NEM-Prioritizing education imperatives.

Allow me to illustrate. Each year, the Pahang state government sends hundreds of students to universities in the Middle East. The bulk goes to Cairo and some other universities in Saudi Arabia. They study religion. They come back as young ustazs or religious teachers.

There's one problem. Most of them couldn't get jobs. The number of mosques and suraus are finite. The budget allocations and number of religious establishments are not that big. The institutions and the budgets cannot sustain them. The MB's office can absorb a limited number as religious advisers or special officers.

Where do the others go to? Many of them ended up teaching at KAFA classes- that's beginner's classes in the fundamentals of Islam. These highly trained scholars end up teaching what can be done by elementary teachers. It's like forcing a thoroughbred to pull a milk cart.

The rest and there are many of them, ply their trade as religious professionals, independent preachers, haj piligrimage consultants and tour guides and operators.

Tabung Haji should farm out these services to our young ustazs who can speak and know their way around the Middle East countries. Stop farming out to companies formed by your directors and employees. Let's see TH comes out with a concrete plan to do this other than presenting the PM with some perked up business plans.

Pardon that short digression.

I suppose, this is a scene dreaded by many political leaders. Can they create jobs to absorb these graduates? That means creating a robust and vibrant economy. It means also fitting graduates skills with the requirements of the vibrant economy.

Cheaper now, damn expensive later.

In Pahang's case, the decision to send these students is probably dictated by the economics of it. It's cheaper to send them there. Unfortunately, it will become expensive for everyone in the future. Unemployment of the educated becomes of hot bed of social agitation. Unemployed ustazs become fiery sermoners. Malays don't argue with religion and when religion is used by experts they become believable. Most of the time, independent serrmoners don't have anything good to say about how the government runs things.

But the decision may also stem from mistaken prioritizing of education imperatives. For what purpose do we educate our young? Sending students to become ustazs may be driven by the cultural and political imperatives. Chief among these is the overarching need to underscore this government's commitment to Islam. Ok, we have proven we are more Islam than everyone else. We produce thousands of graduates trained in various religious branches. We build special schools for them.

But always, the haunting question, can we find jobs for them? We haven't succeeded right? Because our education imperative is misdirected. We need engineers, technicians, doctors, those trained in the hard sciences, businesses to build up this country. To build up a vibrant economy with which to absorb the army of graduates.

Each year too thousand of Malay graduates come out from our universities. We call them degree mills. They emerged armed with all sorts of degree- sports medicine and the like; they read the soft sciences, liberal arts, literary studies and so forth. We are driven by the political imperatives to produce as many Malay graduates as possible. We easily achieved that agenda but we couldn't give them jobs. So we find many Malay graduates as unemployables because the skills they have, even though at degree levels do not match industry requirements. Industry requires technicians, numeric graduates, accounting, finance, - the harder sciences.

Look again at our ustazs. Other than religious disciplines, most of these couldn't fit into mainstream jobs. They can't get into business disciplines, administration, management, hard sciences etc. I always thought that a good solution is probably getting them into the services- the police notably. With thousands of religious graduates inducted into our police force, who knows, the profile and demeanor of our police force will change for the better. As a rule, religious sanctions would be a natural deterrence for the many grouses the public has against our police force at the moment.

Yes, why not induct them as police cadres so that in 10 years time, religion trained graduates become our top police officers. If a son of an ustaz has failed us, maybe an ustaz will do better. In 10 years let's have a PhD in Islamic studies become the IGP.

In line with the NEM, we have to ask- what's the overriding objective now? Between now and 2020, it's the economy. Raising PCI from USD 7k to USD 15k. That's our main indicator to becoming a high income country. It's another name for being a developed country by 2020. That was the same economic agenda set by Dr Mahathir. In that sense, DR Mahathir sounded most agreeable when he says the NEM fulfills the idea of 1 Malaysia. For Dr. Mahathir 1 Malaysia simply means vision 2020.

Except Dr. Mahathir has different methods to achieve vision 2020 while PM Najib has different strategies. Dr. Mahathir is all for forced entry. PM Najib is all for voluntary cooperation of human endeavors- aka the free market. Dr. Mahathir is all for guided free market which at once elevates the status of decision makers and most notably the PM to that of an omnipotent being. PM Najib said the era of government knows best is over. He says, by adopting a different strategy, he has placed his head on the chopping block.

But he needs to do much more than positioning himself to approach this agenda differently from Dr Mahathir. He must exorcise the ghosts of the past.

There is one area however, where the pragmatism of a clinically trained doctor appears to be more sensible. In terms of education, Dr Mahathir appears to accept that reality of the world, demands Malaysians especially Malays be proficient in language and technical skills. The PM appears to realize this too. In this aspect, they share similarities.

This is the economic imperative of our education agenda. To align the education system so that it can support the quest to become a developed country and a high income economy. This means that we have to teach literacy in English and the mother tongue, technical skills, science and technology. In 10 years, we review the imperative. Perhaps after that it's the cultural imperative and perhaps a common cultural imperative stressing the commonalities.

We don't have the luxury of experimenting with holistic education. Singapore which is a developed country with a small population has that luxury. So, personally, I think we can forego for the time being, this nebulous idea of holistic education agenda. Do what's needed first. From now up to 10 years (2020) our education imperative is economic.

Right now we need more technicians, engineers, scientists per 1000 people than poets, literary experts per 1000 people. To move into the service industry? We need more economists, finance graduates, investment analysts, and accountants per 1000 than dramatists, concert pianists, and actors per 1000 people.

As I have written earlier, education has 3 imperatives- economic, cultural and political. In the heydays of the Cultural Revolution in China, the overriding agenda of education was political. To instill the belief in Mao's brand of peasant based communism. When Deng took over, the imperative was economic as Deng believed that to be rich is glorious.

Our Education Minister may lack the charisma of a Deng- but he can cultivate the same pragmatism and sense of reality of what is needed more at present.