Salutogenic Wonderland

I am one of many people who have loved ones and close friends suffering from preventable chronic lifestyle diseases. Treating chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) ( obesity, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, stroke and pulmonary conditions ) costs billions of ringgits a year. The cost of treating these NCDs put an incredible burden on families and on our country’s economy and health-care system.

Many of these diseases are either preventable or can be cost-effectively managed if caught early. Our current approach is simply paying to treat chronic disease over the long term.

Instead, we could save money and suffering by encouraging behaviours that would stop these diseases before they start.

Everyone is surrounded by opportunities to be sick, stress is what determines why some people get sick and others never do. Health is a process composed of psychosocial factors, lifestyle, and experience. For all of biomedical science’s impressive achievements in treating illness, it has not been as successful in promoting wellness. Looking at our own city, Kuala Lumpur, we have built some of the most toxic and disturbing environments in our history.

In designing our environments, we can recognize that architecture can have an impact on health. What if the architecture of our homes, workplace and cities could actually make us healthier? What if it could help prevent disease? Reduce violence? Increase productivity?

It may be easiest to understand the word salutogenic by first defining its opposite. If pathogenic is disease-causing, then salutogenic is health-causing. Salutogenic design focuses on creating, enhancing and improving physical, mental and social well-being through well designed and planned environments — environments where making healthy, sustainable choices is easy.

The concept of salutogenic design moves beyond conventional notions of sustainability to encompass not just the building’s impact on the environment, but also its impact on users. It becomes another measure of good design, in addition to other measures such as profitable, efficient, sustainable, programmatically compliant, and dozens other measures of design success.

Salutogenesis, which is to say a belief that, in order to be healthy, you have to address the root of unhealthiness rather than merely treat the illness.

Designers can take this concept to incorporate salutogenic strategies into design on multiple levels.

Single buildings can accomplish this with natural light, viewsheds, ventilation, nontoxic materials, prominent and welcoming staircases rather than elevators, serene colors, and clear wayfinding signals.

Neighborhoods can relieve food deserts, include safe and well-lit sidewalks, and accommodate bicycle paths to make physical activity an easy choice, rather than an out-of-the-way recreational option. Cities can make room for town plazas, unfold according to a simple street grid, and replace congested arterial roadways.

I believe DBKL has practised salutogenesis in a small way with the aerial pedestrian walkway from Bukit Bintang to Chow Kit. Now lets take that walk to better health.

Everyone Wants Sex, But Not Everybody Have It

Malaysians who find themselves affording less than their contemporaries overseas have distorted and inefficient markets, lack of competition, low wages and a weak ringgit to thank for their poor purchasing power, which in the case of KL, is only 34 per cent that of New York.

Despite government assurances stating that inflation is under control, Malaysians are becoming increasingly restive over the cost of goods in relation to wages, especially those who are able to compare the corresponding price-to-wage ratios in developed economies.

Malaysians who have experienced working and living abroad often experience sticker shock when they come back and see prices in KL.

“Oh my God, a Tiramisu is RM15!” said Calvin Lee, a Malaysian who has lived in Sydney, Singapore and now London, referring to what cafes in KL are charging for a slice of cake as compared to about GBP5 (RM25) in London.

Aidi Zalman, a consultant who studied in the UK, told The Malaysian Insider that salaries in London could go much further than KL.

He had worked part-time as a waiter in London and noted that a single day’s wages of about GBP50-60 was already enough for him to buy a pair of branded shoes and even a low-end iPod, a concept unthinkable for local waiters.

“GBP100 can feed two apartments of students for a week,” he said. “Here you can spend RM100 and get hardly anything.”

“I hate it when politicians make stupid statements like Malaysia is cheap,” said Edward Seah, an engineer who has previously worked in Singapore and the US. “Prices might seem cheap when you convert it to US dollars yes, but then we should also convert our salaries to US dollars.”

Victor Wong, a Malaysian expat in Sydney, said that Australians get more mileage out of their money.

A report by Swiss bank UBS AG shows KL residents have to work 22 minutes to afford a loaf of bread as compared with 18 minutes in Los Angeles.

