Otak Otak: placing students in high-quality internships

I can tell you from personal experience that getting a good internship in Malaysia is hard. There is no easy way to discern the good from the bad, and very few companies even have actual internship programmes. Those few that do tend to offer mixed results, with interns often feeling they are an afterthought and an adjunct to the organisation's work. (When I talk with friends who intern at local banks, they often have more stories to tell about running the photocopiers and buying kuih than they do about actual finance-related work.)

Of course, where there's a problem, there's an opportunity. Some friends have set up Otak Otak, a project to match qualified interns with good companies, and provide structure to the internship programmes. They are currently looking for companies interested in hiring competent interns for a month or two, as well as interested students looking for internship opportunities in Malaysia. The website is otak2.com; more details after the jump.

Otak-Otak : An Elite Internship Program for Future Malaysian Leaders

What is it : Otak-Otak is a highly selective leadership program for interns to be held during the June - July 2011 period. We are looking to accept 50 top students and place them in leading organisations across 4 sectors in Malaysia - the corporate sector, small businesses, goverment, and the non profit realm. All interns will have access to events most evenings after work (networking, site visits, training from corporates), and also share common accomodation - with regular sharing and development sessions planned.

Why it's important : This is a unique oppurtunity for students to participate in a highly selective program of its kind and share experiences with other students who are going through the same program. It will be the first year (of many to come) for a very innovative program that will allow young Malaysians to work at top companies across KL and at the same time be part of a larger group.

How to Apply : Application details and more program information can be found at www.otak2.com

Building a better person

We often think about schooling as simply getting good exam results; maybe at best, we regard it as a way to practice our intellectual skills. But schools are where the adults of tomorrow learn not just how to read and write, but how to live. Our schools do a good job of teaching us basic literacy (and arguably quite a poor job of helping us think about the things we read and write), but even our best schools are often only mediocre when it comes to preparing us for life outside academia.

A friend of mine, Lim Su Ann, wrote an excellent post some months back on how deeply unsatisfying the opportunities for extracurricular growth are in our schools — it's a piece I recommend highly. Most of us in school simply go through the motions of extracurricular involvement — we don't really care about what we do. Most of the extracurricular things I pursued in school had nothing to do with my school. Until our schools allow students the freedom to pursue the things which interest them outside the classroom, and encourage responsible decisionmaking instead of simply usurping all of students' autonomy, we can't say our schools are properly preparing the adults of tomorrow.

What Went Wrong In Our Schools?

If you had read my other blog, you'd have know that I'm kinda tied up with a writing project for my "work", so I didn't really have time to post a "Merdeka" message. In addition, I've been receiving requests for comments on the latest Higher Education Action Plan launched by Dato' Mustapa Mohammad and the Prime Minister recently. In particular, whether the hype over autonomy for our local universities as well as the highly commended "Apex University" concept are justified. Well, I have my reservations but as I've not read the report in detail except for the media reports (you'd probably need to give me at least a week), I won't say too much as yet.

Anyway, I thought it'll be good for everyone to read an article by R Nadeswaran of The Sun on "What Went Wrong in Our Schools?" published earlier this week, which I'll take the liberty to republish here for all to read.

At the sound of the engine, my late father, who was returning home from work, stood at attention. Others who were cycling got off their bikes and did not move until the Austin A40 went past.

I watched this drama unfold almost every other day - circa 1956.

I remember these scenes vividly as it gave me early impressions and would have a great impact on me decades later. Innocently, I asked my mother what it was all about. She said: "Ithu Vellakaran vatcha sattam." (This is the law of the white man).

When the estate manager was on the move, everything else came to a standstill. The mandore would chide even children if they did not give the manager his due respect.

I was considered lucky because my dad was an estate conductor or kerani as they used to call him, but for the other workers, they were at the mercy of the management and its systems.

Being the son of the kerani, I was forbidden to go to the "labour lines" as they used to call the one-room wooden houses that housed Indian immigrants brought here to tap rubber.

That was my first glimpse of apartheid a'la Malaya, and fortunately, I was never to see such class polarisation and discrimination, when the family moved out of Ebor Estate in Batu Tiga, to Klang.

In town, the initial adaptation was difficult because the boys in the neighbourhood spoke English and I had spent two years in the estate Tamil school.

But those I befriended had no inhibitions. We studied together; walked to school together and played together. No one, let alone my friends who came from the Special Malay Class to join me in Standard Four classified me as kaum pendatang.

I learnt to sing Negara Ku with others, with Mrs Nora Eu on the piano. We did not have to raise flags or write slogans to show our patriotism.

We were all Malayans and we never saw any barriers - racial or religious - in our interaction.

While I was representing the school in the oratory contests and debates which were open to only non-Malays during the Bulan Bahasa Kebangsaan, the Indian Muslims and Pakistanis, in order to take part, proudly gave their full names including son of or daughter of - not bin or binti.

Today, the same people have conveniently dropped those words and assimilated themselves with the majority. I have no problems with that. Good for them that they have learnt how to work around the system.

We had two Abdul Halims in class and in order to avoid confusion, we called one Halim Kichap - referring to skin tone - and he had no qualms about that.

We learnt about the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), Francis Drake, Christopher Columbus, Gandhi, Mohamed Ali Jinnah and the like.

We were taught that a Javanese Hindu named Parameswara founded Malacca, but we are now told that someone is trying to re-write history by obliterating his name from textbooks.

My Standard Six teacher, B. M. Das, used the cane sparingly and those who had contemplated complaining to their parents were politely told that "if your father comes to school to complain, you can sit at the back of the class and watch me teach".

