To cane or not to cane: It's more than that

A few weeks ago, there was a Muslim woman being guilty of consuming alcoholic drink in a bar and eventually was sentenced to caning. As expected, there was a huge debate in the print media as well as the Internet whether the sentence should proceed, and the debate is still and I bet will be alive for a long time.

To cane or not to cane is not a big issue. Whether she is actually obeying or teasing the Muslim is also not an issue. There is a bigger issue than that. It is whether the Muslims are willing to accept either Islam is a closed system or Islam is an open system.

A closed system means that there will be no further discussion or review over Islamic matters that were decided by scholars of the past centuries. Basically, it means the Muslims must accept whatever the fatwas or judgements which were written nearly a thousand years ago. Typically, it is called "taqlid" in Arab which simply means "to obey or follow", if I'm not mistaken.

On the contrary, an open system, just like a computer system, means that there are rooms for arguments and discussions over Islamic matters, regardless whether it is about syariah, ibadah, akidah, etc.

If the Muslims think that Islam is a closed system, then there is no point of discussion. As far as I know, as I didn't study religion, the punishment for consuming alcohol drink is caning. It means there is no debate whatsoever.

If the Muslims think that Islam is an open system, then debate should be allowed either in public or by invitation only.

Unfortunately, I'm of the opinion that the followers of the closed system are the majority and dominant. I don't think there is any room to talk about because the followers of the closed system will not allow you to do so. If you start talking about it, then there will be a lot of condemnations and accusations from all over.

I believe that religion is about interpretation, whatever religion it is. I hope there will be a lot of discussions and forums on the interpretation of the Quran, the Holy Book. We are living in the 21st century with new technologies, therefore some of them have to reviewed. Muslims must dig and study back all the references and literature they can find in the past.

I believe Islam is not completely a closed system and that is why God gives us the Holy Book to show us the right way. Evidence in the Holy Book points that we are encouraged to think, use our brain and heart. More importantly, we pray to God that we do not follow the wrong way at least 17 times a day. It means that continuously staying in the right path is very important.

Allahu 'alam.

Pension scheme for non-government servants

I am to glad to hear that the government is interested and studying on how to make it happen. In the local newspaper dated Friday 24 July 2009, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) is considering to offer pension scheme for people who work in the private sector. The operation of the scheme is still under study.

Currently, pension scheme is only offered to government servants which means that they can choose to withdraw the entire sum of money in the fund upon retirement or they can choose to take pension.

I'd mentioned before in my blog the imporantce of pension scheme for all. Thumbs up to the MOF.

Poor response from the Ministry of Health

As of Monday, 10 August 2009, it was reported in the media that the H1N1 pandemic has taken 32 lives in Malaysia since the outbreak. Immediately, when I heard the news I went to the Ministry of Health website. In the Internet era I think it was a natural instinct or response people made.

Unfortunately, the website of the Malaysian Ministry of Health was not helpful. There was no link to H1N1 despite the increasing number of people dying due to the disease. The appearance of the Ministry of Health did not show any indication that H1N1 was really a pandemic.

I expected to see some warning of what people should do and should not do. At least show some statistics or any information to indicate the status of the pandemic. I did not see much action in there.

It seems to me that the Ministry of Health is not trying its best to keep the general public well-informed. Just because the news are reported in TV or radio news, it does not mean that the job is done. It is the responsibility of the Ministry of Health to provide information to the public. Come on guys, not everybody are watching evening news.

To me, the way the Ministry of Health handle the H1N1 pandemic is poor. They could have done better.

Wrong decision Muhyidin

In my opinion, yesterday, July 8, 2009, was the day when Muhyidin ultimately gave the rich and have ones the upper hand to maintain their status quo, while the poor and have not ones will have to remain in their circle if no supports are given.

Why? It is simply because the rich can just send their children to private schools. Even now, the rich are sending their children to overseas universities in the UK, US or Australia. Just look a the top 20 universities in the world. Most of them are using English as the medium.

The irony of this debate whether to use English as the medium of instruction or not is that those people who made the decision for the government also have the means to send their own children to private schools, local or abroad. And, they will do before 2012.

I'm pretty sure about this. Ask any parents. Ask them, if they got the money, which schools are they going to send to children? I bet it's gonna be the international schools or private schools. This is again another wrong decision made by the government.

The problem is while the government acknowledge that English is important, the government do not know how to teach English to children in the government schools. I really thought the quality of English among students has improved, but actually it is not.