He gave the example of clothes where he said he can get a good quality shirt for about AUD100 but would need to spend about RM200 to get similar quality in KL.

Wong pointed out that even Asian food could be more affordable for those living in Sydney than KL.

“You pay RM15 for a bowl of soup noodles in KL shopping centres but only AUD10 in Sydney shopping centres,” he said.

The 2010 Prices and Wages report by Swiss bank UBS AG show that residents in KL have only 33.8 per cent the purchasing power of their counterparts in New York, 42 per cent that of London, 33.7 per cent that of Sydney, 32.6 per cent that of Los Angeles and 31.6 per cent that of Zurich.

The same study showed that on average, KL residents have to work 22 minutes to afford a loaf of bread as compared with 18 minutes in Los Angeles, 16 minutes in Sydney, 15 minutes in Tokyo and 12 minutes in Zurich.

The figures grow much worse for imported items. To buy an iPod Nano, a KL worker would have to labour a whopping 52 hours as compared with just 9.5 hours in Los Angeles and Sydney, 12 hours in Tokyo and nine hours in Zurich.

A check on salaries and prices in selected developed country cities by The Malaysian Insider showed that despite being touted as one of the world’s least expensive cities, KL residents pay as much or even more for chicken, broadband, cars and mobile phones as a percentage of their income.

Communications, for example, is one area where Malaysians are paying notably more than residents in developed countries even after currency conversion.

A 5Mbps broadband package costs RM149 in KL while in London, a 10Mbps package would cost GBP13.50, in Melbourne a 5-8Mbps package costs AUD40 and in New York, a 7Mbps service costs USD41.95.

Those who want to buy an iPhone 4 in KL, meanwhile, would have to pay RM1990 with a basic 24-month contract while in London, residents can get an iPhone 4 for just GBP199 with a basic 24-month contract and in Singapore, it costs just SGD210 with a basic contract.

Maybank Investment Bank chief economist Suhaimi Ilias said that what is important is local perception and not official inflation figures which claimed that the inflation rate in Malaysia was only 1.7 per cent last year.

“I think on the ground, not many people feel we are cheap,” said Suhaimi. “They feel that the cost of living is high regardless of what the inflation figures are.”

He added that inefficiency and lack of competition are contributing to the higher prices in Malaysia.

“I can’t understand why a motorcycle should have to cost RM6,000-7,000 and a car like the Perodua Viva should cost over RM30,000,” he said.

RAM Holdings chief economist Dr Yeah Kim Leng said that cars are one of the sectors where the Malaysian market suffers the heaviest distortion.

Despite being touted as one of the world’s least expensive cities, KL residents pay as much or even more for basic items as a percentage of their income.

A Honda Civic in KL costs about RM115,000, or 20 times the average monthly salary of an auditor.

In Melbourne and London by comparison, a Honda Civic costs AUD25,000 and GBP19,000 respectively, or only about three times the average salary of an auditor in those cities.

The high cost of cars is part of the reason that Malaysians have leveraged themselves to a record 76 per cent of the country’s GDP.

Bank Negara statistics show that at the end of last year, 20 per cent of Malaysian household debt was due to cars, an asset which depreciates over time.

Yeah also said that the ringgit is undervalued and distorts the country’s purchasing power for imported goods.

“We need to ensure prices are right and that there are no market distortions, no subsidies and allow market prices,” he said.

But even if the ringgit is allowed to rise, there is no guarantee that savings would be passed on to consumers. The ringgit is now hovering at RM3.02 to the US dollar but Goldman Sachs predicated yesterday the currency could hit RM2.98 to the US dollar in the next three months.

When The Malaysian Insider contacted the director of wholesale and retail at government think tank Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu), Ravidran Devagunam about the higher prices Malaysians pay for branded goods, he acknowledged that some retailers will maximise profits on luxury items not readily available in Malaysia but said that the government is “unable” to compel them to discount their prices even after the abolishment of import duties as luxury goods and apparel are not controlled items.

“However, we believe that market forces and consumer education will eventually force a price reduction of these goods over time,” he said.

