Blogging and all about social networking

After noticing the trend of one-entry-per-month in my blog, I noticed I have started to lose momentum in blogging, especially with the studies and school matters which slows me down, apart from the you-know-what. I started to tweet a month ago, as much as I am not in favour of people stalking me with everything I do. Haha. I know I’m no celebrity, but still, I do not get why so many people are into Twitter these days. Some critics claims that it is a new tool to replace blogsites, because it is often short, precise and straight to the point, and immediately instant! Even politicians are into Twitter these days. I tried nonetheless (do you see the Twitter bar on my right?), and I stopped after getting bored with it.

The only networking site I frequent everytime I’m on the Internet is Facebook. Almost all my friends are already on Facebook, and its always fun to know what they are up to, pictures of where they’ve been to, quizzes on their personalities, etc. I’ve been restricting myself to Facebook only, omitting Friendster, Hi5 and other social networking sites.

The issue of Math and Science in English

Let me have my fair and honest view in the recent Cabinet decision to scrap the use of teaching in Math and Science in English. You see, the then Education Minister Datuk Seri Hishammudin announced that free textbooks are given to ALL students in Malaysia. Now, the textbooks (in English) would serve no purpose. Teachers would have to be sent for training yet again. That effort, and money spent is not going to be worthwhile. I mean, how can the ministry or the Cabinet suddenly decides that it has failed to meet its purpose or objective and thus they would scrap PPSMI? I think its stupid and a very hasty decision made.

A full survey and report needed to be done thorougly. If the sole reason is that rural students would not cope and stand on par with those studying in urban schools, then I think its ridiculous. True enough, the gap is there. But, why are we running away from the root of the problem? Instead of acknowledging the problems and implications caused by the rural students, we should be embracing it, rather than just take the easy way out. With this, the Ministry decides to sweep everything under the carpet and at the same time, depriving students in the urban areas to learn Math and Science in English. Would this be fair for them as well?

The Penang CM have come out with a brilliant decision thus far, that is to let the PTA or the school authorities to decide whether to continue the teaching of Math and Science in English, much so the urban schools are likely to retain the status quo in which I think its fair. However, this solution might not be a good one in the long run. Because the rural students are going to lose out in the end. As globalization continues to prosper, it is inevitable that that the mastery of the English Language, and to some extend Mandarin needed to be improved.

My last question is that – when are the Ministers and the government would learn that education is just above politics?
Lets not let our children, that are supposed to be the future leaders of the country, to be the victims or rather the ‘laboratory mice’ of the experiment conducted by the government.

La Salle Brothers ended where they began

This article was from Malaysiakini, and I find it very meaningful especially for Xaverians like me, so I decided to copy and paste it here, for those that do not subscribe to Malaysiakini.

La Salle Brothers ended where they began
Terence Netto | Jun 20, 09 11:43am

“In my beginning is my end,” runs the refrain from a poem of TS Eliot’s, lines with a special poignance to Ho Kok Chee, brother director of St Xavier’s Institution and a Masters in English – a postgraduate qualification he has had to equip himself with, as otherwise his fitness for the headmastership of the school would have been deemed by the authorities as inadequate.
MCPX

In the event, it enabled him to last 16 years as brother director, the longest tenure of the 28 principals who preceded him since the foundation in 1852 of this flagship school.

Ho’s retirement today brought to a close the 157-year presence of the La Salle Brothers in Malaysia, a Roman Catholic teaching order that at its height was responsible for the administration and ownership of 59 primary and secondary schools in Malaysia that educated something like two million students.

Alumni of these schools have graced the upper reaches of Malaysian socio-political life since independence and have not been averse to crediting their alma mater for the training they received.

However, a glance at the list of Malaysian luminaries who have been educated in these schools would stay the impulse to any triumphalism about the worth of the education afforded there, for the products occupy the range from the proud to the sordid. It must be admitted that much the same could be said for the legatees of most other famous schools in the country.

Why then the poignance that attended the closure rituals at Bro Paul Ho’s departure?

Perhaps it was because of the ideal of gratuitous service that animated the La Salle Brothers, who at the height of their presence in Malaysian education in the 1950s and 60s, numbered about a hundred members spread among the staff of the few score schools, mainly located in the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia, that they built and ran.

In a skeptical age, it would be easy to deprecate the value of this service but when it is seen that barely 10 percent of the enrollment in each of these schools was composed of pupils of the same religion as the Brothers, and that the latter did nothing in the way that could be construed as attempts to proselytise, their record of service was indeed what they claimed it was: gratuitous.

