faulker059

I want to reproduce a letter written by a friend of mine - Andrew Aeria - on the move by UM to scrap a talk that was supposed to have been given by Nobel Peace Prize winner, Shirin Ebadi. Just to clarify, the letter is written with a sarcastic tone, in case there is any confusion. Congrats to the UM VC! Andrew Aeria | Oct 23, 08 4:38pm I refer to the Malaysiakini report Invite to Nobel laureate scrapped after 'protest from students'. I am writing to congratulate Rafiah Salim, the vice-chancellor of Universiti Malaya for bravely and single-handedly putting Malaysian academia back into the international spotlight. Well done, Rafiah. By caving in to some obviously hidebound ‘Iranian students’ and cancelling Iranian Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi’s scheduled lecture on 'Islam and Cultural Diversity' at UM, you gratuitously displayed to the world your university administration’s equally immaculate bigoted view of academic freedom and the pursuit of knowledge. Certainly, as Mal...

It's not often that a Malaysian academic gets quoted in the Economist. I read this economist article last week and it referred to a Malaysian academic by the name of Narayanan Kulathuramaiyer, who is based in UNIMAS in Sarawak. I google scholar searched him and he has a pretty long list of publications. The Economist quoted him as a data mining expert. Kudos to the professor!

A few friends emailed me recently to tell me that an UMNO leader, Zahid Hamidi, currently a Minister in the PM's department and former UMNO Youth Chief when Anwar was still DPM, was recently conferred a PhD in Communications from UPM. I applaud his resilience in doing his PhD part time despite his busy schedule as a politician. But I am probably a bit suspect in regard to the content of his PhD thesis. I heard Zahid Hamidi speak at a small PROMUDA function a few years back and he came across as an intelligent and intellectually curious UMNO leader. This was in 2003 and he was already doing his PhD then. I was impressed because he didn't really need to get a PhD to bolster his political credentials. I'm glad that he managed to finally finish his PhD. It's a long process which I can certainly attest to as I'm working hard to finish my own PhD thesis next year. But I can't help but have a niggling doubt as to the quality of his PhD research. For now, I'll have...

The 2008 THES rankings are out as many of our readers have noted. Not surprisingly, no Malaysian university made it to the top 200. The top Asian university (not including Australia) is the University of Tokyo at no.18. NUS is ranked 30 and NTU cracked the top 100 at 77. We've debated the pros and cons of university ranking systems many times in this blog. I'd also highly recommend the blog of Richard Holmes which monitors the methodology of the THES and other university rankings. If I were the VCs of any of the top public universities in Malaysia (USM, UM, and UKM), I would refrain from playing the THES ranking game and set expectations low by saying things like 'there's no way that a Malaysian public uni can compete with the other universities in this list given that we're still a developing country, we're still trying to increase the % of PhDs among our faculty, we still have to improve our facilities etc...' I've said this before and I'll say i...

Read this pretty long article in the Star on the Third Report card of the MOE in following the progress of the National Education Blueprint (2006 to 2010). One always has to read these reports with a pinch of salt since they can be manipulated to present the facts in a positive light. It requires one to carefully read the past two report cards in addition to the latest one. But the Star article does point out some things which I thought were positive. For example, the MOE does seem to be trying to introduce more flexibility into the education system. Cluster schools such as MCKK and Tunku Kurshiah College may allow its students to take the International Baccalaureate (IB) program instead of SPM starting in 2011. The Minister, Hishamuddin Tun Hussein, also indicated that the ministry would be moving away from a centralized system of exams to one that would allow greater flexibility at the school level. In addition, he also emphasized that the ministry would be putting in more resources...

A friend of mine, Tzu Anne, pointed me to this post that was originally from a Singapore newspaper, the Electric New Paper, and reproduced in Lim Kit Siang's blog . The story is about a certain Lim Wah Guan. His story is one that is not that common in Singapore. He did pretty well in his primary school exam (PSLE) and for his O levels but did horrendously for his A levels which caused him to be rejected by NUS four times. He finally applied and got into UNSW in Australia for a degree in Chinese and Theatre Studies which he excelled in. He later did a Masters in Oxford and is currently pursuing a PhD in Princeton. His story is not a typical Singapore story in that, as far as I know, very few students who score a C, E and O for his or her A levels and B, D and D in a repeat exam actually end up doing a PhD in Princeton. It does highlight the fact that there needs to be some flexibility in an education system but having some flexibility is usually not costless. (For those who are fami...

Read this article on the Malaysian Insider, originally reported by SCMP in Hong Kong about fake degrees from a St. Regis University. Apparently, some Malaysians have also bought fake degrees from this place. Just a warning to our readers who might know of someone who claims to have a degree from this place.

Got this link from a mailing list I'm party of (the Malaysian Forum started by a group of Stanford students). It's an interview with Tan Twan Eng, whose book, the Gift of Rain , was long listed (as opposed to short listed?) for the Man Booker prize in 2007. I have not read his book yet but I have read Tash Aw's Harmony Silk Factory which is also set in a similar time period (World War II), which I enjoyed thoroughly. It's always nice to read about a Malaysian author gaining some recognition on the international stage.