During the 2010 winter break, I went home to my hometown, Johor Bahru, after four years. Johor Bahru is a major city in Malaysia, separated from Singapore by a thin strait. Singapore is also a rich, prosperous, technologically advanced and cosmopolitan first-world island country of no more than five million souls and less than 300 square miles of land. Comparatively, Malaysia, which is blessed with natural resources of tin, copper, rich soil and oil, languished in second place as a second-world country. Singapore also boosts one of the most highly educated populations, with a vibrant research and development sphere and highly regarded universities. My parents are such fervent believers in the power of education that all their children were educated there despite the costs and long transit time. Singapore students routinely take medals in Math and Science Olympiads and ace the British GCE systems. In contrast, Malaysia had been engaging in such a systematic educational regression that the University of Malaya, which once was regarded as the best college in Southeast Asia, is not even ranked in the top 100 today. The National University of Singapore, on the other hand, stands at 31, just four places behind UC Berkeley. My uncle told me that a Singaporean minister, while speaking at a top Malaysian high school, declared that any high-scoring students willing to study at a Singaporean university would be given green cards immediately, with all tuition, room and board paid for along with a monthly stipend. Needless to say, many stepped forward to take the offer.
Now your politicians are systematically dismantling your education system. It looks not unlike what the Malaysian government did three decades ago. They are destroying children’s opportunities to be well-educated, to be competitive on the world stage and to earn a livelihood. I considered my own government’s past actions that axed Malaysian education to be an act of treason. Your politicians are doing the same thing.
Education of the people and the retention of talents are the bedrock of any society. If the people of this country do not wake up to this impending educational crisis, this country will lose its hegemony forever.
