Challenge our undergraduates!
Azly RahmanPublished: Jan 24, 2006 2:02 PM | Updated: Jan 29, 2008 6:21 PM
Our graduates are increasingly unemployed, unemployable, and unable to analyse their environment not only because of the way they prepared themselves for this age of complexity and chaos, but also because of how we prepare them in our universities.
Our nation continues to be in a crisis not only due to the declining standards in our rankings, the rising tide of mediocrity in thinking skills of academic faculties.
There is poor understanding of the concept of teaching to improve higher order thinking skills, the systematic and continuing emphasis of form over substance in our higher educational institutions, systematic overuse of styles of totalitarian teaching and managing, and the lack of interest among graduates to challenge themselves intellectually - all these pose a threat to the future leaders we wish to create.
This is easer said than done in Malaysia. For, as Nietzsche once said, "Educate! but first let us educate the educators."
Our graduates are increasingly unemployed, unemployable, and unable to analyse their environment not only because of the way they prepared themselves for this age of complexity and chaos, but also because of how we prepare them in our universities.
Our nation continues to be in a crisis not only due to the declining standards in our rankings, the rising tide of mediocrity in thinking skills of academic faculties.
There is poor understanding of the concept of teaching to improve higher order thinking skills, the systematic and continuing emphasis of form over substance in our higher educational institutions, systematic overuse of styles of totalitarian teaching and managing, and the lack of interest among graduates to challenge themselves intellectually - all these pose a threat to the future leaders we wish to create.
The crisis in higher education that came to public attention and resulted in an outcry last year will continue to deepen as we see the issues plaguing it being strategically placed in the "in denial" mode.
We are yet to see radical changes so that our universities will be ready to become institutions that will be 'designed deliberately' to prepare our precious youth with the anticipatory skills needed to become critical, creative, ethical, and futuristic students - to become globally aware 'socio-preneurs' ready to make this world a less violent place.
How do we prepare our undergraduates to become thinking global citizens? What are the challenges plaguing Humanity?
Global challenges
The world is plagued with a range of issues that threaten our survival as a species.
Nationally we continue to live in a political system that is based not only on the deformed politics of race and economic greed that favour the rich and members of political dynasties, but also a system that is threatened with continuing disregard for human rights and fundamental principles of liberties that ought to protect religious minorities in a pluralistic and complex state.
Nationally we continue to see abandoned hopes for our nation to evolve into a truly multi-cultural society as we witness the institutionalisation of racism not only in the way we think and act daily but also in the way we construct our educational, cultural, economic and political institutions. The way we conduct our dialogue on religion and race have lately reflect a clearer and uglier politics of mistrust.
Globally we are faced with challenges in the areas of scientific advancement, morality, economics, ethnic and religious conflicts, population, and health.
Scientific advancements and control of knowledge and technology continue to be in the hands of the rich nations while the poor, 'developing' and 'newly-industrialising and informationalising' ones become slaves in the global production and consumption of technologies. Our scientific world of inquiry and human imagination to solve human problems has become a world of Orwellian drama; one of despair characterised by the use of science for deadly purposes.
Morality becomes a central issue of this millennium as we question our role as individuals who are defined by the means of subsistence/economic conditions in which we live. As human beings who become mere 'knowledge workers' and corporate executives in multinational corporations that have no national governments to answer to, we become one of the minute functions of the machinery of global exploitation in virtually all spheres of human activities.
And thus, one can still rationalise one's work as a scientist in nuclear weapons lab in New Mexico, in an oil drill-company in Iraq, in a pesticide-making subsidiary in the Philippines, a designer sneaker-producing company in Vietnam, or in a diamond-mining company in South Africa.
Global economics will continue to become a centrepiece of issues that our graduates will need to understand in order to become agents of change and informed citizens in this precarious world of interdependence.
The role of The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as twin instruments of global domination, borne out of the post-World War II Bretton Woods Agreement, continue to be challenged peacefully and violently as the world produces more and more impoverished nations as a consequence of policies of ideological lending and structurally imperialistic adjustments.
Presidents of the World Bank continue to be groomed from among hawks of the American ultra-conservative mould.
Developments in Latin America of late are pointing towards a transformation of the people's view towards economics - governments that favour the national poor and not the international plunderers will triumph at the polls.
Planet Earth and the environment continue to be threatened by global warming, destruction of rainforests, carbon emission from fossil fuels (of which the military is the greatest consumer of oil), and the suffocation of oceans. National governments struggle with 'natural' disasters that might have roots in how human beings plunder and rape nature or in the way we overuse our resources to feed our capitalist greed.
