[Rencana ini amat indah bahasanya.... dan ditulis oleh pemimpin BA pula. Ia menjadi satu koleksi MESTI BACA saya, dan mungkin juga anda di sana - Editor]

MALAYSIA PENTINGKAN GEMILANG DARI PENDIDIKKAN

Terjemahan Hujah-hujah (ala kadar sahaja):

MALAYSIA MENCEBURI DUNIA 'E':

1. Kerajaan Mahathir lebih banyak berbelanja untuk membina bandar berteknologi tetapi tidak mengenepikan membina kepakaran.
   

2. Cyberjaya dipinggiri MSC dianggap sebagai projek hartanah sahaja
   

3. Kerajaan Mahathir menganak-tirikan pendidikkan. Mutu pendidikkan tidak efektif dan tidak diperbaiki. (Di"baiki" supaya lebih mahal - Editor)
   

4. Masyarakat desa dipinggirkan dalam pendidikkan IT dan sosio ekonomi.
   

5. Jurang Digital masyarakat desa dan bandar amat tinggi.
   

6. Sikap Mahathir yang memperlahankan perubahan sikap atau intelektual yang lebih radikal. (Rakyat sebaliknya dirobotkan supaya mengampu - Editor)
   

7. Saingan sengit dari jiran seperti India, Singapura, Hong Kong dan Taiwan memerlukan satu perubahan sikap oleh kerajaan. Malangnya Mahathir masih berdegil dan asyik membebel, khususnya kepada "orang asing".
   

8. Sikap kerajaan yang anti perkembangan intelek yang kritikal gagal menjana kuasa pemikiran dan kreativiti.
   

9. Infra struktur yang hebat gagal jika sosio-fizikal rakyat masih dicengkam.
   
   

10. Zaman Maklumat ini memberikan pelbagai peluang untuk berjaya tetapi kepimpinan hari ini tidak mempunyai visi ke arah itu.
    

11. Kegusaran terhadap keadilan meskipun terdapat undang-undang tambahan seperti undang-undang siber, apa yang berlaku di negara ini masih menyakinkan.
    

Sumber: http://www.cnn.com/ASIANOW/asiaweek/magazine/ 2000/1110/viewpoint.html

Viewpoint: Malaysia Into the eWorld?

Not if it keeps spending on glitz rather than education

SAIFUDDIN NASUTION ISMAIL is a supreme council member of Keadilan (National Justice), a Malaysian opposition party

During a recent seminar at a Malaysian university, three panelists - all top managers at information technology companies - agreed that the government has gone wrong in its attempt to take the country into the Information Age. Instead of investing in human resources, the government is spending a great deal to develop a high-tech township, Cyberjaya, anchor of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC). Cyberjaya offers real estate so expensive that few I.T. companies are willing to set up there, although officials reckon 88 of some 380 I.T. companies approved for the MSC will have moved in by year's end. Right now the desolation at Cyberjaya makes one think it should be renamed Cyberia. And the MSC, some say, is becoming like a huge property project.

What's happening with the MSC is typical of many things in Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's Malaysia. The obsession with appearance and building glitzy monuments is diverting resources away from undertakings that are critical to the country's stated goal of becoming a key player in I.T. The paradox is evident in some decisions. For example, the government says it wants to move into high-tech, but education is treated as a stepchild. In 1996 the Ministry of Education reduced the number of years for undergraduate degrees from three to four, except for medicine, dentistry and pharmacy. It also reduced the minimum units for basic pure science and arts degrees to 100 from 118-120, though this affects only electives. But Malaysia should be adding content or at least improving it.

Another example of misallocated resources is the billions spent on the new administrative capital Putrajaya and its twin, Cyberjaya. This at a time when there are still 470 schools in Malaysia without electricity. One boon of I.T. is its potential to lower the barrier for the underprivileged in moving up economically. One doesn't need a university degree to learn programming or acquire the know-how to produce graphic designs for multimedia applications. In the Information Age it is never too late for someone to leave the cattle or shovel and learn to use the keyboard and motherboard. Kids in rural Malaysia would benefit most from a well thought-out and implemented I.T. program. Yet it is they who are being denied such opportunities.

Like other developing nations, Malaysia should be concerned about bringing its large rural community - half the population of 22 million - into mainstream development. The gap between rural and urban areas has widened after a decade of 10% GDP growth. Today it is reported that 1.5 million Malaysians (mostly urbanites) have a Web-based hotmail e-mail address - more than the total registered with TM Net and Jaring, the country's two Internet service providers. While the hotmail number is encouraging, it is disturbing that this has widened the digital divide in the country.

Disturbing, too, is Mahathir's inability to understand that entering the Information Age means more than plugging into fancy hardware. Fundamental is creating the climate that enables start-up companies to innovate and invent. Malaysia could learn more from Silicon Valley with its diversity and openness. These attributes cannot develop if the governmental climate does not tolerate dissent and diversity, and breeds docility. The experience of a friend, a professor at a Malaysian university, is illustrative of this climate. He had offered his article about the International Organization for Standardization to a few local newspapers for publication. It discussed seeking ISO certification, nothing political. No newspaper published it, and one editor admitted that he was not going to because ISO initiatives were seen as a pet project of Mahathir.

John Lawler of the University of Illinois says Asian values, with their emphasis on hierarchy and collectivism, are ill-suited to the development of a work environment that will engender creativity. This emphasis breeds conformity. Change, when it happens, tends to be slow. The I.T. industry demands nimbleness and radical changes. Malaysia is doubly handicapped. Not only is it a very hierarchical society, it is hamstrung by Mahathir's notion of Asian values. In a nutshell, this sees authoritarianism as good for development. His Asian values also mean a justice system that lately has been criticized within and outside the country. Malaysia may have all kinds of cyber law, but will the investor have confidence in the justice system to enforce it?

Foreign I.T. companies interested in investing in Malaysia have many alternatives. They can also consider India, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Why should they choose Malaysia? It has a young and relatively inexpensive workforce, which is also hardworking and very trainable. But these companies will also see that Malaysia has a leader who uses foreigners as a bogey to deflect attention from his own flaws. Dissenters are labeled foreign agents. And they will see that while Malaysia has invested hugely in modern physical infrastructure, its socio-psycho infrastructure remains stuck in the medieval age. The Information Age should provide Malaysians with the potential to soar to new heights, but this leadership doesn't have what it takes to seize the opportunity.