Memories of a Traveler

Salaam and Greetings, In today’s New Straits Times, they reported on the upcoming registration for universities in Malaysia. And that the gender gap is now 60:40, in favor of the ladies. In 1990, it was a milestone when it hit 50:50. Prior to that, it has always been more men that ladies. UKM reported, this year, they will be having a ratio of 70:30 for the ladies. What brought upon this drastic gap? According to UKM Deputy Vice-Chancellor (student affairs and alumni) Prof Dr Othman A. Karim, “ More female applicants had better academic results and performance, which explains the increase in the gender gap. ” Read more: University gender gap http://www.nst.com.my/nst/articles/Universitygendergap/Article/#ixzz1XJy2xJHM However, the statement by Prof Dr Othman only begs the question, “why are the ladies having better academic results than their men counterpart?” A few days ago, I wrote about the challenges many countries are facing on the education system, including Malaysia. A c

Salaam and Greetings to All, Before the Hair Raya break, I read a similar thing mentioned by the Chairman of Google on the challenges faced by UK education system. You can read the article here - http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/aug/26/eric-schmidt-chairman-google-education . And I believe, Malaysia is not spared from that challenges too.  As a learning & development person, I am always faced with the challenges of raising demands by bosses on the lack of knowledge, and competencies by employees. These group of employees I roughly figured are around the mid 30s and below age group. They are the product of our ever changing education system. Being a former teacher and lecturer I learned that our education system is so content driven. Yet, the work place requires process driven knowledge, such as thinking skills, creative thinking, problem solving, communication skills, writing skills, making connections etc. There is clearly a disjoint between the two. How can we resolve

Myth Three: “You do not have to love what you do. It’s just a job” Too bad if you were told this many times over in the duration of your life. And worse. You believe it. I can’t imagine the horror you are going through to get the job that fits your academic qualification. Currently, a lot of organizations are either planning or already into “Talent Management & Succession Planning”. Succession Planning is the result of Talent Management. You manage talents, i.e. good people, put them through a fast track program that includes development programs and also projects, work assignments with increasing responsibilities, difficulties and risks. The ones that survive will be in the running for the Succession Planning i.e. prepared and readied to take over some senior positions in the organizations. I was attending a Forum on developing financial professionals recently. One of the items discussed was Talent Management. Of course, we ended up talking about these so-called pool of talent

This article first appeared some 5 - 6 years ago. So, some of the details may no longer be accurate. However, the essence of the article, I am certain still remains. Myth Two: “I must work in the area I studied. If not I wasted those years of studying.” How did this come about? In the days of 30 – 40 years ago, career planning is done on what you can do best. Well, that isn’t necessarily wrong. The only challenge is that what you do best isn’t what you like most. Also, back then going to school is not considered learning and development. Going to school is a vocational training. You studied a trade 4 – 5 years and then off you go to work. That is where the notion that you did what you studied. It does not matter whether you studied at a trade school or university. The end product is the same, to get a job. Now, people go to school for self-fulfillment. To learn, to expand knowledge and horizons. In fact, if you mention such words to your elders, they might look at you rather str

MANAGING YOUR CAREER – DISPELLING THE MYTHS I am not going to approach this quoting statistics and studies conducted by this company or that university. I will approach this quoting what you see and hear around you. Then you be the judge. MYTH ONE: “I must get a job.” How did the myth came about? Well, it is more historically cultural than hereditary. Working for yourself is hard work. The hours are long and the returns are usually, small and inconsistent in comparison to the effort you put in. Having a job is seen as glamorous. You get a fix monthly income. You get the perks, like medical, hospitalization, some even get cars and to be able to travel. Yes, it is glamorous. Since this is on managing your career, let’s work on getting a job first. What most unemployed graduates fail to see is that, jobs are limited . As I said before, there are about 60,000 unemployed graduates. Do you think there are 60,000 jobs available? Don’t know? Simple. Just buy the Saturday newspapers, and

This is an article I wrote for a local daily some 5 - 6 years ago. Was rummaging my hard disk and stumbled upon this. If you have a relative whom you think, this article is helpful, do forward it to them. Enjoy!!! MANAGING YOUR CAREER Graduates! Are you unemployed? Or, are you employed, but not doing what you studied? Or, do you feel you can do better? Unemployment or lack of proper employment among graduates is an interesting issue that has struck nerves on all fronts in Malaysia and especially the unemployed graduates. Currently there are about 60,000 unemployed graduates. This number has not dwindled for the past 5 – 6 years and will undoubtedly grow bigger. Why is there such a lingering problem in this country? Bad management on the education industry? Bad choices by students? Bad choices by parents for their children? What? There is no simple answer, but what I hope to bring is putting things in perspective so that we as graduates, can help ourselves. Also, there are no ma

Salaam and Greetings, I have an 11 year old son. He is a nerd. If you check the dictionary, you would probably find his name next to the definition. He also has a slight dyslexia, mild visual challenges, and learning disability. Since early last year, he has been bullied in school. We didn’t know about it because he didn’t speak much on that. The boy that bullies him, sits in the next class. Recess time is a stressful period for my son. So he took refuge in the school’s library. My wife and I didn’t know that. All we know is that he knows a lot. Like astronomy. He can tell you there are many types of suns and what they are called. He can tell all the planets and how many moons each planet has or don’t have. He reads about animals, dinosaurs, flowers and bugs. We knew about the bully only when the school year ends, last year. He had that fearful look. Due to his learning challenges, my son was relegated to a lower class. And that bully, is in that class. That’s when he told us abo

Salaam and Greetings, What I would like to talk about is teacher training and teacher development. I was fortunate enough to listen to a talk online given by Sir Ken Robinson. The first time I heard about him was about a year ago. It really changed the way I think. I shared this with my wife, and she cried listening. You can read more of what Sir Ken talks about in his book, The Element. Or, you can listen to him talk at http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html . However, if you are a visual person like me, a company RSA Animate, converted his talk to a very visual version at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U .  Why am I interested in schools and teacher training & development? I have six kids. 2 in universities, 2 in high school and 2 in primary school. Excellent family planning eh. Each day, all my kids tell my stories of something that happened in school or universities about what the teachers say or do. I am not sure whether thos