Malaysia 180 and the Workplace

Malaysia 180 is of the opinion that a restructuring of the workplace and wages is long overdue.  180 is  of the opinion that amongst other changes the following must be seriously considered

• the collation of a Consumer Price Index based on the most common expenditures of the average Malaysian household.  The CPI  would be reviewed every six  months and every twelve months the minimum wage would be adjusted to keep it in line with the CPI
  
• 180 is of the opinion that immigrant workers do nothing for the Malaysian economic/workplace/social environment. The only advantage they have is that they enhance the profitability of employers.  Disadvantages are:  
• They encourage employers to treat their workers less than ideally.
• They discourage  employers from seeking greater efficiency and from introducing new technology.
• They contribute to keeping the salaries of the whole workforce depressed.
• They encourage the outflow of money from Malaysia
• They lead Malaysians to believe that lowly work is not for them
• They enhance  the risks of crime
• They introduce little in the way of skills into the Malaysian workforce

180 proposes the following:

• The salaries of immigrant workers be increased to that of the minimum wage to discourage employers from employing immigrants rather than locals
• That employers be made  to show proof that they cannot find Malaysian citizens  to carry out a task before being given a license to employ immigrant workers
  
  

180 would encourage the development of unions and support them in their role of caring for the welfare of Malaysian workers, especially salaries, working hours and holiday leave.

180 would introduce a scheme whereby on-the-job training would be attract taxation benefits

180 would encourage the public advertisement of all vacant positions and that those advertisements would carry a formal salary offer.  180 would introduce legislations to prohibit the negotiation downwards of salary offers

180 would encourage employers to have input into the structure of tertiary courses to make them more relevant to industry

180 would set up a unit within the Department of Health to oversee the Occupational Health and Safety of workers

180 would rationalise the productivity losses resulting from too many public holidays and other outside influences which affect productivity.

180 would discourage the concept of bonuses which are too susceptible to the whim of the employer.  Instead they would encourage that workers be paid a fair and reasonable wage based on their experience and professional skills.

180 would also discourage the giving of ‘gifts‘ and company trips in lieu of wage increases

When higher wages become an integral part of the workplace then 180 would seek to eliminate all forms of subsidy.  Thus workers would no longer be reliant on government handouts to survive

Malaysia 180 and Religion

Its the opinion of Malaysia 180 that in a multi religious society, such as Malaysia, that government should have a neutral approach to religion.  

The only way to truly have a neutral approach is for government to have no official dealings with any religion.  Any alternative would create accusations of favouritism.

The Constitutional statement on Freedom of Religion would be strongly supported.  The statement that Islam is the Official Religion would be acknowledged but not acted upon.

Thus 180 would cut all financial and legislative ties with all religions.  It would be up to the individual religions to decide which institutions and services they would maintain.  Those that  religious bodies choose not to support would be either adapted for non religious purposes or they would be dismantled.

Malaysia 180 would actively campaign against religious practices which were deemed to be contrary to the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women

In the longer term Malaysia 180 would like to initiate debate on the role of the King/Sultans and the possibility of changing Malaysia to become a republic

Malaysia 180 and the Public Service

Malaysia 180 is of the opinion that the Public Sector should be the generator of progress  for the future growth and development of Malaysia.  The Public Sector should have the time, the skills, the professional expertise, the facilities and the long term outlook necessary to fulfill this role. 

Parliamentarians do not have those attributes even tho they like to think they have.  For this reason they have suppressed the talents of the Public Sector so that they become nothing more than lackeys for the politicians often ill-conceived projects.  Its no wonder that the Public Sector hasn’t been more diligent in the execution of their duties.

But to adapt to their new role there needs to be a major rebirth of the Public Sector where honesty, integrity, competence, innovation and professionality is rewarded.

180 understands that the only way this can happen is through internal review because external reviews have been shown to be ineffective.  Public Servants should be allowed to dictate how their departments are  structured and who becomes the leaders of those departments.  

We envisage that by secret ballot all public servants should be given the opportunity to rate their fellow workers and to comment on departmental organisation.  From that survey it is believed  that a new regime will evolve more suited to the needs and demands of the 21st Century

180 thinks that no longer should officers be appointed to positions and that all Public Sector vacancies should be advertised widely throughout Malaysia and even overseas. All applicants would remain anonymous until the point of having an interview.  All interviews and appointments would be conducted by a multi racial tribunal with the appropriate professional skills

Inevitably, this  re-organisation will lead to the loss of positions in some departments and the creation of positions in other departments.  Redundant workers should not simply be shifted sideways, but should be expected to apply for positions like any other applicant.