Challenge for government
Each nation is in need of a government that will be the least corrupt and which will not embark upon major projects that deforest nature, create thicker and more dangerous industrial smog, dump toxic waste into rivers, and shave hills for commercial and residential development projects.
The challenges are that none of these issues are of interest to governments that profit from these systematic destructions that benefit the dynastic and corrupt few.
Ethnic and religious conflicts make the global news headlines. Not only are border conflicts perpetually increasing but deadly attacks are being mounted on public places where the innocent work and play. This has become a feature of the Sept 11, 2001 fallout.
The prolonged occupation in Iraq and the obvious 'no-victory-in-sight' of the American forces has become a national issue even in America - how long will she let her children die. Currently more than 2,000 American soldiers have perished in a war over oil that has probably killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
Though the destruction of Iraq is purely economic in nature, it is also perceived as a religious war that has wide-ranging and global ideological implications. The latest report on Osama ben Ladin's purportedly latest 'warning against the Americans' conjure the continuation of a 'religious war' but in America however, this message has been overplayed. The American fear is now focusing on the institutionalising of a national wire-tapping.
Lastly, global health issues are of special concern, encompassing the Aids epidemic in all continents, the spread of avian flu, and re-emergence of smallpox that might become the next global epidemic. No nation, by default of globalisation, will be spared the 'enculturalisation' of these epidemics - these have become a question of 'glocal (global and local).
Thinking undergraduates
Our undergraduates must learn to think.
It is imperative that our universities prepare students to think like a scientist and moralist, a futurist and an activist in grasping a good understanding of all these issues. We must train our students to think relationally and holistically and to make them understand how the particulars explain the general, and how the parts fit in the whole.
Nationally, we must teach them how our government functions, how resources are allocated, and how conflicts emerge out of the political economic design. We may begin by having them analyse their own surrounding - how has the power been, and is, used to subjugate so that the mind of the students can be divided and conquered.
We may begin by challenging our university students to create a 'perfect society' and by first questioning the historical and ideological premises upon which this present government is built upon.
We may begin with this question: Is this the best Malaysians have done/achieved in terms of creating a government that respects human rights, encourages freedom of speech, protects the environment, manages ethnic and religious conflicts well, battles corruption and social ills sincerely, improves the quality of educational institutions, and allocates the nation's wealth justly?
To impart thinking skills, lecturers must be skilled in interdisciplinary thinking and to understand their role as 'organic intellectuals' whose role will be exemplars of critical thinking, the bastions of academic freedom and free inquiry, and finally the igniter of mental revolutions.
As Nietzsche once said: "Educate! but first let us educate the educators."
Our nation continues to be in a crisis not only due to the declining standards in our rankings, the rising tide of mediocrity in thinking skills of academic faculties.
There is poor understanding of the concept of teaching to improve higher order thinking skills, the systematic and continuing emphasis of form over substance in our higher educational institutions, systematic overuse of styles of totalitarian teaching and managing, and the lack of interest among graduates to challenge themselves intellectually - all these pose a threat to the future leaders we wish to create.
The crisis in higher education that came to public attention and resulted in an outcry last year will continue to deepen as we see the issues plaguing it being strategically placed in the "in denial" mode.
We are yet to see radical changes so that our universities will be ready to become institutions that will be 'designed deliberately' to prepare our precious youth with the anticipatory skills needed to become critical, creative, ethical, and futuristic students - to become globally aware 'socio-preneurs' ready to make this world a less violent place.
How do we prepare our undergraduates to become thinking global citizens? What are the challenges plaguing Humanity?
Global challenges
The world is plagued with a range of issues that threaten our survival as a species.
Nationally we continue to live in a political system that is based not only on the deformed politics of race and economic greed that favour the rich and members of political dynasties, but also a system that is threatened with continuing disregard for human rights and fundamental principles of liberties that ought to protect religious minorities in a pluralistic and complex state.
Nationally we continue to see abandoned hopes for our nation to evolve into a truly multi-cultural society as we witness the institutionalisation of racism not only in the way we think and act daily but also in the way we construct our educational, cultural, economic and political institutions. The way we conduct our dialogue on religion and race have lately reflect a clearer and uglier politics of mistrust. Globally we are faced with challenges in the areas of scientific advancement, morality, economics, ethnic and religious conflicts, population, and health.
