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January 2020

Extension of PLUS Concession to Year 2058: Doing the Maths

touch n go plus

I don’t use PLUS highways on daily basis but when it comes to taking week long drive to the in-laws house or going for holidays, we have no choice but to use PLUS highways for the trip up North or South (rarely we go off to the East Coast unless there are very important family functions or to do crazy thing like this trip). Image source: Compare Hero.my

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Movie Review 101: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker 2019

star wars

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 comes to the cinemas. Poster source: www.starwars.com.

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Outbreak Alert 2020: H1N1 on the Prowl Again

H1N1

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.

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Education Malaysia 2020: 23 Reasons for Rejecting Teaching Science & Mathematics in English

Education

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).

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Education Malaysia 2020: Bakri Musa’s Advice For The Minister of Education

education

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.

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Education Malaysia 2020: Which is Better – TIMSS vs PISA?

timss

(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.

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