POLITICAL parties legitimately need money to carry out their functions in a democracy. After all, to stand any chance of being elected, candidates will need to tell voters who they are and what they stand for. All this costs money. Even after a representative is elected, money is still needed to do a politician’s work. […]
Not talking about sex: At whose expense?
By Gan Pei Ling
SOME government officials have recently come up with “creative” ways to solve the problems of teenage pregnancy and baby dumping in Malaysia. To curb teenage pregnancies, the Education Ministry said it was encouraging students to submit written pledges that they would not engage in premarital sex. To solve the problem of baby dumping, Malacca Chief […]
Revolutionising education
By The Nut GraphON 25 July 2010, The Nut Graph and three experts grappled with what needs to be done to restore our public education through the forum Found in Conversation: Creativity and Innovation in Education. On the panel were educator and dancer-choreographer Datin Marion D’Cruz, 3R executive producer and social commentator Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir, and Learning […]
September 2010
Student activism: The struggle continues (Corrected 6:15pm, 4 Sept 2010) IN our original subheading for Jonah’s interview, we wrote that Jonah, aka Khairul Anuar Ahmad Zainuddin, attended Institute Kemahiran Mara in late 1990s. He actually attended UPM in the late 90s and Institute Kemahiran Mara in the early 2000s. In the same interview, Jonah originally […]
Education and the agenda of political parties
By Deborah Loh
THE year 2010 is the year of creativity and innovation for Malaysia. And yet, a common lament when discussing the country’s state of affairs or the quality of education is that we lack in precisely these areas. What, then, of the government’s plans to make Malaysia a high-income nation? Where do we even begin in […]
Remembering Benjamin McKay (1964-2010)
By Pang Khee Teik
WALKING around Bangsar one balmy night six years ago, I bumped into filmmaker Amir Muhammad and film academic Khoo Gaik Cheng sitting with a rather foppish Mat Salleh man. It took less than an hour of my being introduced before all of us banded together to bully the hapless Australian Mat Salleh to prove that […]
Who pays our political parties?
By Ding Jo-Ann
EVER wondered where political parties get their money? And what they use it for? While skeptics may think that political parties just use their money for handouts and bribes, in fact, they also legitimately need money to carry out proper functions. For example, political parties need to maintain their party machinery, conduct voter education and […]
Averting Selangor’s water crisis
By Deborah Loh
POPULATION growth and development certainly drives higher water consumption. In Selangor, when a water crisis will happen appears to depend on who you ask. But it appears that there is more political rhetoric behind answering the question and not enough science.
Bucking traditions of inequality
By Deborah Loh
BUKIT Mertajam Member of Parliament Chong Eng bucked some traditions in her younger days. Coming from a Chinese new village, she was the first girl in her family who managed to persuade her father to let her continue secondary school. Her interracial marriage later on was also considered uncommon, given her background. Born in 1957 […]
Let’s talk about sex, please
By Gan Pei Ling
TO its credit, the government is trying to introduce sex education in schools. From mid-2009 till end of 2011, the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry and the Education Ministry are implementing a pilot project targeting 16- and 17-year-olds in five schools. “The ministry hopes to use the outcome from the project to advocate for […]
