The postal service mistakenly sent the following letter to my house:
I do not know the content of the letter for sure because I do not have the authority to open it. Judging from the envelope however, I would risk guessing that it contains a ballot for Indonesian living abroad to use to partipate in yesterday’s presidential race.
And so, after six years of going through the teaching and learning of science and mathematics in English (in Malay, Pengajaran dan Pembelajaran Sains dan Matematik dalam bahasa Inggeris; PPSMI) in all primary and secondary public schools, it will come to an end in 2012.[1]
As I have expressed earlier, I am of two minds about the policy, with some bias towards English. But in order to continue the policy, it is important for the system to have teachers with proper English competency. Below is the first concrete data I have seen indicating that there are not enough teachers to support the policy.
I obtained the table from The Star. I reproduce the full document (actually, it is an appendix to probably another document which is not in my possession) here for your perusal.
The table indicates teachers’ proficiency in English in primary (red column) and secondary (blue column) schools. Assuming Aras 5 and 4 are classes which the teachers have respectable command of English as what I think the table is implying by separating Aras 5 and 4 from Aras 3, 2 and 1 with a thick line, it suggests that the policy of PPSMI needs to stop. It can only continue if the number of teachers with good command of English improves dramatically.
I once had to sit through a couple of classes led by an instructor who was incapably of conversing in English intelligibly while at Michigan. Having an instructor like that proved to be a painful experience for me. So, it certainly did not help me in acing the course. If I remember correctly, I stopped attending the instructor’s session to attend another session instructed by a native English speaker.
I could imagine that the same difficulty I faced could be repeated in Malaysian public schools with one crucial difference: the students cannot switch classes, unlike me. They do not have a choice, if the teachers suck.
And a whole lot of those teachers, as the table shows, suck.
[1] — KUALA LUMPUR: The Cabinet has decided that the medium of instruction for Maths and Science will revert to Bahasa Malaysia in national schools and mother-tongue languages in national-type schools from 2012 onwards.
The reversal of the Teaching of Math and Science in English (PPSMI) policy will be done in stages, Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said on Wednesday.
He however added that there will be greater emphasis on learning the English language.
English literature will be re-introduced, as will subjects on grammar and composition.
Beginning 2012, students in Year One and Year Four in primary schools, and Form One and Form Four in secondary schools, will learn Math and Science in Bahasa Malaysia.
The change will not affect those in Form Six and Matriculation.
The two subjects will be taught in two languages until 2014 for other students, he said.[Math and Science back to Bahasa, mother tongues. The Star. July 8 2009]
Liberalization is on the move. Yet, the move hardly deserves to be called a liberalization effort.
Notwithstanding how truly free the local economy is, the federal government led by Barisan Nasional is finally addressing the shortcomings of affirmative action as practiced in the country. The past few weeks have seen the kind of market liberalization that one cannot imagine to be even possible before 2008. The much debated equity ownership quota imposed on public companies is now finished.
It is likely that the BN federal government was forced to address the issue. More than anything else, the Najib administration is a pragmatist concerned with its survival. One cannot be deluded into believing that the administration is doing this out of conviction to the idea of liberty.
Affirmative action was one of several major contentious issues in the 2008 general election. Both its basis and implementation suffered from relentless heavy attacks during the election campaign.
The result of the last general election suggests that the attacks were successful. Those attacks eroded popular support for the policy, even among the groups that it was supposed to benefit.
That and coupled with existing market forces that are always ready to rebel against top-down approaches, liberalization seems inevitable in retrospect. The unpopular centrally planned policy based on ethno-nationalism is now indefensible in a concrete sense. The anti-affirmative action movement has done a remarkably good job at demonstrating why it is indefensible.
As a result, no longer are the weaknesses of the affirmative action an abstraction appreciated by the critical-minded and the well-read individuals only. Many among the masses are convinced that the policy is morally and economically unacceptable. So strong is the anti-affirmative action current that BN cannot support the policy, or at least in its present form, any longer if it is concerned with its chances in the next general election, which must be held before 2013.
Individuals belonging to the tradition of classical liberalism are generally hostile to the policy. Malaysian affirmative action is a case of government intervention. The policy spreads the tentacles of the government across the landscape to limit essential freedom that individuals and firms require to maximize their welfare. It is one more constraint to adhere to, increasing the cost of doing business.
