>> MIM Speaks
PREPARE OUR YOUNG FOR A UNITED NATION
JUNE 3, 2001 -
THE STAR
EDUCATION is the platform on which people and nations grow.
Without formal and proper education, a nation develops on a
trial-and-error basis at the expense of time and opportunity.
Institutions of higher learning play a critical role in
educating young minds to be responsible and competent citizens.
The culture, environment and operating systems of such
institutions help create the right mindset in undergraduates.
Positive integration among the student population at the campus
can forge mutual understanding and cooperation among them. This
is especially important for multicultural Malaysia.
Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) is one such institution of
higher learning that has put this united Malaysia concept into
practice. This was evident to parents and enrolling freshies
who landed at Kota Kinabalu airport, where the multiracial
seniors of UMS displayed an outstanding welcome ceremony for
all in-coming flights from the May 18 to 20, 2001.
They then organised the entire journey to the campus, where the
whole atmosphere reflected the seriousness of the leadership in
creating a multicultural interface. The registration and hostel
arrangements were so easy and cordial that my wife and I felt
that our son could have done it alone registering at the
Forestry Faculty.
Most of my friends who went to register their children at other
public universities in west Malaysia were surprised by the UMS
story. They described the problems and difficulties they faced
at the campuses, and the lack of interest shown by some staff
in these universities. They were in full support of what UMS
had done and hoped other universities would follow suit.
The Sabahans appear to have a better cultural mix mindset in
this respect. UMS has taken great pains and effort to adopt a
one-Malaysia culture in its campus.
To blend this thought to issues outside the campus, the Prime
Minister, on a recent visit to Kota Kinabalu, called on
Malaysians to correct imbalances - political and economic -
between the bumiputras and the non-bumiputras by working
together.
"Only through mutual cooperation will the bumiputras and
nonbumiputras prosper," the Prime Minister said. This is a call
for cultural integration to work towards a one-Malaysia
concept.
Echoing our Prime Minister, Amartya Sen, a Cambridge don and
Nobel prize winner for economics, in his Singapore speech
argued that education and democracy play an important role in a
country's development. By education, he meant that universities
play the greatest role in the development of the nation by
producing quality graduates to lead and nurture a country.
Indeed, institutions of higher learning must encourage their
undergraduates to participate in all campus activities, as wide
exposure leads to the broad personal development that allows
students to think widely.
However, some institutions of higher learning encourage
students to focus on narrow-band syndrome thinking that tends
to produce future leaders with myopic views. This type of
graduates cannot serve the community well, and more often than
not, will tend to enforce their myopic views on others.
Another cue can be taken from Japan. Carol Gluck reported that
between 1906 and 1911, Japan spent about 43% of villages and
towns' budget on education. This has, to some extent,
contributed to making Japan a household name as a learning
society in the late 20th century.
Others argued that Japan is a mono-culture society and it was
rather easy to get the people to understand and cooperate with
each other. That may be true, but let us look at NASA in the
United States, which has a workforce coming from diverse ethnic
backgrounds that can create and make rocket science work.
Multicultural and multiethnic organisations like NASA create a
reservoir of ideas and knowledge; Japan, which encourages a
monoculture society, tends to create inbreeding, which in the
long haul is harmful to the country.
In Malaysia, the primary school atmosphere is something similar
to what UMS has achieved. Children of diverse ethnic
backgrounds play and eat together, displaying much love and
friendship. However, as they move up to the secondary schools,
there appear to be groupings formed on ethnicity.
This gap widens at the institutions of higher learning, where
it becomes very salient and thereafter in the work environment.
This must be turned around so that people are integrated for
nation building.
The World Development Report (1998-1999) suggests that the
growth in developed as well as developing countries is a
function of the quality of knowledge in those countries.
Michael Zack, in the California Management Review (1999),
argues that knowledge is the fundamental basis of competition,
that is, some form of knowledge transfer takes place for
survival.
However, studies on knowledge transfer - (Ernst and Young,
1997; KPMG, 1998) found that culture was the biggest barrier to
knowledge transfer (54%). Knowledge generation involves
uncertainty and, risk and people need to live with it.
Organisations can reduce risk and the impact of uncertainty by
creating a culture of care, according to Von Krogh (California
Management Review, 1998). These findings reflect that
institutions of learning are responsible for delivering
knowledge in a favourable atmosphere, through a lot of
attention to the cultural interface.
Public institutions of higher learning may need to review their
roles in the current learning environment, and see if they need
to realign their operating system to today's call by the nation
for a one Malaysia concept.
For a start, universities could take a cue from UMS on how to
get the ball rolling in terms of mutual understanding and
cooperation across cultures and, at the same time, be a
champion for knowledge transfer. Graduates from such an
environment are more likely to think broadly and understand the
importance of cultural mix in society.
Malaysia must attempt to forge an education system that is
forward looking and interactive with its multicultural society.
Once this kind of thinking is rolled out in the work
environments in particular and the society in general, the
one-Malaysia concept can be better realised. Until then, this
is only a thought.
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