If workers lose their positions as the result of government re-organisation they should be compensated by up to 12 months support at the level of the minimum wage while they seek alternative work

The philosophy within departments should change as they are given greater responsibility for planning and control.  Although the oversight of a department’s functions would rest with the Ministerial Group, it is the responsibility of the officers to keep the Group fully informed and their own subordinates well supervised

As each department is restructured to the satisfaction of Parliament then the wage structure for that department should be reviewed

Employment in the Public Service should no longer be seen as a lifelong career. Workers should be employed for a contract period sufficient to accomplish a specific task

There should be no such thing as an Official Secrets Act.  With the exception of some sensitive defense matters and matters sub judice, all information generated by the Public Sector should be freely and promptly available to any member of the public

All government purchases and allocation of contracts will in future be done by open tendering, where the tenderers remain anonymous until the tender is awarded.  180 suggests that all tenders should be managed by an authority specifically set up for that role

An office of The Ombudsman should be set up to deal with public complaints about their dealings with public servants.

SPECIFIC EXAMPLES

The Judiciary:  There is a widespread perception that the judiciary is tainted.  Its 180’s opinion that to rectify this problem the Bar Council should be commissioned to propose a new Judiciary.  Henceforth, changes to the Judiciary would be made on the recommendation of the Bar Council. There would be no political appointees.

Police and the MACC:  There needs to be a major shake-up of both these organisations to bring them in line with the public’s expectations on how they should perform.  There is no question that the upper echelons of management would need to be completely replaced.

There are many changes which need to be accomplished.  One of the most important is the treatment of Malaysians under investigation.  The techniques for entrapment, the protection of people under investigation and the protection of people while in custody all need to be reviewed.  

The MACC should have the brief of addressing current or near current cases of corruption.  A special and separate Commission of Enquiry should be set up to deal with past cases of corruption and negligence

Electoral Commission:  180 agrees fully with the demands that Bersih has placed on the EC. But we also think that the EC is beyond redemption and that the best thing would be to scrap the Commission completely.

Any new Commission would report directly to Parliament.  It would be made up of nominees from the watchdogs of Malaysian society: Bersih, Transparency International, Suaram, and the Bar Council  etc

Initially the EC’s role would be to supervise elections.  The work of collating the electoral roll and defining electoral boundaries should be carried out by a completely independent offshore organisation.  The EC would cooperate with that organisation in the development of the software to manage the electoral roll and boundaries.  Eventually, the EC would take over the role of managing the roll.

180 is of the opinion that the voting age should be reduced to 18, and that on reaching that age all citizens would automatically be registered.  This does not infer there would be any change in the voluntary nature of voting

The electoral roll is public document and should me made available to anyone who wishes to view it.

Liaison between the EC, the NRDept and the Dept of Immigration should be improved to facilitate efficiency

Foreigners granted Permanent Residence Status should not gain the right to vote until they have achieved Citizenship after a period of five years 

Agriculture:  Like so many other Government Departments, Agriculture seems to have lost direction.  It appears to have been hypnotised by grandiose schemes and modern technology to the extent that it has lost sight of the  real plight of Malaysian agriculture.  Its 180’s opinion that Agriculture should concentrate on achieve Malaysian self sufficiency of food production within the next ten years.

Investigations should be made into growing plantation timber so that what little that remains of pristine rainforest should be protected

Public Works: Has been the darling of generations of BN governments for the obvious reasons.  But its has failed completely to maintain the professional standards required by such an organisation as can be seen by the cost over-runs by so many  major projects.  Public Works needs a major overhaul

In summary:  Malaysians of all walks of life should be invited to have their input into the reorganisation of government departments in parallel with the internal reviews as previously suggested

Next Day: Religion

Education, the Key to the Future

Education is the key to the future of Malaysia and Malaysians. It is the only long term answer to poverty and it has been sorely neglected from decades of being a political play thing.

The main thrust of 180’s change in governance will be to completely revamp the education system.  180 believes that this is necessary because the system as it exists promotes mediocrity, does not encourage Malaysians to learn and  the educational philosophy is biassed and  outdated, as is the curriculum.  Facilities are primitive and unwelcoming.