From my short experience of being a tutor in the oldest university in Malaysia, my conclusion is that the quality is not improving which could be due to the wrong pedagogy used in the government schools. I can say this because out of, say, 10 written papers that I had examined and marked, students still do not know how to construct a proper English sentence. They do not know which one is verb, which one is noun, etc.

It was a frustrating experience because that was my first experience of teaching after finishing my Phd. I could not understand what they were trying to tell in their assignments. I'm talking about university students who are studying at supposedly the top university in Malaysia. The quality of writing is not there yet.

In fact, it is not wrong for me to say that university lecturers who failed to pass their Phd in the UK are the ones who are poor in English. Accept the fact that Phd is about putting your ideas into words. If your English is not up to standard, you will fail your Phd.

In conclusion, I resent the decision to scrap off PPSMI. The government are not bold enough to stand up to say that PPSMI is indeed a brave decision the government ever made. PPSMI has the potential to pave the way towards a better commonly unified version of government schools. To establish the link between the poor examination results and PPSMI at this infant stage of implementation is not fair. Improve the pedagogy and the result will prove it.

Proposal of pension fund for non-civil service servants

After fifty years of independence, based on my own observation in Malaysia, in the long run I think people who work in the civil service sector are better off than people who work in the private sector. True, indeed I think it is true.

Malaysia is still a young country and still learning. One thing for sure this country is still learning is that how to manage pension fund. After fifty years of independence, the country might not yet be able to gauge the good and bad about the existing practice of pension plan.

The reason why I think civil servants are better off is that civil servants get pension after they're retired. If they pass away during retirement, the pension will be paid to their spouse or children who are under 18. In that sense, their welfare is secured in the long term because their pension are 'unlimited'. I don't know how 'unlimited' is that, but for that reason alone the civil servants are better off.

Compared with the non-civil service servants, they will only receive their Employees Provident Fund (EPF) money which is limited, subject to how much fund they have accumulated during their years of work. Once the EPF money is finished, they are risking themselves to be financially stranded. For that reason alone, their welfare are not taken care of and therefore they are worse off.

Yes, I agree that the civil service servants pay might be not that attractive, but the 'unlimited' pension is a big incentive, if the information I have about government pension is correct. So if the civil servants think carefully about it, they should appreciate and committed to their job. There should be no more complaints about public services.

Therefore, I think it is about time for the government to think about the welfare of non-civil service servants. I reckon a big portions of them would be people who work in the factories or plantations. They are contributing to the economic growth of the country as well, so they should be rewarded with a good pension plan.

Based on my observation, the existing pension plan is not doing good enough to the retirees of private sectors. For example, I was informed that most of the retirees will finish consuming their EPF money within four to five years. It means that they have to be prepared to go back to work after five years after retirement. Who will take retirees?

Currently, the compulsory retirement age is 58 for the public sector. Assuming that the private sector is following suit, I doubt that employers will take the retirees back to employment. For many people, I believe it is difficult to absorb and digest.

As a result, it is about time for the government to take charge and lead the way regarding the pension plan for private sectors workers. In the UK for example, both public and private workers are entitled to national pension as long as they contributed sufficiently to the national insurance fund in terms of the amount of money and the duration of contribution. It means workers welfare are somewhat well-protected.

It is reasonable that the government should take care of labours, regardless of whom they are working for, as all of them are doing good to the nation. Currently, every worker and his/her employer are contributing to the EPF monthly.

My proposal is like this. I suggest that the government to chip in money into the workers fund, so that the private workers will have extra money in their pension fund. It means that the pension fund for the private sectors will consist of three sources instead of two, i.e. the workers themselves, their employers and the government. This fund will be accessible by the private workers only when they reach retirement age or disability. Basically, the private sectors workers will have more money in their pension fund. However, the government must not allow the private workers to use the money like they do now with part of their EPF money. That's the main purpose of the extra fund.

Although the proposal will increase the government expenses on pension, it is necessary and fair exercise. At least, those who are working hard in the factories and plantations will feel that the government appreciates their contribution. In fact, everyone will feel that the government is doing the right thing and looking after its own people. Furthermore, it gives incentive and motivation to local people to work hard. Otherwise, the country will be swamped with too many illegal immigrants which is already happening for so many years.

Lack of passion could be the answer

At this point I can concur that a lack of passion could be the reason why the conference and colloquium that I had attended before did not meet my expectation. They were dull and plain. In fact, passion could be the main reason why we fail or success.

