Thursday, November 24, 2011

Cows,cows,cows.

The hottest news in malaysia these days is related to cows.

The husband of a Federal minister owns a company which aims to grow cattle in the interior district of Gemas for the purpose of proving to the world that Malaysia is capable of producing premium beef.The company,the National Feedlot Corporation(NFC), has obtained a government loan (the opposition argued that it is a grant) of RM250 millions for the project.But after 2 years, the project has fallen far far behind target. It was discovered that portion of the loan(or grant?) was used to purchase 2 PREMIUM condominium units in prime area within the Federal capital, Kuala Lumpur.


The excuse for doing this action was because the money are idling, so it was invested in property which is, in the company's opinion, better than putting it in bank fixed deposit.NCP chairman (the husband of the said minister)had called a press conference to explain why the money is idle. I could not understand what he explained, nor could many Malaysians, I guess.

Thursday, November 03, 2011

PPSMI - To stay or not?

Personally I feel the issue with teaching science and mathematics in English(PPSMI) needs to be handled with care.


Now the sentiments on both sides involved in the argument are that of wanting to gain a totally win, one side wants to do away with it completely, while the other wants to embrace it stock and barrels.


They should meet half way, let the subjects to be taught in the children's mother tongue for Primary schools because they need full concentration to master their mother tongue and National Language at this stage. English should be taught as a second language.


Then when they reach Secondary school, they would have acquired enough skills in English to be able to understand the internationalization of the subjects in English fully. I strongly urge the use of English at this level because it is a very important international language.


But the government seeks the easy way out by simply abolishing it in both Primary and Secondary levels. While some English-speaking parents want it to be implemented right from the beginning stage of a child's schooling days disregarding the weakness of English of most children, especially those from the kampongs. This is pure selfishness because they know their own children are good at English and have a clear advantage over others in the class if these subjects are taught in English.


Then there are the politicians. Please don't politicize this issue for our future generation's sake.