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 […]
Deborah Loh
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 […]
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 […]
First phase of MP Watch completed
By Deborah Loh
PETALING JAYA, 16 July 2010: All 222 Members of Parliament (MPs) have been contacted for the MP Watch: Eye on Parliament project, and have responded with either full answers or a non-reply. As of 15 July, 113 MPs answered in full all six questions on key democracy issues that were posed to them. The other […]
The Securities Commission’s powers
By Deborah Loh
The Securities Commission’s investigation of the Kenmark scandal exposes flaws in the Securities Commission Act 1993. More on this issue in Found in Quotation.
Saving our wildlife
Sideways by Deborah Loh
FED up with humans and their politics, I write today about animals. Unlike our politics, which goes in circles based on tit-for-tat rhetoric and racial fear-mongering, there has been real progress in wildlife conservation. Soon we will have a new law that some wildlife protection groups say is the best they’ve seen in a long […]
Solar vs nuclear: Giving solar a chance
By Deborah Loh
WHEN the government announced plans for a 1,000MW nuclear plant, solar power is often dismissed as too costly to implement on a large scale. However, developments in the photovoltaic (PV) industry suggest that with planning, it’s not necessarily prohibitive. For certain, solar power alone cannot displace fossil fuels as an energy source. But it is […]
Idris Haron (Tangga Batu)
By Deborah LohTANGGA Batu Member of Parliament (MP) Datuk Idris Haron’s response to the MP Watch: Eye on Parliament project, which asks all 222 MPs six questions.
Starting school at age five: Should we?
By Deborah Loh
PETALING JAYA, 2 July 2010: If the government wants children to start school at five instead of six, it must first review the existing curriculum for pre-school and Standard One, experts said. “There ought to be some reviewing of the curriculum so that there’s less emphasis on academic performance at such an early stage,” said […]
No reply for 30 June 2010
By Deborah Loh
THE following Member of Parliament, Mohd Johari Baharum, has not replied to the six questions under MP Watch: Eye on Parliament as of Wednesday, 30 June 2010, the end of a two-week deadline. His response will be updated if and when he replies. […]