May be I can relate to my experience while staying in the UK. Football is big in there. Every big city and small have their own football club. Size does not matter. Passion is more important. I can tell how busy and crowded it was on a match day. Football fans are very passionate about football. That could be the reason why their league is famous and envied by all.

You can tell that the quality of football either at La Liga in Spain or Serie A in Itali is not much different from the EPL. The players skills are almost at par with each other. The quality is indifference, but the difference is that it is noisier in the EPL, which means their passion is very high. When passion is high, it makes life more excited and meaningful. Whether your team lose or win, it doesn't matter because you're passionate with your team.

I certainly believe that passion and success are related. So, next time, be more passionate in your work and you'll be rewarded, insya Allah.

More academic discussion

A few days ago I had the opportunity to attend to a colloquium in one of local univ. In the last post, I mentioned about the lack of healthy and useful discussion which I observed from a seminar I attended last month.

Unfortunately, it still happens and it bothers me. This is even worse because a colloquium is supposed to be an academic discussion in nature. It means that the discussion on theories and applications should be more rigorous. Moreover, the colloquium was presented by a foreign professor who I thought was quite impressive in his talk.

When someone finished talking and followed by Q&A, there are two assumptions can be made. First, if the audiences are engaging and knowledgeable, then there will be a lot of Q&As. Second, if there are only one or two questions asked, then the assumption is either the audience clearly understood what he/she was talking about or the audience understood nothing.

Going back to the colloquium at the local univ. that I attended, I have reservation because the latter took place. First, the talk was less than one hour, to be precise it was about 45 minutes. The ones I usually went at the Univ. of Bath easily took one hour, more often one and half hours. Second, there were only three questions in the Q&A session.

From quantitative view, it sounds not good. If the audiences were more knowledgeable, the numbers should be bigger. Of course, I cannot judge the quality because it is subjective. Furthermore, the professor was a foreigner. I'm sure he was paid handsomely to come over here and give a talk.

I wish the colloquium was more lively because that is what the foreign professor was paid for.

Need more forum of discussions

I admit that I'm still new in the environment of local universities. However, I notice that here there is less discussion in terms of conference or seminar presentations here. For instance, at my school in Bath we usually have seminar once a month during term time, presented by professors or lecturers from other university. The time is usually in the afternoon and lasts for one and half hours.

I found the seminar a good exercise and that's when I learned new things and ideas. Although it was only one person giving a talk, the environment was not hostile. It was usually a friendly discussion. As it was long talk, it gave enough time for me to grasp the idea what the professor was talking about.

Here, at least in one of the local varsity, I find there is no similar event. I'm not sure whether it is because of lack of promotion, but the main thing is that I could not find anything similar.

I think the reason could be due to the one I mentioned in my earlier post. It is that we are afraid that somebody might steal our idea. Or it could be that there is no incentive for local lecturers to present their research, let alone to organize one. I'm not sure whether it always ends up in a hostile situation.

Nevertheless, if the assumptions I suggested above were right, then something should be done to improve it. Otherwise, I don't see there will be any change in the quality of education or improvement in world university ranking among local varsity. I believe we can improve a lot things in life through a proper and healthy discussion.

Furthermore, the ability of the lecturers to present and argue their research in quite a long seminar shows their credibility and quality of the lecturers in research. Other lecturers could also learn something from the seminar. It is important because a university is judged not only by the students it produced but also its research and publication.

To relate to my experience, about two weeks ago, I attended to a one and half hours conference organised by a local university which is closed to my house. The conference was about the stimulus package to jump start the economy. There were four panels, three from the industry (two out of three were accounting-based) and one local university lecturer. Actually all of them were local except one who was a PR.

For someone like me who has one through rigorous exercise in the process of getting a Phd, I expected the conference discussion to be a fresh of new ideas in nature. Unfortunately, it was not, despite having top guns in the industry as panelists. Top guns means that the panelists were executive director, CEO and MD of big companies which can considered top management posts.

Their content of presentations were nothing new of ideas. Most of their ideas were already reported in newspapers. I expected these people would tell a new story from the other side of the coin. For example, one panelist was commenting about the government's proposal of the rebate for giving up old cars. Actually, this practice is nothing new. It is modelled from many European country which is meant to generate their dying automotive industry. It shows how shallow the top gun is.

Another panelist was extracting a report from a consultant which did not give anything new input and so did the other panelist. All three panelists though agreed that the stimulus package would work if the implementation is done right. None of them provide any recommendations how to improve implementation.

