Chicken and Egg puzzle...or a vicious cycle?

I think the people responsible for producing intellects in this country, if such responsibility is deemed a priority, are stuck in a "chicken and egg" puzzle. Which one came first? The lack of intelligent people to create an intelligent education system in order to come up with the next generation of intellects, OR, lack of intellects produced as a result of a not so intelligent education system that gets absorbed into the system and come up with a less intellectual education system. Don't worry if you're confused, so was I at the time when I wrote that. After all, I'm a product of Malaysian Education System.

We do have intellects in Malaysia, of course, but not many I guess. I mean, the fact that Barisan National still hold a majority vote says it all. Take our DPM's comment on response to the Bukit Antarabangsa tragedy, for instance.

“We do not want this (landslide incident) to happen all over again because there is a lot of public anger."

Now tell me that is an intelligent way to answer the press, or to even to think for that matter. This coming from the future Prime Minister by the way. In case you may think that I just made that one up, take a peep here . Never mind the four deaths this tragedy took away, and the property damage, after all, it's only 4, and not 40 or 400. This tragedy was only mentioned on the weather forecast in CNN, not even on the Breaking News. No foreign pressure.

And now the MPs in the Parliament are talking about the lack of intellectuals in our local Universities. They must be referring to the intellects that made it into the Parliament after they graduated from the universities perhaps...because I bump into intellects everyday, especially while blogging and on the net.

Here, fix yourself a cup of beverage and sip it slow while you read this in here;

Backbencher: Local students are intellectually weak

' ''They are lazy to do research and also can’t be bothered to read anything in English,'' he said when debating the Universities and University Colleges Bill yesterday.'

But wasn't it the government who stresses on Bahasa Malaysia so much, mainly because it is the most patriotic thing to do? Who would want to waste time studying English then. (Oh yes, I forgot...the ones with foresights) . English is not our mother tongue. That is why we need to vernaculate our education system. Even the topic in Bahasa Malaysia like "Ilmu Hisab" sounds more interesting than merely "mathematics", a boring English word. So why bother with English at varsity level ?

Why don't we provide text and reference books in Bahasa Malaysia in our universities? We have our dramas translated from even Latino languages, and some of the voices never changed since before I acquired my menarche, why not translate the entire library into Bahasa Kebanggaan, I mean Kebangsaan kita, since we want to be arrogant about our National language. Why suddenly stress the need to read anything in English at higher education level? Let's continue to pooh pooh English, after all, we produce our local graduates for purpose of them working in Malaysia. That word "globalization" is merely something that sounds good on televisyion when speeches are given by politicians.

Lazy? Why are the government grumbling about the varsity students being lazy? Your policy led them in there. With all the quotas for Bumiputras and all. I'm sure they are not referring to the non Malays when they say "lazy" because cream de la creme students can't possibly be lazy because they have to kill each other to get into that small portion of quotas into the university. Of course they were referring to the Malays. Well, not all Malays. There are hard working Malays but they still have to learn how to kiss asses if they want to make it into the real world.

I could almost hear the lazy students think. Why work hard when we have the NEP to back us up, even if we're substandard? Go on, feed us with fish, don't bother teaching us how to fish. It redefines "Pray not for an easy life, but the will and strength to go through it" to "Pray not for the courage to go through life, but for NEP to resume to make life easier". We'll only going to graduate and get absorbed into the governmental establishments and if we learn to kiss the right asses, we may even end up in parliament, just like you guys.

And then there's this statement;

"He said although they were not allowed to join political parties in universities, the Government was making the first progressive step by allowing students to be exposed to the activities of these organisations." Sounds very benign, but, in Malaysia, if you haven't developed the art of reading in between the lines yet, I suggest you master it. Can you see what I see? ( In a tone of the oracle in "Minority Report"), more like a prophecy rather than prediction.

Then he said;

" Khaled said students would be allowed to organize activities with politicians and political parties on issues related to education.".

Now, is that clearer of what? I don't know about you, but I don't think they have DAP, PAS , PKR etc in mind when they mention the word, "political parties". Surely you can predict the future now. Aaauuuuuuummmmmmmmm....

Makes me wonder...is this crisis a chicken and egg puzzle, or a simple case of a vicious cycle...