The quota-based policy worked in the past because other factors outside of Malaysia compensated for its cost. Not too many countries had a good transportation and communication system along with a sufficiently educated workforce previously, especially before the 1990s. Some others like China meanwhile were excessively hostile to the concept of private property despite the fact that right to private property is the non-negotiable basis for a prosperous society. Options for investment in an increasingly globalizing world were limited.
That is no longer true today. Factors that made others unattractive for investment purpose are largely gone. This reduces, if not eliminates, many advantages that Malaysia had over others in the past. With a more competitive environment, the policy of affirmative action stands out as one of several major structural barriers that are handicapping Malaysia vis-Ã -vis other economies.
For Malaysia to move forward, it is exactly the kind of structural reforms like the recent liberalization on equity that is required.
Classical liberals — libertarians — are savoring this moment after years of living through suffocating government intervention. In times when many governments all around the world are enforcing their influence in the market, it is refreshing to see the government in Malaysia retreating.
Still, one has to be mindful that the recent effort at liberalization is largely confined to restrictions traditionally associated with Bumiputra policy. The government has its hands in too many aspects not just in the market but also in the lives of private citizens.
The recent fiscal stimuli based on government spending are proof that the dream for a free market is still far in the distance.
Even as the 30 per cent Bumiputra quota is liberalized, another quota, albeit less restrictive, is set in place.
In the background, the availability of government-linked companies continues to crowd the market. These entities utilize unfair advantages that no true private businesses can have. These GLCs are monopolies. With excessive market power, it kills entrepreneurship, one of the factors that keep the free market as a system superior to any other.
Meanwhile, prices and supply control regimes are still in place to distort signals in the market in the name of welfare, discouraging the development of an adaptive culture in favor of a static one.
There are other examples that affirm the illiberalness of the Malaysian market.
Hence, there is no time to rest. The pressure for greater freedom has to be applied continually. The Najib administration is one point up but it will have to suffer more criticism.
First published in The Malaysian Insider on July 3 2009.
Happy Fourth of July.
I am holding the view that the RM67 billion government spending-based fiscal stimulus as announced will not be helpful. The market will show a swing independently of spending.
The swing is already happening in spite the fact that government spending has been insignificant so far. Furthermore, the magnitude of government spending is pale in comparison to the drop of external demand. If there is to be any recovery, it will be driven by external demand, just as the recession has been caused by external demand. All this makes the government spending-based stimulus irrelevant.
Due to temporal issue between the effectiveness of the spending and market cycle, when proper recovery takes places, private firms will suffer from crowding out effect since the stimulus is financed through local sources. Interest will have to go up higher when compared to a situation where there the size of government spending is absent.
Well, I might be wrong. My position is too kind. There is a piece yesterday that may indicate that the stimulus is hurting recovery:
GEORGE TOWN: Penang’s electronics industry is facing a shortage of production workers after orders started to pick up early last month, according to a job outsourcing company.
The problem is compounded by local workers who prefer to enrol instead in the government’s retraining scheme where they are paid more, said Inter Resources Consulting Global Search (M) Sdn Bhd managing director Michael Heah.
He said locals were not keen to work long hours in factories for RM500 to RM600 a month, preferring the retraining scheme for unemployed graduates and retrenched workers where they were taught new skills and received a monthly allowance of between RM500 and RM800. [Penang electronics firms unable to cope with demand. The Star. July 2 2009]
Firms are actually competing — gasp! — with the stimulus package for labor, making them incapable of meeting demand in the short run.
How is that for a stimulus?
Worse:
Heah said the electronics industry started to recover last month with the semiconductor and consumer electronics sector stepping up their recruitment drive to get more locals to fill vacancies.
”To make matters worse, the intake of foreign workers has been frozen. We appeal to the Government to lift the freeze in the sector,” he said. [Penang electronics firms unable to cope with demand. The Star. July 2 2009]
Unless productive firms can find individuals that are not enrolled in the retraining program, they will need to raise wages.
I am a fan of raising wages only to accommodate inflation, to compensate improvement in productive for the labor factor of production or competition from firms for labor.
I see none of those here. That potential raise of wages may be caused by distortion created by the government, more than anything else.