Faintly optimistic of the future

“It’s a new beginning,” opined Bro Paul Ho in remarks made to Malaysiakini as he packed his belongings in the modest office near the entrance to the school earlier this week in preparation for Friday’s departure.

He sounded faintly optimistic of the future, that the “special character of this school and its like” – meaning the half dozen other schools in the major towns of the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia – would resist the attrition that would come from being administered by Education Ministry appointees not imbued with the spirit of the La Salle order.

It was hard to see the grounds for his optimism, albeit a faint one. But there wasn’t anything contrived in the way he gave vent to it.

“It now depends on those who value the education they have received in these schools to preserve their alma mater’s special character,” he elaborated.

“They have to exert the effort to preserve it,” he asserted. “If they cannot be depended upon to do that, who else would do it now that the Brothers are no longer around to preserve it?”

He added: “The La Salle order has looked upon students that have come to it for their education as special gifts to be respected for their human dignity and worth, irrespective of whether they belonged to the religion the Brothers professed.

“That was what made the order and the schools they ran special. That was why no proselytising was done because we respected the dignity of the person entrusted to our care.

“Our ideal of gratuitous service was based on that respect for the dignity of the human person and the end of our presence does not mean that the value of that ideal is no longer relevant nor is ended the possibility that it could endure in the hearts of those who have been touched by its worthiness,” said Bro Paul in a light-hearted tone that belied the gravity of what he said.

“The Brothers were never in this for profit or proselytising,” he emphasised. “They were in it for the dignity of the human person and that is why a void in their presence does not mean the cessation of that ideal.”

Bro Paul Ho chuckled when it was suggested to him that he was standing TS Eliot’s famous refrain on its head – “In my end is my beginning.”

Original article posted here.

Bro. Paul Ho, the last missionary brother principle of La Sallian schools in Malaysia

With the retirement of our most revered Bro. Paul Ho, it will mark the end – at least for now, the last missionary Brother Director as Principle in Saint Xavier’s Institution, other La Sallian missionary schools in Malaysia. SXI is the first La Sallian school to be built in Malaysia, and will also be the last that a Brother becomes a Principle. Bro. Paul is a man of wisdom and humour. Almost all of the school students liked him, and are sad that he is going to leave us.

Lilian Chan, a citizen journalist had interview Bro Paul, and here it is:

In Part One, Brother Paul talked about religious tolerance and teaching of Science and Mathematics. Watch how he kutuk-ed the attitude of those who become teachers for the wrong reasons, the politicians for harping on their colonial masters bondage and reason why people are less open-minded about others’ religions.

Part 2 coming soon…

But, if you have a Facebook account, you can always view it here.

Credit to Lilian Chan for contents, filming, recording, interviewing.

Dr. Mansor Othman our new Deputy Chief Minister I

I whole-heartedly congratulate our new Deputy Chief Minister I of Penang, YB Dr. Mansor Othman for winning the state seat of Penanti with a whopping 5,558-vote majority, defeating other 3 candidates contested by clinching 91% of total votes cast.

Although a relatively low turnout – at about 46.15%, but its enough to indicate that PKR has not lost support amongst the strong opposition stronghold of PKR at Penanti located in Permatang Pauh. I just can’t wait to see the outcome of the next by-election at Manek Urai, although I think that BN would be contesting this time.

The very basis of Constitutional Monarchy

First and foremost, I am not a an expert of such topics. However, I’ve been reading aplenty of the recent Court of Appeal ruling that favours the BN’s Menteri Besar Zambry. Such rulings and judgment will not only shake the very basis of the spirit of Constitution for violating its Doctrine Separation of Powers, but also the very basis of Constitutional Monarchy. Indirectly, the Courts of Appeal judgment will be a future reference for other constitutional crisis in years to come. It means that the Courts have set a dangerous precedent by granting the Sultan and the Rulers an absolute power to dismiss and remove a Menteri Besar or Chief Minister without having to go through proper procedures in accordance to the Federal and State Constitution, in which a vote of no confidence have to be tabled.

And yes, this comes to show that the independence of a judiciary remains questioned. The favourable double treatment of the BN MB for accelarating the stay order has been given mere hours but weeks for the PR MB to overturn to stay order. It is the public perception that matters most. Like what PRK always said, the judiciary and the police are one of the BN component parties, and this was further proven.