The Federation of Malaysian Consumers Associations Secretary General Mohd Shaani Abdullah said people should question the prices that they are currently paying.

“Consumer protection will only come about when people make noise,” he told The Malaysian Insider when contacted. “Only then will politicians act.”

Source: Malaysians plagued by poor purchasing power

By Lee Wei Lian, Yow Hong Chieh and Melissa Chi

Malaysian Insider April 19, 2011

Analysts say the undervalued ringgit distorts the country’s purchasing power for imported goods.

Enjoying IT on a lap top position

Malaysia slid from 27th to 28th in the 2010-2011 Global Information Technology report released yesterday after it was bumped down by Qatar which jumped 5 spots from 30th to 25th.

Malaysia’s placing this year is equal to its ranking in 2008-2009 and worse than the 26th ranking achieved in 2006-2007 and 2007-2008.

Sweden and Singapore retained their first and second placing respectively atop the rankings with Finland, Switzerland and the United States rounding out the top 5.

The Global Information Technology report is an annual publication prepared by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and INSEAD which assesses the impact of ICT on the development and competitiveness of 138 economies worldwide.

The WEF said that this year’s report confirmed the leadership of the Nordic countries and the Asian Tiger economies in adopting and implementing ICT advances for increased growth and development.

It noted that Sweden, Denmark (7th) and Norway (9th) are all are in the top 10, except for Iceland, which is ranked 16th.

Singapore meanwhile led the Asian Tiger economies with Taiwan and Korea improving five places to 6th and 10th respectively, and Hong Kong SAR following closely at 12th.

A look at the sub-rankings show that Malaysia was helped by government readiness (11th) but hurt by the infrastructure environment (51st) and individual usage (45th).

It was also ranked 42nd for international internet bandwidth and 59th in terms of broadband subscribers.

The ICT rankings come after Malaysia dropped two spots in the WEF competitiveness index last year, coming in 26th out of 132 countries and marking the second year in a row Malaysia has dropped in the rankings after falling from 21st to 24th spot in 2009.

The WEF rankings in coming years however are expected to show how effective are the Najib administration reforms such as the New Economic Model, the Government Transformation Programme and the Economic Transformation Programme, all of which were launched between January and December last year.

Source: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/malaysia-slips-down-ict-competitiveness-ranking/

How To Revitalize - From Dysfunctional to Soulful Fullfilment

Education reform is a top agenda of the new Sarawak state government. We have seen that despite massive

spending by the Federal government and ambitious attempts at reforms, the performance of our education system has barely improved in decades. In fact, compared to school systems in the region, ours has seen a decline.

The Malaysian Smart Schools System - developed by a consortium led by Telekom Malaysia, and a flagship application of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) initiated by the then Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir in 1997, has failed to bear fruit despite the billions of ringgits being spent. The Federal government’s 2009 National Key Results Area (NKRA) for education has not produced any report card to convince us that the NKRA initiatives are delivering results.

Children in Sarawak cannot be allowed to fall victim to Malaysia’s failing education system. It is a priority of the new Sarawak government to immediately and quickly establish a new education system that works to raise Sarawak children to a level as those in Korea, Finland and Singapore – countries that have that world’s best performing education systems.

The Sarawak Community Action Network (SCAN) has undertaken a year-long study to understand how to develop a high performing education system for Sarawak. The result of the study is to be used by the new Sarawak state government to establish an education system that truly works for children of Sarawak. The new government cannot afford to have a single child fail and that is what today’s adult Sarawakians owe to the coming generations of Sarawakians.

The study involved an analysis of selected education systems from different countries that have improved significantly, analysis of education systems that have been maintaining top positions, interviews with some thought leaders in those education systems and an analysis of the annual OECD PISA results from 2003 to 2009. During the course of the study, elements that are specific to the individual system and those that are of universal relevance were explored in order to help Sarawak’s new educational leaders replicate the success of high performing education systems.

This paper presents a summary of the findings of SCAN’s study.

The study began with these key questions: Why do some education syste

ms always perform better and improve at a faster rate than others? Why do some schools consistently succeed where others do not? What do successful school systems have in common? What methods and tools do they employ to improve learning outcomes of students?