There were only 13 "A" graders in the trial exams before the government exams proper.

"If there are more than 13 who pass with an A, I'll eat your shoes," he ventured. Our class produced 33 and it goes to show how teachers used to motivate the pupils. Das never ate our shoes and we never asked him to!

In secondary school, we had inter-class games, inter-house games and inter-school games. We all got involved. When the class was playing, everyone was on the field - cheering the team on.

Besides, everyone was encouraged to join the literary and debating society or other extra-mural activities, as they were called. But then, there were no computer labs or clubs.

We never identified ourselves by race and the only "segregation" came when we had to attend "Pupil's Own Language" classes in the afternoon. Everyone ate from each other's tah pau from home, and nothing was taboo.

In Form Two, our literature teacher P.K. Singh made us read a book a week, and then write a synopsis and identify 10 new words that we had learnt. It was this that helped our generation excel in the language.

Cikgu Idris, who taught us Bahasa Kebangsaan, told us that letters should end with Wassalam, an Arabic form of greeting which has now taken religious connotations.

We had the like of Lee Mun Yew and D. R. Daniel as headmasters of two schools - Klang High School and Anglo Chinese School respectively - which had a strong rivalry be it on the playing field or the debating halls.

They were there when the inter-school matches were played, and of course, like all school sports days, the main event was the inter-school relay.

Fifty years on and as a parent of a school-going child, I wonder how these great school days just disappeared and how well-versed they are with some famous names and places. Thanks to the Internet, some children know that the American Independence Day falls on July 4 or that Captain Tasman sailed to Australia with a boatload of convicts and that at one time, the sun never set on the Great British Empire.

What went wrong? Why are children now embroiled in colour, creed and religion at such a young age?

We are blaming the schools for all the ills that afflict society. Can it be changed? Can we go back to the times when we gained so much knowledge within six hours? Can we re-live the times when you had to fight tooth and nail to find a place in the school football team?

I don't have the answers, but as the nation turns 50 tomorrow, our policymakers should put on their thinking caps for a solution.

Happy Merdeka!

Happy Merdeka to you too! ;)

How soft skills requirement can 'backfire'

I notice this interesting Malaysiakini article yesterday about the UM VC's statement that a company had 'exploited' UM students by requiring them to sell the company's products as part of an entrepreneurship course component that was required for graduation. While I think that teaching soft skills in our universities is still important, this episode shows how having this requirement can 'backfire'.

According to this article, 'The UM soft skills programme was initiated by the Higher Education Ministry with the aim of developing entrepreneurship skills among students.' The company, AmCash, which from the logos, seems to be a subsidiary of AmBank selling various insurance products, not only provided soft skills 'training' to a group of 500 final year students but also forced them to set up and man booths to sell the products of AmCash. 'Most controversial of all, the company would grade the reports to determine whether the students pass or fail the course.'

Thankfully, UM VC Rafiah Salim made the right move but not making the 'selling' part of the course a requirement for a passing grade. Now the students are just required to submit a report based on what they learnt in regards to the 'soft skills' component of the course (as far as I understand).

What can we surmise from this episode?

Firstly, I don't think we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. I still think that soft skills are an important component of a soon to be graduate's repertoire of skills. While I agree with Tony's earlier post that it is hard to 'teach' soft skills in a course (especially in a one or two day course), having an undergraduate exposed to at least some of these critical soft skills - presentation, interview skills, entrepreneurship, communication - is better than nothing. Of course, if the university environment was opened up more and students were allowed to articulate different views openly, then perhaps this problem would be less serious.

Secondly, this episode shows the dangers of 'subcontrating'. Although not an exact comparison, I'm reminded by how Asiaworks, a large group awareness training (LGAT) outfit, tried to obtain contracts from the Ministry of Defence (MOD) to conduct of the training programs for the National Service program before it was rolled out. Judging from one of the links from their website, it seems that they were successful in at least obtaining a part of the pie of the National Service training program. I know that there might be fans or students of Asiaworks among our readers but I am highly skeptical of the methods employed by them. If you google of blogsearch asiaworks, you'll find an ample number of website criticizing their methods including accusing them of being a cult-like organization. (perhaps a topic for another post) But whenever there are these 'subcontracting' possibilities in a market which is as immature as Malaysia's, you can be sure that there will be less than scrupulous individuals and groups who will come in to exploit the situation.

In most US universities, there are sufficient in house capabilities to have this kind of training (esp. interview and presentation skills) staffed by university staff. Indeed, many of the younger assistant or associate professors (and some of the older full professors) are capable enough in powerpoint and presentation skills to be able to teach these courses on their own. This is very much a product of the environment in the sense that many of these professor have to make presentations to large audiences regularly and have to give tough job talks in front of tough and often unforgiving audiences. I'm guessing that there is no such equivalent environment in most public universities in Malaysia which decreases the pool of in house professors who can do this kind of training. In any case, the US is a mature enough market such that even if one wants to subcontract this assignment out, there is ample legit organizations and individuals out there who are more than capable of providing this kind of training.

I don't have any quick answers or solutions to this problem. Ideally, I think that what Tony said about having a more open environment is a better long term solution. (In US universities, you are encouraged to make your views known, even if they might not be 100% correct) Also, I think it makes sense to develop in house capabilities - does any of the public universities have an equivalent of a Career's Centre? - since this service is required year in and year out. Some of this training could and should be taken up by academic staff (who should be given due credit) who have the capabilities. In the meantime, we should continue to monitor how this 'soft skills' requirement continues to develop!