Unfortunately, the panelist from university also disappointed me. I would like to hear any economic theory and philosophy and recommendations from someone with academic background, and not just disgruntled about the economy. It is evident that there is a need to increase participation in seminar and conference among university lecturers.

People in the industry don't know what theory they have to look into. They are practically day-to-day basis problem solving management. Without a proper theory, you are not able to predict what is going to happen and why it happened.

Therefore, people in the university, I mean the lecturers, should not follow the footsteps of people in the industry. It does not mean that the university should remove any association with industry, but the university should remain as free as possible from industry's influences.

Back to the conference I attended, I would like someone to talk about the philosophy of the economy, i.e. whether we should be inclined towards capitalism or socialism or Marxism. The philosophy is the foundation for economic policy. In addition, I would like someone to touch the issue of rental seeking activity. This activity will also severely affect the economy.

All in all, it shows that it is beneficial for the university to change. I mean badly and urgently need to change. It is a change for a better future of local universities.

Common mistakes in doing a Phd

We all made mistakes, that's natural. But once you'd identified the mistakes, you should try to avoid it. In pursuing a Phd, I find there are common mistakes people do, again and again, even though we knew about it including me myself.

As a result, you're not able to finish your Phd within the prescribed time. Even worse, you'll give up, or withdraw from the Phd program, or your supervisor will recommend you to withdraw. In any cases, you waste your time and money.

There are a few mistakes or rather misjudgements that I always see in UK setting:

1. If I can score and do well in my undergrad course, I should be doing fine in my Phd.

Wrong and absolutely wrong. I saw many times that it does not always the case. It's simply because undergrad is totally different from a Phd. In most of UK setting, you're working on your own starting from day one.

Of course, there were a few very rare cases that I knew where the supervisor was giving assistance to the students almost in every step. It's more like spoonfeeding to me. But not every supervisor is going to do the same.

In the undergrad course you prepare yourself for the exam, but in doing a Phd you set your own questions and then you yourself answer the questions. And that is the most difficult part because you don't really know what questions to ask or how to ask the right question. Being able to ask the right question is important because it shows whether you know your stuff well enough.

So doing a Phd is totally different from undergrad or masters program.

2. It does not really matter if my supervisor does not agree with my idea as long as I like it.

Wrong. I have seen it so many times. It does not work. You must work with the supervisor. The only different between your Phd supervisor and your supervisor at workplace is that you still get your pay even if you totally hate the latter. If you hate the former, your chances to pass your Phd is very thin.

Of course, conflict and contrasting ideas do arise along the way but do not take hostile approach. Turn and generate conflicts into new ideas. After all, we are all human and we don't like hostility.

3. The first year is the honeymoon year. I'll start working hard from year two onwards.

Wrong. Although pursuing a Phd is not a job that will pay your bills, the work starts from day one and there is no holidays or weekends. Everyday is a working day. I'm telling you from my own experience.

4. I should hide my research idea so that other people will not steal my idea.

Wrong. I know someone will disagree with me but one thing for sure is that discussion improves knowledge. More discussion means more ideas. Unless you're working in the industy where patent is everything and knowledge is a secret, I find that presenting your research in seminars and conference is a good way of enhancing your project.

The ability to argue your research in a seminar will increase your confidence in your research. You will feel good about your project and so does your supervisor.

Try to present your Phd project once in every semester. If budget is a constraint, then you try use your school's budget or present your research in a free seminar. I'm sure it's going to be beneficial to you.

That's all I can think of at this moment. I'm sure there are more but those are my own experience.

Welcome & selamat datang

Welcome to my blog. I opened this blog to share my experience and thoughts for those of you who are pursuing or contemplating to pursue Phd. I believe the road I took is less travelled by many.

It is because I was not an academician when I started my Phd, compared to most of my colleagues who were mostly university lecturers. Furthermore, I had to resign from job, while my friends were not.

I must admit it was not an easy journey though. There were lots of obstacles to pass through. Thank God, alhamdulillah, I made it. So proud of myself that I made it despite all the difficulties.

It is two months since I received an official letter from my school saying that I had passed my Phd. A few days ago, I received an email saying that I'm eligible for the summer convocation ceremony.

No words can describe how happy and relief I am now. A big thanks to Andreas and Richard at the University of Bath, UK, for their support and comments. Staff at the office of the School of Management were also very helpful. Thanks a lot.