The SCAN study found three most important universal elements that work:

1. Selective hiring of the right people to be teachers,
2. Develop them into highly effective instructors, and
3. Ensure that the system is capable of delivering only the best instruction for each student.

The successful systems demonstrate that significant improvement in desired results can be achieved in a short time – 3 to 6 years. The systems also show that by applying these practices, significant improvements is achievable in failing school systems and that the practices are applicable to any system, irrespective of culture and geography.The following commonly used approaches to improve education systems in many countries, including the US and the UK, have been shown to be least effective, in that they do not contribute significantly to student outcomes as measured by scores in mathematics, science and reading:

1. Increase in public spending per student,
2. Improvements in student-to-teacher ratio,
3. Decrease in class size,
4. Decrease in school size,
5. Structural reforms in the governance of schools, such as autonomy of schools governed by elected boards and decentralization of powers to local school districts,
6. Reforms in curriculum standards,
7. Changes in assessments and testings,
8. Funding of schools,
9. Inspection of quality, and
10. Reforming relationship of schools to communities.

The SCAN study shows unquestionable evidence: student learning cannot be improved without improving quality of instruction. It is also noted that almost every education system have undertaken the process of reducing class size. For example, most countries in OECD over the past 7 years have increased the teacher-student ratio. However, evidence shows that this effort does not significantly result in better student outcomes, except at the very early grades. More teachers translate to less money per teacher and systems cannot be selective about who could be teachers.

Evidence from the SCAN study suggests that the new Sarawak educational leaders must focus on quality of teachers as this is the main driver of the variation in student learning. The quality of any education system cannot be higher than the quality of its teachers.

For example, a seminal research in one education system shows that if 2 average 8-year-old children were taught by different teachers – one a high performing teacher and the other a low performer, the learning outcomes of the students diverge by more than 50 percentile points within 3 years. Reducing class size from 30 to 15 students improves an average student’s performance by, at most, 8 percentile points. In a study of another system, evidence shows that students in earlier years of schooling, when placed with low-performing teachers for several years consecutively, suffer from irreversible educational loss. In some systems, students who score in the top 20% on literacy and numeracy at age 7, are twice as likely to obtain a university degree as children in the bottom 20%.

Sarawak’s new education leaders now have evidence suggesting that even in good education systems, children who do not make good progress in their early school years because they are not taught by teachers of sufficient skills and competencies, have very small chance of recovering the lost years. All top performing education systems depend ultimately on the quality of its teachers.

All top performing systems from Dallas to Seoul and from Singapore to Helsinki, dispel the common belief that it is impossible to make teaching a preferred profession for good number of high-performers and that attracting better people requires the government to pay higher salaries. These systems have shown that making teaching the career of choice does not depend on high pay, but more on small, simple policy choices such as: designing and establishing robust hiring and training processes, giving attractive starting pay, and managing the status of the profession more carefully. For Sarawak’s new educational leaders, it means legislating an entirely new policy on education so that a new education system can be implemented rapidly.

By continuing the education system of the Federal government in Sarawak, we will only fail Sarawak’s future generation.

http://tinyurl.com/edsys2012

Stimulating Growth

More than 70% of all businesses have less than 6 employees. This demonstrates that thriving small businesses generate the most jobs and economic activities. Microenterprises created 37% of all new jobs between 2001 and 2007. For Malaysia, small and medium-sized enterprises account for over 75%

of all enterprises and are responsible for more than 60% of private sector employment and 55% private sector turnover. Massive hydro-power dams or huge aluminium smelting plants do not create the kind of employment opportunites that small enterprises do.

Clearly, entrepreneurship is the engine of economic growth in local communities. While employment is established as a major route to sustainable livelihood, and for some, as a route out of poverty, entrepreneurship is increasingly being recognized as a major creator of economic and social opportunities.

Within local communities, participation in the local job market unlock the potential of young people, providing a route to economic independence. It is crucial, both for their own fulfilment as well as in the broader economic interest of their community, that their talents and energies are harnessed in productive work opportunities.