FACILITIES.  The five year goal is to have all schools convert to a one session timetable, so that each class will have its own space with which it can identify and which can be made ‘their’ space.  More effort should be made to upgrade facilities to a level that attending school is a pleasant experience rather than a visit to purgatory.  Future school buildings should be architecturally more imaginative and inspiring and designed to better serve the purpose for which they are built.

Schools should become community centres where the whole community can access computers, and libraries.  They should be accessible by the community for meetings and for purposes of adult education. They should be the natural home for community environment and self help groups.

The concept of vernacular schools should be abandoned immediately with these schools either being absorbed into the overall education system or allowed to go private.  The latter, no cost to the government

LANGUAGE.  Over the next five years the language of education should change from BM to English with BM being a compulsory second language with special emphasis on its literary value.   There are some brilliant, radical young poets in Malaysia and they should be incorporated in the BM curriculum to inspire and stimulate students.  

Teachers who are capable of teaching in English should be paid a bonus of 25% of their salaries to encourage other teachers to adapt. To make up the shortfall in English speaking teachers retired teachers from English speaking countries should be invited to fill short term contracts in Malaysian schools.  Exposure to teachers from different backgrounds can only benefit Malaysian students.  The teaching of other languages within the State run system should be the province of secondary education

PHILOSOPHY.  Primary.  This is the stage that children develop their learning skills and their desire to learn.  Classes should have a permanent class teacher so that students have one role model to work with and so the teacher can have greater empathy and better understand of each student.  The emphasis should be on encouraging students to learn by themselves, to explore, to experiment, to analyse what they observe and to question everything around them. It is a time when children should learn about themselves and the environment in which they live.  

By late Primary they should be starting to source their own information and they should be taught how to assess the information they access. To this end cutting edge cheap technology such as the Raspberry Pi, tablets and notebooks should be freely available for students to play and experiment with.  This does not include devices for communication such as handphones   

Any attempt at indoctrination should be completely eliminated from the curriculum and children do not yet have the analytical skills to assess what is right and what is wrong.  The responsibility of teaching standards and morals is in the home, not in the classroom.

Competitiveness in the classroom should be eliminated and students should be encouraged to learn at their own pace.  Exams should be completely discarded as they serve no useful purpose that a good teacher cannot fulfill.  They impose a huge administrative burden on teachers.  There is no role for homework in primary nor in early secondary school. 

There is no role for uniforms in an environment like this... let the uniform be T shirt and jeans.

More emphasis should be placed on physical exercise, both competitive and non competitive for those students who are less competitive

Overall primary education should be fun.  Children should look forward to going to school.  Teachers should be seen as a guide, a councillor, an inspiration and a friend.  Never as an authoritarian figure.  Teachers should bring their lives into the classroom... for example if the teacher is buying a house or a car the problems and pleasures of that process should be discussed with students

In line with the highly significant and responsible role of teachers in the development of the nation, teachers should be paid an appropriate salary.  Much higher than they are earning at the moment

PHILOSOPHY, Secondary.  The comments regarding Primary School Facilities and Philosophy apply equally to Secondary Schools. Perhaps more so, because Secondary School students are more discerning consumers that their Primary School cousins. 

 However, there is considerably more closer management required at Secondary level because there is much more work to cover.  This does  not mean that fun and experimentation should suffer.  Rather than learning by rote,  more emphasis should be placed on understanding and encouraging the motivation to explore and seek information.  This applies particularly in the area of IT. 

There should be specialist schools set up in urban and major rural centres for students who excel in specific disciplines

Exams and homework should be limited to the later years of Secondary Education. This does not mean that examination should be eliminated, but that only major exams of one hour of more should go.  The goal should be  to Continuously Assess students.  

Once students start to do exams they should provide themselves with a PIN number that only they and a central computer would be able to identify.  This PIN number would be used for all future exams and later job applications

There should be one set of  exams that are applicable to all students 

TERTIARY.. Entry into Tertiary level courses should be solely on merit.  180 realises that its not always possible for students to be allotted a place in the course of their first choice and where this situation arises the students should expect to be interviewed to assess their suitability to function in their chosen profession. The interviewing tribunal should be composed of representatives of the three major races.

But having an intake of excellent students will not cure the rot that is tertiary education in Malaysia.  Its hard to imagine how one sector of society could be so effectively destroyed in such a short time unless there was an active agenda to wreak as much havoc as possible.

