80% of it is pure imagination
Probably no thanks to the bad reviews (or not), we had been setting aside the urge to watch this third instalment of the Star Wars sequel trilogy which incidentally also is the final episode of the nine-part “Skywalker saga” as soon as it come to the cinemas. Poster source: www.starwars.com.
H1N1 created havoc in 2009 with 78 deaths in Malaysia. Why it is making a comeback after 10 years? Image of H1N1 virus – source: Wikipedia.
I woke up this morning reading breaking news that 7 years old child in Johore had died due to influenza like illness and this was after she was initially tested negative for H1N1. It was shocking, scary and a tragedy indeed.
This will be the last post on education system moving forward in 2020 (at least for the first quarter of this year). By the way, it is still early to say that Dr M taking charge of the Education Ministry is a good thing or not. After all, he already had his hands full as the Prime Minister, running the whole country.
Talking about the education system, I wrote this post almost 10 years ago on teaching Science & Mathematics in English. It did not make any sense then; it does not make any sense now. There were 23 so-called arguments put forward by some NGO back in 2009 and it is in Bahasa Malaysia (note: PPSMI means Pengajaran dan Pembelajaran Sains dan Matematik Dalam Bahasa Inggeris which loosely translated as Teaching and Learning of Science and Mathematics in English).
Yup, I am still on the topic of Education in Malaysia – this probably would be my last 2 posts on the topic before I move on to some other topics. I actually had something else in my mind when I read this excellent post on Dr Bakri Musa’s blog titled “Unsolicited Advice For The Next Minister of Education”. Image source: Free Malaysia Today
By the way, for those of you who may not be familiar with Dr Bakri Musa, he is a Malaysian-born and Canadian-trained surgeon in private practice in Silicon Valley, California. He is also a well known speaker and writer related to current issues. The full detail of his bio-data is listed here.
(The differences between PISA & TIMSS – Table source: https://theeconomyofmeaning.com)
As I was drafting the post on OECD Big Data and reading PISA articles, my son stopped at my working desk and asked me whether I will be evaluating TIMSS as well.
I was not aware of TIMSS before this so when my son mentioned it, it sounded Greek and I knew I needed to dig further for details.
(Based on the data source from OECD, hopefully in 2020, the Education Minister will focus more on the changes that is more relevant for the modern world than on religion and race. We need to wake up and smell reality irrespective where we come from. Image source: TheStar)
Wow, finally Dr Maszlee Malik had stepped down as the Education Minister (rare ones who own ministerial responsibility & resigns – I truly respect him for that) and I hope whoever replacing him will immediately drop the petty experiments like introduction of Jawi for BM and relook into propelling the younger generations to meet the reality of a dynamic future world.
Education is serious business for any parents who still have kids in school. And it is the same for me. I am always thinking of their future and ways to ensure that they get the best in education based on my capability and means. As parents, we had never said “no” when our kids wanted to buy any books.
I wish Happy New Year and happy holidays to all my subscribers, readers and anyone who had dropped-by to check out my blog. Your visits, comments and likes have been a great motivation to keep blogging.
(Let’s leave issue of democracy, minority rights, race, politics and religion out of school – are we providing the best education method for our kids to survive in the ever changing environment? Image source: Salesforce.org)
If you have not been having your head in the ground, you will know that the issue of teaching of khat in school especially with the Chinese schools has been the biggest issue in the country lately. Ever since the matter was raised, it simply refuse to die down.
If you ask me, the very idea of having 3 pages of Jawi in the Standard 4 textbooks have been blown out of proportion. At the most, it is public relationship failure to engage the various stakeholders effectively.
It started with the questions like why now, why mandatory & not optional, why it is under Bahasa and not Arts, why the focus on Jawi and not Science & Maths in English, what is the benefit to the students in the end, is it going to replace BM as we know it, is it another way to enforce religion in schools, etc.
(Water disruptions and people queuing up to get water from public tanks – do we need this at this age where we have enough rain & raw water to be channelled to water treatment plant? Image source; NST)
You know how pissed off I was last Tuesday?
I was driving back from work – it was raining rather very heavily and some parts of the road were even flooded. I reached home and the rain have not stopped and found that the tap was still dry. It has been 4 days since the water supply was disrupted. Something does not add up, doesn’t it?
Water disruptions due to illegal dumping should not be happening in the developed state like the State of Selangor and yet we continue to get such incidents every year. Obviously there is a serious lack of enforcement and not taking strong actions to curtail illegal dumping. Image source: The Star
We just had a major water disruption 3 months ago when on September 23, it was closed due to contamination from Sungai Lalang near the Semenyih Hitech area, and a day earlier, it was shut down due to contamination believed to be from an illegal factory along Jalan Sungai Lalang.