Scientific advancements and control of knowledge and technology continue to be in the hands of the rich nations while the poor, 'developing' and 'newly-industrialising and informationalising' ones become slaves in the global production and consumption of technologies. Our scientific world of inquiry and human imagination to solve human problems has become a world of Orwellian drama; one of despair characterised by the use of science for deadly purposes.
Morality becomes a central issue of this millennium as we question our role as individuals who are defined by the means of subsistence/economic conditions in which we live. As human beings who become mere 'knowledge workers' and corporate executives in multinational corporations that have no national governments to answer to, we become one of the minute functions of the machinery of global exploitation in virtually all spheres of human activities.
And thus, one can still rationalise one's work as a scientist in nuclear weapons lab in New Mexico, in an oil drill-company in Iraq, in a pesticide-making subsidiary in the Philippines, a designer sneaker-producing company in Vietnam, or in a diamond-mining company in South Africa.
Global economics will continue to become a centrepiece of issues that our graduates will need to understand in order to become agents of change and informed citizens in this precarious world of interdependence.
The role of The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as twin instruments of global domination, borne out of the post-World War II Bretton Woods Agreement, continue to be challenged peacefully and violently as the world produces more and more impoverished nations as a consequence of policies of ideological lending and structurally imperialistic adjustments. Presidents of the World Bank continue to be groomed from among hawks of the American ultra-conservative mould.
Developments in Latin America of late are pointing towards a transformation of the people's view towards economics - governments that favour the national poor and not the international plunderers will triumph at the polls.
Planet Earth and the environment continue to be threatened by global warming, destruction of rainforests, carbon emission from fossil fuels (of which the military is the greatest consumer of oil), and the suffocation of oceans. National governments struggle with 'natural' disasters that might have roots in how human beings plunder and rape nature or in the way we overuse our resources to feed our capitalist greed.
Challenge for government
Each nation is in need of a government that will be the least corrupt and which will not embark upon major projects that deforest nature, create thicker and more dangerous industrial smog, dump toxic waste into rivers, and shave hills for commercial and residential development projects.
The challenges are that none of these issues are of interest to governments that profit from these systematic destructions that benefit the dynastic and corrupt few.
Ethnic and religious conflicts make the global news headlines. Not only are border conflicts perpetually increasing but deadly attacks are being mounted on public places where the innocent work and play. This has become a feature of the Sept 11, 2001 fallout.
The prolonged occupation in Iraq and the obvious 'no-victory-in-sight' of the American forces has become a national issue even in America - how long will she let her children die. Currently more than 2,000 American soldiers have perished in a war over oil that has probably killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Though the destruction of Iraq is purely economic in nature, it is also perceived as a religious war that has wide-ranging and global ideological implications. The latest report on Osama ben Ladin's purportedly latest 'warning against the Americans' conjure the continuation of a 'religious war' but in America however, this message has been overplayed. The American fear is now focusing on the institutionalising of a national wire-tapping.
Lastly, global health issues are of special concern, encompassing the Aids epidemic in all continents, the spread of avian flu, and re-emergence of smallpox that might become the next global epidemic. No nation, by default of globalisation, will be spared the 'enculturalisation' of these epidemics - these have become a question of 'glocal (global and local).
Thinking undergraduates
Our undergraduates must learn to think.
It is imperative that our universities prepare students to think like a scientist and moralist, a futurist and an activist in grasping a good understanding of all these issues. We must train our students to think relationally and holistically and to make them understand how the particulars explain the general, and how the parts fit in the whole.
Nationally, we must teach them how our government functions, how resources are allocated, and how conflicts emerge out of the political economic design. We may begin by having them analyse their own surrounding - how has the power been, and is, used to subjugate so that the mind of the students can be divided and conquered.
We may begin by challenging our university students to create a 'perfect society' and by first questioning the historical and ideological premises upon which this present government is built upon. We may begin with this question: Is this the best Malaysians have done/achieved in terms of creating a government that respects human rights, encourages freedom of speech, protects the environment, manages ethnic and religious conflicts well, battles corruption and social ills sincerely, improves the quality of educational institutions, and allocates the nation's wealth justly?
To impart thinking skills, lecturers must be skilled in interdisciplinary thinking and to understand their role as 'organic intellectuals' whose role will be exemplars of critical thinking, the bastions of academic freedom and free inquiry, and finally the igniter of mental revolutions.
As Nietzsche once said: "Educate! but first let us educate the educators."
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