While entrepreneurship is not suitable for everyone, it is vital that opportunites are open to young people in local communities and well-understood by them upon completion of formal education. Entrepreneurship can provide a successful route to sustainable participation in the job market, more so if the entrepreneur is well-supported in the business start-up phase.

By running businesses, young people within local communities achieve economic independence, reducing reliance on government subsidies or state welfare. Young people who run their own businesses are more likely to engage in their local communities. They create additional jobs and thus, more young people become productive members of their families and communities.

The opportunities are great as Sarawak will have a larger, more skilled workforce. However, Sarawak's young people must be well-prepared in order to create and find jobs. The spread of Sarawak’s population over the vastness of the state in small communities, presents unique challenges and opportunities to develop entrepreneurship.

Research undertaken by the Sarawak Community Action Network (SCAN) reveal that there are practical actions that the new Pakatan Rakyat-led state government and established business organizations can take to develop entreprise culture within local communities through out the state. Among the practical actions identified by SCAN include:

1. Establish high priority for investments in youth entrepreneurship.

This will help to reduce the need for young people to leave their communities in search of employment in West Malaysia, Singapore and elsewhere. There have been incidences of Sarawak's young people who have been lured by promises of high paying jobs in West Malaysia and Singapore, but end up being cheated by employment agents or their employers.

By prioritising and targeting investments at entrepreneurship schemes for young people, the state can create employment, improve livelihood at local communities, reduce dependence on subsidies and increase tax revenues for both state and local governments.

Towards this end, the state must establish a grant for youth entrepreneurship, disbursed through the district offices or local branches of selected banks. SCAN’s research estimates that a grant of RM10 mil can potentially create 900 new small businesses which can potentially generate an estimated 5,000 new jobs. The investment can potentially generate an estimated RM135 mil sales revenue.

2. Microcredit institutions should improve access to financing for young people.

Microcredit institutions like TEKUN and the banks that have been tasked by the government to disburse microcredit should work with local organizations that better understand the risk profile of young people. This will enable the institutions and the microcredit funds allocated by the government to reach new sections of communities and new segments of society that may have been excluded from finance. A good example can be found in India, www.bystonline.org.

3. Use existing business networks to support the development of youth entrepreneurship.

Business networks such as chambers of commerce can be most valuable to start-up businesses. The government can use existing structures such as business networks to support and promote entrepreneurship. Chambers of commerce can begin initiatives to support start-up businesses at local levels before scaling up to state-level.

4. Encourage established companies to partner with youth enterprise organizations to strengthen their capacities and capabilities.

Through sharing their experience and expertise, companies can enhance the services that district offices and youth enterprise organizations provide. Employees of the company can impart invaluable skills and knowledge to the youth enterprise organization and to support young people starting

out in business, especially in mentoring capacities.

Establishing relationships between new entrepreneurs provide many benefits. Start-up businesses boost the local economy, expanding the overall size of the market and contribute to the value chains of existing companies. For the start-ups, they gain from the support, networks and other relationships. A proven example can be found in the Youth Business China’s mentoring program which is supported by major Chinese and international companies, www.ybc.org.cn.

5. Ease the administrative process of setting up a business.

The time, effort and cost involved in registering and establishing a new business can be cumbersome and creates deterrents, especially to young people who do not have sufficient means to persist against administrative difficulties. There must be coordinated support by both state and local governments for emerging entrepreneurs in small business sectors. District offices should establish convenient walk-in information and processing centres for young entrepreneurs across Sarawak. The services of these venues should be designed to stimulate local business and assist communities reduce the administrative process of dealing with the state or federal government.

6. Include self-employment as a viable alternative to sustainable livelihood.

Our traditional advice to young people about making a living is biased towards the benefits of working in a large company or government. Seldom are the benefits of supporting young people into new business communicated. The state government, through schools and community programmes, can bring entrepreneurship experiences to young people. The state government can better promote entrepreneurship education opportunities and dispense resources to train young entrepreneurs to advance their local economies.

