turned out to be very accurate, so now, dear PMR 2007 students, listen up carefully…”

He proceeded to read out the questions, in BM, word-by-word. I found it quite unbelievable, and even thought it was a joke. Honestly, I have heard about exam leaks all my life, since I was in school myself, but I had never heard them being announced openly before. This brings up a question: Can someone actually do that, legally? With the level of confidence that Mr Choo had, I could almost tell that he meant business, especially since his UPSR 2007 predictions turned out to be highly accurate.

Personally, I don’t believe in accurate ‘predictions’; there is no such thing. To me, if the questions are really accurate, then they’re as good as leaks. What happened to the good ol’ way of studying hard for exams, without relying on tips? Do we actually need them? It is unfair to those who have no access to the tips, especially those who’re from the lower-income group because these tips don’t usually come for free. Usually, you either need to find a tuition center that boasts the ability to accurately ‘spot’ questions, or buy special ‘workbooks’ that claim to contain accurate predictions of future exam questions.

With all these unfair advantage for the select few and blatant disregard for exam integrity, I wonder where our education system is headed. Our bolehness is getting a little out of hand, don’t you think?

Suddenly, a pair of foreign couple who were walking along the sidewalk (carrying small backpacks) yelled “Excuse me!”, and started to walk towards my car. The traffic was really bad and all the cars came to a halt. The man then asked me if I was going to Kuala Lumpur. Well, I was indeed following the road signs that say ‘Kuala Lumpur’, in order to get out of that confusing administrative capital. So I blurted “Yeah?” without much thought, even though I wasn’t actually going to KL.

He then asked if he and his girlfriend could hitch a ride from me, as they couldn’t get a cab. He added that he would pay me RM50 per kilometer or something, just as long as I could take them to some place where they could catch a cab. At that moment, I tried to put myself in their shoes and indeed, I understood perfectly that it was difficult to get a cab at that time, in that traffic conditions. Heck, I don’t think there was even any cab at all!

So, I was ready to offer them a ride, but hadn’t invited them in. I was silent for a while, and tried to think where I could drop them. At that juncture, a torrent of other nasty thoughts also came to my mind. How could I be sure if they were telling the truth? Mind you, they did not look suspicious at all. In fact, they even looked friendly. I really wanted to help. It was definitely not about the money – I don’t think I’d even take a sen if I had really agreed to give them a ride. It was about security.

I think if I had at least another friend in the car at that time, I would have agreed. But no, I was all alone and if anything happened, I’d be in deep shit. I had too much to risk. In the end, I apologetically uttered “I’m sorry…”, and I suggested that they tried some other cars behind. I felt so bad, I honestly did. They left without saying a word, and I drove forward as the car in front had already moved.

I wound up my window, and proceeded to SMS a couple of friends what had happened. Most of them said they’d do the same thing, almost without a doubt. But if only they could see the disappointment in the couple’s eyes… I even worried about giving them a bad impression about this country! A friend, Toong, joked that I had ‘let our great nation down’ (exact words), but went on to say he’d probably have done the same.

I wish I could tell everyone that we Malaysians are really a kind and friendly lot… but now I don’t think I’m even qualified to say that. If you were me, in such a short span of 1 minute, would you have decided to give them a ride? Actually, I’m starting to regret that I refused to help…

Edit@1034hrs: Zewt asked about their nationality. If you’re wondering too, I’m sorry to say that I don’t know. They looked Hispanic, though.

A few years later, the PTS examination was abolished, and every student must go through P.4. The brighter students – without doubt, there are many of them every year – could no longer ‘skip’ a year of study. Why should we deprive them of this opportunity? It is obvious that we are shutting them out. Note that during my sister’s year, there were also parents who opted to play safe and decided not to let their children skip a year of study, although they passed the PTS examination. It had always been a matter of choice. You can choose not to skip, but you should not prevent others from skipping. My sister never had problems fitting in with her friends and classmates who were mostly a year older.

The only ‘disadvantage’ my sister had was being selected for National Service (NS) during Upper Six. A deferment was inevitable (and boy, trust me, the procedure as well as the way her case was handled was frustrating). But that’s not really a bad thing, isn’t it? That said, however, I’d like to lament the lack of recognition for PTS students who had done well throughout the years. It is a feat to have been able to skip a year of study, and proceed to excel in school thereafter. Because the PTS is no longer in place, many seem to have forgotten that there was such a thing before. Worse, as the PTS was only in existence for a short while, some people do not even know what it is. And let’s not even get to the NS trainee selection process – they totally forgot about PTS students.

In any case, the PTS would not have been introduced in the first place if the Education Ministry didn’t think it was a good idea. Surely they had their reasons for introducing the PTS back then. It is unfortunate that the PTS had to be discontinued. If I had the opportunity to skip P.4, I would have done it too. I agree that the ministry should revive the PTS. Let us not hold back bright students.

By the way, I found this picture in this week’s Star Education Cover Story:

Kind of ironic, don’t you think?

Signing off now,
A non-professional blogger. I think.

Edit@June 4th, 2007: Found a piece of related article dated November 17, 1996 via Jolene’s.

But the quest for strings of A’s is understandable. How often do you hear people asking “Which subjects did you get an A for?”?. Save for future employers, very few are interested in knowing which subjects you aced. Even fewer are interested in knowing what extra curricular activities you joined. There is little doubt that great emphasis is placed on scoring A’s. So much so that some tuition centers even provide ‘tips’, and claim to be able to ‘spot’ or predict SPM questions accurately. I used to have friends who’d travel all the way to KL to attend a very popular tuition center. These days, ‘good’ tuition centers train students on how to tackle exam questions.

A lot of focus is put on answering the questions correctly, what keywords to use, familiarizing oneself with the question patterns, and how they are asked. Stacks of past-year papers, sample papers and worksheets are used in drilling these students. Is this what our education system was set out to be? Studying for the sake of getting as many A’s as possible in exams? How much of knowledge really went into a student’s head is questionable. To make matters worse, I’ve even heard of some ‘privileged’ schools giving students sample papers that are very much similar to the real paper, a few weeks earlier. I wonder if such practices are effective in educating the teenagers, although I don’t know how far this is true.

The ministry’s proposal to limit the number of SPM subjects a student can register is timely (Sorry, I just read that this won’t realize). Perhaps, more weightage should be given to developing a student’s leadership, thinking, interpersonal, analytical and problem-solving skills – practical skills that could be useful throughout his life, and not just during the examinations. A student’s excellent SPM achievement does not reflect any of these qualities. I’d like to mention one example (oh I love it when I talk about this; no prizes for guessing why), the Moral Education. Scoring an A1 for this subject does not make a student any ‘less immoral’ compared to students who scored otherwise. It only means that he can memorize things better. And yes, they will be quickly forgotten after the exam is over.

How practical is that? Yet, no one cares – as long as it’s an A and that’s all that matters. It’s time we placed less emphasis on scoring as many A’s as possible, and focused instead on producing more well-rounded individuals. We don’t want someone who can’t perform past the exam period. If a student obtained say, 14, or 15 A’s (not for every subject), does that mean he’s better than one who obtained a 10-straight (perfect) A’s? Sadly though, most scholarships offered are based on the number of A’s a student has. Sigh.

Note: An “A1″ here means “1A” formally. I prefer to suffix the “1″, just like the olden days.