Malaysian PSD Scholarship...

Why give out scholarships? I think scholarships should be given with strings attached. Scholarship money is after all taxpayers' money. I pay tax. So, part of it is my money also. All these recent brouhaha over the award of the PSD scholarship is reminding me that my money is not well spent. The political parties via the gahmen is using my money to buy support. So I wonder why even bother to pay tax?

Those who get scholarships must serve the nation. Therefore the onus is on the PSD to ensure that the best and the brightest are chosen so that upon graduation they can come back and serve their country, via the civil service... not be cut loose so that their places can be taken by unemployed graduates. We need bright and capable civil servants not just for medicine but in all fields so that the whole country can move forward together.

My observation in my own little world of teaching. The quality of teachers has dropped. The best and brightest no longer look for a career in teaching. At one time, teaching was the last resort for many... cannot find job else where, go into teaching. And the MOE receives them with open arms. The result - students suffer. And because of that, the profession is now saddled with 'half-baked' teachers. English teachers who don't quite speak English, Maths teachers who teach by reading from textbooks, Physic teachers who don't quite grasp the abstract concepts.... in short 'ill-equipped and uninspiring teachers. How to teach well when the teacher is not good at what he's supposed to teach??? The gahmen does send students to be trained overseas... unfortunately mostly for English. Other subjects oso should be sent out.... for the exposure and different experiences.

Of late the civil service has been absorbing the unemployed. The gahmen has become the biggest employer of those unemployed graduates.... you see these less than qualified graduates come out from the ivory towers minus the marketable skills. But being a graduate they will not take lesser jobs. In order to keep the protests and dissatisfaction level down, the gahmen takes them in. But can this continue indefinitely without bleeding our coffers dry?

Meanwhile these people take away the places from the more qualified ones, those better suited with better aptitude. The gahmen has compromised a lot because of this. Once compromise becomes a way of life... all other wrongs will creep in. In Alor Setar, it is common to see gahmen officers in the kedai kopi after 8 a.m., especially in the former Restoran Pak Tuan. Of course that has nothing to do with aptitude, more of attitude.

So PSD scholarships... time they really give out based on excellence; real one that is. Time we make our exams more stringent too and have better quality than quantity.