The state government should also encourage schools and colleges to run business plan competitions that promote start-up opportunities. The world over, business plan competitions have proven to provide effective approach to intorduce a variety of business-related subjects to new audiences. Winners are given the opportunity to turn their business proposition into reality.

A good example is the Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE), www.sife.org. SIFE runs business competitions for university students to develop social enterprises in their communities to meet local needs.

7. Enable more companies to provide apprenticeships and training programs.

Take the example of Business in the Community’s Work Inspiration program, www.workinspiration.com. This is a business-led program aimed at strengthening the relevance and impact of work experience for the benefit of both the young people and the companies involved. This is one valuable role the private sector can play to boost the motivation, confidence, experience and capability of young people to be enterprising.

Conclusion

Improving the livelihood of Sarawak’s communities by boosting youth enterprise presents a significant challenge. The outlook for the future of young people in communities demonstrate the need for immediate, coordinated and sustainable response. Enterprise can provide sustainable livelihood for many young people. Both the new state government and private sector can play significant roles in making entrepreneurship work.

When both sectors work together in a coordinated manner, more opportunities open to young people and the culture of entrepreneurship is developed further.

For the new PR-led state government, enterprise can reduce subsidies and welfare costs, and provides opportunities for the government to benefit from the talent, enthusiasm of the young people whom the government serve.

For the established companies, it helps the development of a dynamic small business sector and boosts demand in the local economy.

For the community at large, it helps alleviate challenges associated with youth unemployment, helps spread prosperity, and minimises disenfranchisement of young people and social conflict.

Clearly, the new Pakatan Rakyat-led Sarawak state government will have to channel some of the state’s revenues to invest in high priority youth entrepreneurship at local community level in order to boost economic activities, create new jobs and improve income levels of more Sarawakians. Established companies in Sarawak that traditionally build their wealth from the state’s natural resources will need to be asked to contribute more significantly to develop youth entrepreneurship.

PLKN - Icon of Malaysia's Failed Education System

The Malaysian Nation Service Camp or PLKN is a symbolic icon of our failed education system. The main objectives of the program are to instill patriotism among the younger generation, enhance unity and national integrity and to develop participant's character. These are the same objectives of our schools, but how is that 11 years of schooling cannot achieve what a 3-month camp intends to achieve?

Our nation continue to have racial polarization and our crime and corruption rates continue to increase. All these while the BN government continues spend good money on the wrong things. The costs of our mistakes and abuses today will become even more costly for our future generations to correct.

As the government continues to spend enormous amount of taxpayer money to try to rectify what our schools fail to do, owners of the PLKN camps continue amass wealth from the PLKN contracts. It is obvious that this is a scheme of wealth distribution to enrich cronies of political party leaders and eventually fund the political machinery. Guess who are the owners of the national service camps all over the country.

Now we are degenerating into a worst of situation with the government making failure to attend the camp an offence.

In the process of making the failure to attend National Service Training an offence, the amendments to replace imprisonment and fine with community service does not make an unfair law morally justified.

Although the amendments to replace the existing penalties for a person who is absent without leave from national service training from imprisonment or a fine to community service is welcomed, the main complaint is that failure to attend remains an offence.

According to the Hansard, Najib Abdul Razak as the Defence Minister in tabling the Act on June 25 2003 said that the objectives of the Act is to enhance the patriotic spirit of the younger generation, to improve unity among the races, improve national integration and help in character building.

The Defence Minister made it clear that the programme is ala Malaysia and is not military training. Therefore, not attending a three-month camp does not harm any person and is not a threat to the nation. There is thus no justification for making it an offence.

The Defence Minister in moving the Act said that in order to ensure the success of the programme it is necessary to make it compulsory for those selected to attend and to provide for penalties to enforce the attendance.

This is where the government and Parliament fell into error. It has caused the Act to become an instrument of oppression and injustice.

An example of this injustice is the case of Ahmad Hafizal Amad Faudzi. He admitted guilty to the charge of committing an offence under section 18(1) of the Act for not attending the National Service Training Programme.

No moral and legal justification

He was 18 years old. He had stopped schooling after Form Two to help support his mother and brothers when his father divorced his mother. He was the sole bread winner of the family. He would like to attend the training but he needed to feed his family.