Its is difficult to know what could be done to remedy the situation unless academics themselves decide to confront the problem and vastly improve the standards of tuition, assessment and research.  Its certainly not a problem that can be solved overnight. Malaysia is widely regarded as an academic backwater. No aspiring young academics would see Malaysia as a stepping stone to the future and local post grads with any merit leave the country as soon as possible.

Increasing salaries on their own will no solve the problem, but that must be part of the solution

A 180 government would remove all  legislation that restricts the freedom of tertiary institutions to define their own identity.

Institutions must accept that students have as much right to self determination as they themselves.  They should have no disciplinary role over tertiary students. There are other government agencies to handle real problems.

Faculties would be encouraged to take a multi disciplinary approach to learning, especially in the early years of a course  

 180 would increase the level of oversight on private colleges churning out diplomates so that their standards were at a level acceptable  to industry and not only to their bank accounts.  180 would make it much more difficult for private colleges to upgrade their status.  

There needs to be greater  emphasis on Vocational Courses to address the lack of skills and lack of innovation in the  workforce

All institutions would be equally accessible to all students and 180 would drastically review the policy of siting tertiary institutions in isolated areas.  Students need to be exposed to all sorts of experiences of which not all can be achieved through the internet.

180 would seriously consider discontinuing the funding overseas study at an undergraduate level.  The money would be better spent developing elite universities in Malaysia

180 would encourage institutions to develop assessment strategies that would avoid the widespread problems arising from plagiarism and the purchase of assignments

Much of what 180  has to say about the Public Service will also apply to tertiary institutions funded by government.  

Next day:   The Public Service

A New Approach

This is a proposal to create a new Malaysian political party to be called Malaysia 180, or simply 180 for short. The name is derived from that fact that it will be a party for all Malaysians and the aim is to turn Malaysia around 180 degrees from the direction it is heading

The overall philosophy for the party will be to protect and enhance the integrity and human  rights of the Malaysian people and to provide the ideal environment for the people and hence the nation to flourish in all spheres of human endeavour

The Party will in fact not exist.  There will be no membership, because every Malaysian will be an honorary member.  With no members there will be  fewer opportunities for cronyism, party hacks will not be awarded seats in parliament simply because they are long serving members.  With no party to seek donations there will be no opportunities for individuals to curry favour by making large donations

There would be no selection process for candidates.  Malaysia 180 would welcome any Malaysian above the voting age who thought they had the motivation, intelligence and compassion for their fellow Malaysians to take on the role of MP.  Should there  be more than one aspiring candidate in an electorate, 180 would expect the candidates to resolve the issue themselves.

The aim would be to have equal numbers of  males and females in Parliament.  The only limitation on applicants is that they be below 40 years of age at the time of application.  They would be expected to retire at age 55.   

Applicants would be discouraged from thinking of themselves as entrepreneurs and innovators, although innovation would be welcomed.  Their prime duties would be as representatives of their electorate and liaison between their electorate (and for ‘Ministers’ the whole nation)  and the Party and  the Administration.  Their secondary role would be the overseeing of the  financial, performance and technical aspects of the Government Departments to which they are seconded.

There would be no Ministers as such.  They would be replaced by Ministerial Groups.  A Group would consist of four or six people, the number depending on the work load of the Department involved.  Each Group would contain representatives of all three major racial groups and half of each Group would be female.  The concept of the group making decisions is an attempt to reduce the potential for corruption, increase the range of inputs into decision making and reduce the risk of individuals making stupid comments.  No member of a Group would be permitted to make unilateral decisions or statements

At this stage it is envisioned that there would be no specific Leader of the party.  The reason for this is that all parliamentarians would be regarded as equals and that decisions would be  made by consensus.  There would be no unilateral decisions made by the ego and biasses of one person.  It also eliminates the concept of icons which is all too common in Malaysian politics

The planning for Malaysia, the continuity over time, the experience required to govern a nation and the ‘wisdom’ of experience will be provided by Public Servants who will now become the real generators of Malaysia’s progress.  Parliamentarians will do no more that decide which of the Administrators plans to proceed with.  They will be responsible for the efficiency, productivity, integrity and honesty of their Departments.

 I would prefer to remain anonymous for a number of reasons.  I would not be eligible to stand for Parliament  with this scenario, and at this stage, the debate should be on Malaysia 180’s philosophy and policies

More on Policies tomorrow when we look at 180’s stand on Education