VARIOUS concerns about Malaysia’s education system emerged from the The Nut Graph‘s latest forum, Found in Conversation: Creativity and Innovation in Education. But they all centred on a key and not unfamiliar complaint: that education is too politicised. Whether concerns were about the curriculum, the lack of critical thinking, obsession with scoring As, lack of […]
Archives for July 2010
Revolutionising Malaysian education
By Ding Jo-Ann
THE Nut Graph held its second Found in Conversation event titled Creativity and Innovation in Education on 25 July 2010 in Kuala Lumpur. Panelists comprised educator and dancer-choreographer Datin Marion D’Cruz, 3R executive producer and social commentator Datin Marina Mahathir, and Learning Beyond Schooling founder KV Soon, who is a proponent of homeschooling. About 40 […]
Is Selangor’s FOI bill good enough?
By The Nut Graph team
IF Selangor’s Freedom of Information (FOI) bill is made law, how useful will it be in helping the public gain access to information held by the government? The Pakatan Rakyat (PR) government tabled the bill for its first and second reading on 14 July 2010, and a select committee will now be collating feedback and […]
A councillor’s life
Ampersand by KW MakMBPJ councillor KW Mak would like to someday return – via legal means – to an income bracket that allows him to pay taxes, as the benefit of having free parking in Petaling Jaya as a councillor is really overrated.
Hisham’s doublespeak
By Gan Pei Ling
Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussien glibly declares the Barisan Nasional’s commitment towards diversity for all. Is that the truth of the matter?
Foreign spouses and the brain drain
Sideways by Deborah Loh
WORSE than Malaysia’s brain drain problem is the fact that little is coming in to replace what goes out. Losing skilled local talent to other countries is not unique to Malaysia, as statistics show. After all, the world was built on migration. But what is unique, and not in a good way, is that we […]
Making UM the best again
By Deborah Loh
YESTERDAY, Universiti Malaya (UM) vice-chancellor Prof Datuk Dr Ghauth Jasmon talked about what public higher education needs to do in the larger national agenda of making Malaysia a high-income nation. In the final installment of a two-part interview with The Nut Graph, Ghauth talks about the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) he has instituted since his […]
MP Watch: Who replied, who didn’t, and why
By Deborah Loh and Koh Lay Chin
THE number of Members of Parliament (MPs) who fully participated in the MP Watch: Eye on Parliament project is just slightly more than those who did not, at 113 to 109. There are a total of 222 MPs in the Dewan Rakyat. Pakatan Rakyat (PR) MPs were the most participative, with 61 or 80.2% out […]
The Nut Graph’s Plan B
Shape of a Pocket by Jacqueline Ann Surin
WHEN Cindy Tham and I launched The Nut Graph in August 2008, I was clear that I wanted to achieve two things. One was to create a place for independent, accountable and kick-ass journalism that was premised on the highest ethical standards in journalism. These standards included ideas, such as doing a fact and quote […]
Autonomy in UM
By Deborah Loh
UNIVERSITI Malaya (UM) has made a comeback by climbing 50 spots to be ranked 180 in the 2009 Times Higher Education – QS World University Rankings under vice-chancellor Prof Datuk Dr Ghauth Jasmon. What does this academician, responsible for restoring UM’s reputation, have to say about university autonomy, the state of Malaysia’s higher education system, […]
