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The NST Editorial “A Test of Diversity” (19/1/08) is most pertinent in content and its scope virtually certain to raise a wide range or responses from readers.
{mosgoogle right} In particular, the mention that the Chief Secretary to the Government has given the assurance that (future candidates to the Civil Service) “will be selected on ability is to be welcomed” and that this “goal is worth working towards because multiculturalism is a litmus test to our progress as a nation” is without doubt defining. But with the greatest of respect, the editorial reads like an excellent “academic” presentation rather than an expression of reality, except for the caveat that “short of including race as a factor of selection” ..” it is hard to see how the trend in the civil service could be reversed” The fact of the matter therefore is that the “test of diversity” is to be found not simply in being “colour-blind” or “gender blind” but in widening the scope of employment opportunities for the Bumiputras themselves in both public and private sector employment in the first place so that the current “trend (of fixing quotas) in the civil service could be reversed”. This is the root of the problem. Tun Dr Mahathir when Prime Minister is on record as saying that because the private sector did not employ sufficient Malays therefore the Government was thrust with the responsibility of recruiting increasing numbers in the pubic sector. But the moot question here is to ascertain the origins of why such a situation as arisen in these respective employment settings in the first place. Until and unless this can be effectively addressed and hopefully satisfactorily overcome, the arbitrary removal of Bumipurta quotas for government jobs is likely to result in making the existing fragile political system even more susceptible to ethnic and racial tensions within possible potential conflict situations. In all humility I need to apologize for attempting to make such an assertion in a highly complex scenario of ethnic and race relations and especially considering the strict limitations of space in a Letter. At the same time I am confident that Malaysia Today readers will give this piece the important attention it deserves. I shall try to be as brief as possible by stating the main points elaborating when necessary. 1. Colonial education policy deliberately deprived the Malays of an education in the English medium of instruction. 2. The post-independent Government by introducing Malay as the sole medium of instruction in government educational institutions, including centres of higher education, effectively continued to deny Malays the opportunity to learn in English which is the case even to the present day. 3. Therefore, the Malays have not been “forced” to learn something new (as the non-Malays were) by way of an education in English, that involves, inter alia, the study of grammar and the stretching of the mind, with the accompanying additional disadvantage of not being exposed to new ideas, because English is recognized as the most important international language in the global context. 4. This situation is further compounded by Malay being the language of higher education and the Bureaucracy, so that in terms of the entire scenario of foreign affairs and in the context of globalization including ICT, the Malays find it hard to deliver. 5. Regrettably, nowhere is the result of this situation more devastating than in the acknowledgement that there are around 80,000 unemployed graduates from local universities. Indeed what is even worse is that the vast sums of money allocated for their re-training (estimated at nearly one billion ringgit so far) has not had the desired effect so that we are forced to accept the reality that we have not just unemployed, but unemployable graduates. Nonetheless the editorial is correct in identifying the strategy of the Chief Secretary to adopt the policy of meritocracy as a ‘step in the right direction’. With respect, I have to say that this sense of ‘direction’ is also and indeed most applicable to the involvement of the private and corporate sector in direct involvement in working with the government to deal head-on with this scenario rather than to continue its existing policy of only trying to sustain “business as usual” The private sector must awake to the reality that the viability of profit maximization is only possible when there is political stability and therefore to ignore the pressing problem of youth unemployment and ‘unemployability” is to do so at its own peril. The Government also needs to reach out to the private and corporate sector to jointly take on the entire question of organizing more realistic knowledge cum skills -based training for youth at different levels of both the public and private sector. I am confident that an appeal by government also to other Malaysians who have the capability as well as hand-on experiences to help build such a viable program would receive an excellent response. In fact neither the government nor the corporate sector has a monopoly of potentially relevant training programs as can be seen in certain recent human capital training programs. One recent course that comes to mind is where on the completion of the course, trainees are immediately hired as apprentices and would be evaluated and receive further training commensurate with their duties and responsibilities as they work their way up within the respective firms and companies. Some Malaysians who had attended universities in the West had also been involved in practical hands- on training or observation attachments. I for one had invaluable hands -on experience while on the Fulbright Visiting Professorship program in race relations at Cornel in 1980 to be attached to a human resource training project at Harlem in New York. It was an eye-opening experience to see long term unemployed, unqualified Black youth totally commit themselves very successfully in a similar program (as above) where they were in fact hired as employees with the company name tag pinned on their shirts on the very first day of the commencement of the program. Dr Collin Abraham
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Nonetheless the election is nearing and this is merely political spin!!