Ahmad Hafizal Ahmad Faudzi was fined RM600.00 in default imprisonment for 14 days. He chose imprisonment because he did not have the money to pay the fine.

What is the moral and legal justification for putting this boy in prison? What has he done that society deems to be improper. No right thinking member of a civilised society would condemn a child who prefers to support his family and not go to camp as improper conduct.

Ahmad Hafizal Ahmad Faudzi did not do any wrong. It is the government and the Members of Parliament who approved the Act and made it an offence that committed a wrong.

Ahmad Hafizal is not the only person who is charged under the Act. According to the Auditor-General’s report, as at December 2007, three persons have been charged, 3,856 cases are under investigation and 751 cases have been referred to the Deputy Public Prosecutor for charges to be preferred.

It is a recognised right of a person to life. This is enshrined in the Declaration of Human Rights and also the Federal Constitution. This is also embodied in the Penal Code as the right of self defence. No person can be forced to risk his life and injury.

In the five years that this National Service Training Program has been implemented we have received reports of the following:

1) 17 trainees have been killed.

2) On Feb 28, 2004, a 17-year-old female trainee was raped by an instructor.

3) Hundreds of trainees have suffered sickness ranging from food poisoning to various diseases.

4) Trainees have been bullied and beaten up.

Instructors are not qualified

The Auditor-General in his 2007 Report stated as follows:

1) Instructors are not qualified. There are instructors who do not have the necessary experience and expertise.

2) The locations of the training camps are unsuitable and the facilities inadequate. There is a camp that does not have running water and is dependent on the river for its water supply. The Beringin Beach Resort Langkawi is flooded when the tide comes in.

3) Trainees’ uniforms do not meet specifications and quality. And many other problems.

There are thus undisputable facts that the National Service Training Programme is not only unsatisfactory but poses a risk to lives and limbs of the trainees.

Although the government spent billions of ringgit each year, the problems and risks have not been eliminated. They are real and they are deadly. The parents of the trainees have therefore justifiably lost confidence in the programme.

Jane Lim is another example where the Act has become an instrument of injustice. Her parents requested for her to be exempted from National Service Training on the ground that her brother, Ricky, had been killed nine days after attending the National Service Training Programme.

This was rejected. Her parents have not been able to come to terms with the loss of their son and are not prepared to risk their only surviving child in the programme.

Under the Act, Jane Lim and her parents commit an offence. What is the legal and moral justification for parents carrying out their duties of protecting their children to become an offence?

The Act has failed

A law that requires parents to be in default of their responsibilities to protect the lives and limbsof their children cannot be legal and moral.

The Act has failed. The programme has become an instrument of injustice. The proposed amendments do not resolve the problems of the National Service Training Programme.

Instead of building a patriotic spirit it has created disharmony, suffering and grief. The government must realise that not all programmes must be enforced by the use of force.

The carrot and stick approach cannot be used all the time and this programme is one of them. Sometimes, programmes such as this can be carried out successfully other than by using the stick.

It is better to be carried out by providing incentives such as scholarships or grants. In moving the amendments, the Barisan Nasional government has missed a golden opportunity to correct the mistakes of the National Service Training Programme.

Malaysian parents and the children unfortunate enough to be selected by the computer shall have to continue to suffer grief and sorrow until the unjust law is abolished or if the government is changed.

Source: Lina Soo http://linasoo.com/blog/?p=1212

Arab Sheikh and Sex

It's unfortunate that the people who know how to run this country and fix our economy are bloggers, taxi drivers, and those lepaking at Starbucks and kopitiams.

With the crude oil price soaring towards USD200 per barrel, I should die and reincarnate into an Arab oil sheikh. For every dollar increase in crude oil price, as an oil sheikh I would be USD2 mil richer per day and fulfill my ultimate fantasy of surrounding myself with all the beautiful women I choose everyday. I wouldn't need a magic carpet (as I still can't imagine doing it in mid-flight), but sail around the world in any of those luxury boats - minus the hawk.