The Damaged Brain System

JULY 23 — One of the wonderful things about living in Malaysia is that we devote so much of our resources into building brain power. We love smart people in Malaysia. Parents spend an obscene amount on tuition classes.

Let’s look at some of the major initiatives by our wonderful government to increase our brain power:

1) Malaysia will produce more than 100,000 PhDs by 2012

2) Creating “knowledge” workers and “world-class” IT industry via the MSC

3) Almost all grants by MOSTI is geared towards science and technology

4) Building new universities left and right. In the 1980s we had fewer than a dozen universities — now we have more than 20 public universities and an equal number of private universities

5) “Apex” and “research” universities allocated extra millions of ringgit with the aim of getting into the top 200 university rankings

6) All sorts of academic prizes from all sorts of dubious exhibitions

7) Smart schools

8) All sorts of scholarships — JPA alone gives more than 2,000 overseas scholarships. If you include Mara and GLCs and private companies, the number is probably somewhere about 6,000-7,000 overseas scholarships plus thousands of local scholarships

9) “Brain gain” programme where we try to entice successful Malaysian scientists to come back to help our R&D

10) All sorts of government-backed programmes like the invention awards, best ICT Company, PM’s innovation awards, smart partnership, etc.

Yet, somehow we seem to be going the opposite direction. Mind you it’s been there for more than a decade already and, correct me if I am wrong; the MSC has been a dismal failure since the “knowledge” industry has not taken off and no major Malaysian IT inventions since the inception of the MSC. Cyberjaya is still years behind Singapore.

In fact, the most famous “Malaysian” IT invention — the pen drive — was invented in Taiwan by a Malaysian Chinese who could not even enter a public university here. He had to go to Taiwan, get a degree there (which is not recognised here!) and invented the pen drive there. So today, the world thinks it’s a Taiwan invention! Malaysia Boleh!

The brain gain programme is so successful that almost all the scientists who came back to work here have resigned from the public universities or government research centres, and the bulk of them have left for overseas again. Needless to say, their major complaints were racism (almost all were non-Bumiputeras) and red tape. But no one wants to admit to this since it’s not a very smart thing to admit failure.

Meanwhile we are rushing to produce 100,000 PhDs. Since most of these 100,000 PhDs will be awarded by local public universities you really have to wonder about the quality. But who cares? The important thing is to graduate 100,000 “doctors” of dubious quality so that they can train the next generation. After all, the majority of these PhDs will end up as professors in our public universities and they will supervise the next generation of PhDs. Remember the movie “Dumber and Dumber”?

Is it any wonder that our public universities’ ranking is dropping fast?

On top of that, we have decided to stop emphasising English at the high school level. No wonder international schools are celebrating — their student enrolment will go through the roof from next year onwards.

And to ensure that we have the right environment to produce “Towering Malays” and “world-class” Malaysians, the mainstream newspapers here follow the same editorial style as China’s People’s Daily and the old Soviet Union’s Pravda. Truth is not as important as propaganda and the promotion of racism and racist ideology. Malay newspapers are free to preach racism as long as they reinforce “Malay unity” and Malay dominance. News is only news if the government says so.

In the arts, local productions cannot reflect reality. How else can you explain government directives that Mat Rempits and transvestites cannot be shown on Malaysian movies and television. The way it works is like this: if we don’t show Mat Rempits and transvestites, then they do not exist! See how smart we have become because of all the government investment in educating Malaysians? Very soon, there will be no prostitutes or gay people in Malaysia.

Just to be sure, the government has just announced another round of books that are banned in Malaysia. In total more than 2,000 titles are banned in Malaysia. Some authors do not even know that their books are banned. Reading is a dangerous habit for a knowledge nation.

Meanwhile religion, or the official view of religion, is shafted down the throats of young people through television programmes and in the schools.

You really have to wonder how on earth Malaysia produces thinking citizens since all around them the system, from the mass media to the education system to the universities, is designed to damage the brain? The whole system is designed to produce a non-thinking, non-critical person who can easily be manipulated by propaganda.

It is really mind-boggling that somehow young people have managed to escape this system. Of course there are thousands who believe in the system and are basically brain dead, especially after reading the Malay newspapers and watching the local television stations. But there is a significant portion of young people out there who have managed to overcome the attempt to control their mind. I take my hat off to these young people. Without them, Malaysia will have no future.

http://themalaysianinsider.com.my/index.php/opinion/jameschin/33100-the-damaged-brain-system

Digi Campus is here~!

Digi Campus, a prepaid plan specially tailored for university/college students.

Ever since last year, i've already heard about Digi Campus. It was tempting, providing lower rate for voice call and sms compare to Digi normal prepaid plan.

However, it wasn't tempting enough for me, because at that time, it has some sort of zone policy; meaning cheaper voical call and sms can be made only when the user is within the campus zone and all the benefits from Friends&Family will be gone once using the Digi Campus plan.

Then my brother asked me, why don't i sign up for Digi Campus. I told him that Digi never come to my college to promote it, which was kinda sad, because when i first came to Inti-Uc, Hotlink has already provided their user to send sms to same network for 1 sen each within the campus zone.

After around a year, Digi renewed their Digi Campus plan. they canceled the zone policy, and allowing Digi Campus users to call for as low as...FREE!. Users get to call other Digi number for free after they used RM2 on voice call per day.
As for sms, users will only be charged for as low as....FREE! to 11 F&F number.


Ok....that is very tempting for me. Because i was previously using beyond prepaid plan ( i guess only long term Digi prepaid users knows what beyond perpaid is), which was very expensive for making calls. Somemore, Digi finally come to my college to promote it!!!

At first, my friend told me that one must buy a new number to get the Digi Campus plan. I had doubt for what he said and decided to check out Digi web page for more information and found a solid statements that says current Digi prepaid users could switch to Digi Campus.

I don't want to get a new number to either replace my current number or as secondary number because that will be too troublesome for me and i might stop using any of these number within one year time, with more than a hundred fifty ringgit credit left.

Today, i walked pass their booth in my college, and asked one of the promoter about it. He answered me:' Yes you can maintain your current number! Only that you'll have to wait 2 weeks to activate the plan'.

All i did was just filling up the form and wait for 2 weeks, somemore, i even recieved A4 size box of free gift from them after the registration.


There's 2 packets of Nestcafe Instant Coffee, discount vouchers for various stores and an various Digi Campus stickers from the gift box.

I'm still not sure whether my plan will be changed to Digi Campus after two weeks. What i'm trying to say here, is that you can seriously consider Digi Campus if you are still a student studying at college or university. I hope Digi will go to Sarawak's universities and colleges to promote it because Sarawak is one of Digi's main market for prepaid.

Log on to Digi.com.my to get more info. Mind you, i don't get paid for witting all of these. =D

UPDATE:
Within less than a week, my prepaid plan successfully changed to Digi Campus. So it's proven that one can change his/her current phone number's plan to Digi Campus provided the number is under prepaid plan.