Another long post. Sort of complaint, sort of thought, this is what i meant change. Was talking to Ze-Hao (a buddy of mine) yesterday while we were on the way back from Benny and SuYin's housewarming.. Nano lab of phisics school is closing down. Hmm... USM, named the APEX university, we used to have one of the best lab in the world, and we're the second university in the world which own a Nano Lab in the world, after M.I.T. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology).
Nano Lab cost a bomb for uni in term of maintenance and "experience ingredients" yet,
it does help students know more, experience more and able to explore more. On top of that, the lab is neither supported by the faculty nor university, it's fully sponsored by a lecturer. Nevertheless, due to adult's problem, again, USM back to the normal status, applied phisics students only learn about theory side of fabrication, but not on hand.
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This issue, gave me a fire: the fire to wrote something i wanted to write for long. the topic "Private is Good, Public is Bad" and we should proud to say "Malaysia Boleh". We have money to buy every faculty, every university department a "public used car", cheapest range from Toyota Innova, Proton Perdana to some prestige cars which i don't know the name. The most interesting part is, we hardly see the cars being fully utilized. Perhaps, use the cars for makan and minum is the mostly-used function. But we never have money to survive good labs and other facilities for students.Thank to the tax-payers. And, thank to the good planning of university management team.
And, recently, the research wing of school first library is finally launched. And, it's the new MONUMENT for USM. Another white elephant. LOLs. A five-stories library. Fully equipt with freezing air-con, plenty of eletric plugs for laptop users...and they used to create a "WOW" effect from students about the 24-hours study room. The layout was fine, the design was nice, again, it's just another white elephant. operation hours are 8.30am - 4.30pm, and it's a five-days operating library. While the two old one, are until 8.30am-10.30pm. and it's operating throughout weekends. Well... normally students have class from morning till evening, after 5pm, normally we have times to loiter inside library...lols...
The reasons i said it's just another white elephant are, there are two lifts operating in it. And, the lifts are only for library personnels. OUTSIDER, students are strictly not allow to use. I guess this is the sort of sustainable-policy or greener-world movement, where we minimize the usage of lifts, and save more energy. (and leave the air-con freezing.) In addition, toilets, or nicer word, washrooms too makes differences. Every floor there are two washrooms, one on the left, anoter on the right. Left hand side toilets are bigger one, again, strictly for library personnels. I took a sneaking tour inside, explored the place of interest, and realise the differences, there are four "rooms" inside, 2 squating-toilet bowls, 2 sitting-toilet bowls. And, equipped with toilet papers, napkins and hand-washers.
Unfortunely, the "customers' washroom" only half the size and with none of the 5-stars facilities. A friend of mine, marketing student, joked that, this policy is some sort of benefiting the employees so that they will be more efficiency! well...i do agreed. I guess, there should be about 20 staffs in all three libraries, maybe more from that, and i guess, each one of them should have their private toilet! These are just a few examples. And, a reason for this library not operating like other libraries in USM or commence its' 24 hours corner, "we're lack of staffs". And everyday when i am walking in the library, i can see most of the staffs are busy with social networks and playing games. Like no other libraries in abroad universities, we have all FULL-TIME librarians. They are called professional one.
There are more, should be a lot more, sort of these in USM. A few about USM Management School, i had organized a few school programmes, too, our direction are toward benefit school-staffs more towards students.
I'm not trying to be politician here. I'm sorry to be sacastics. I'm talking about efficiency. While other countries talking about education, improvement, efficiency, Malaysians still happy and show passion in racist issue, 1Malaysia Email, SEX video, and many other craps. IF we have to say efficiency, do we really need to buy every school a public used car just to fetch VIPs? do we really need to label the toilets just for staffs which there aren't many staffs. The resources are not fully utilized.
Malaysia, a very-blessed-ful country, we never lack of any natural resouces, somemore blessed with the most expensive type of petroleum (for air-crafts used.), but we never utilized the capital generated from the resources. We used money to send "astranaut" or i should say the first space traveller in Malaysia to do teh-tarik in the space, and feeding a lot other "white-elephant"-projects. And, we're proud to say, Malaysia Boleh!
Few days ago, editor from a major stream newspaper in Bahasa urged government to launch ONE Melayu Movement, talk about Chinese craps. Again, i think it's wasting resources. If, people in the nation never united as a whole, and keep say you are chinese, i'm Malay, we're never away from the beginning. And, the respected editor even talk about all PRESTIGE private universities are full with chinese and hardly see any Malay inside. And i would like to reply: If, Chinese and Indians are given a fair chance to enter public universities, why should we spend so much money for sending them to private one?
And, the public universities' teaching qualities and facilities are far less-developed than the private one, due to the unwritten rules that emphasis on benefits of small group, and not to be efficiency. Public universities are full with rules and regulations, and there is no one able to make decision, everything need to go through SENate, and due to all these cliche rules and long processes, we missed a lot of chances, wasted a lot of times. And, we're not far from the beginning...
Sadly to point a few, my faculty, School fo Management, the top management are very eager to think of recruitment of internatinal students, they do publicity in China, Indonesia and perhaps Middle East, thinking to bring more international students, and generate more income to the uni and the fac. But, they never focus on current students' welfare and benefits, until now, our "internship swap project" never got a confirm answer although we're heading to become third year students.
I can see, there are lecturers with great ideas, conferences, organizing competitions, and many other lecturers' wonderful and brilliant ideas, but all these never gain support from the school, especially from the administration office, because all these never generate income. And, our website, never update with news, everything still have to go thru school office, while other uni are on the website track. We have all the resouces, but we never exploit them, until they are gone. Not to say that public universities are bad. But, don't you think so, universities are platforms for borning more leaders of tomorrow? If we can focus more toward how to train a leader instead of bookworm that score 4.0 and know nothing about the real world, bookworms are hard to survive in the rat-race.
Like a chinese proverb, "every home has its' hard to read sutra" , which means every organiztion has its' own problem, and it's generation to generation. and formed the norms. And, we're used to it. Public is bad, private is good. talking about efficiency. Private sector will never allow inefficiency to happen if possible, and they are expert to utilize stuffs and staffs. If public sector have to improve all these, we have to change, we have to walk out from the comfort zone. Then only the success are waiting for us.
We should pray harder, PUSH-pray until something happen, we want a better Malaysia, no matter you support which political party ( i don't stand to anyone of them.), you should agree to this, we want a better Malaysia. A world class university that know how to mix and match the resources, utilized them and bring benefits to its' staffs and students. Again, change. doesn't mean we need to change government. but we need to change attitude, if i have to vote, of course, i will vote a government that able to change. :) and do what they promised. And i have a man here, my most-respected government servants, Idris Jala, i pray, pray that God will revive more servants like him, and i'm sure, Malaysia will be a better Malaysia.
