My previous article Malaysia – a country in decay? struck a raw nerve.
This was immediately apparent to me as it sent a volley of emails and Facebook comments my way, the likes of which I had rarely experienced.
And although I got my fair share of “Balik Silicon Valley la!” type comments, most of them were in agreement with my sombre assessment of the state of affairs in Malaysia. It was especially painful to read emails from people who were obviously hurting due to what they perceived as the systemic oppression, mistreatment or unfairness that they are subjected to.
I knew many people were disenfranchised but to hear the grievances of total strangers really did bring the point home. One suggestion that I received multiple times was to write a follow-up article detailing some potential solutions. Being an engineer, this resonated with me. We’re trained to not just pose problems but also to suggest remedies, so here goes:
Plugging the brain drain
The first step in plugging Malaysia’s brain drain is doing away with race-based quota systems in public universities and making them purely meritocratic – the best students get into the best universities. Malaysians need to know that no matter their creed, colour, race or gender, they’ll be afforded the same educational opportunities.
Another step we can take is to remove racial and religious categories from our identification cards and all official forms. This will help reduce sectarianism – instead of thinking of ourselves as belonging to bangsa Melayu, Cina or India, we’ll start thinking of ourselves as belonging to bangsa Malaysia.
Additionally, we should implement anonymous recruitment policies for entrance into universities and the workforce, whereby all personal, identifying data of the applicant – such as name, gender, age, race and religion – are removed. This will ensure universities and employers pick applicants solely based on merit.
Such revolutionary moves will serve to rehabilitate Malaysia’s image on the world stage, which has been tainted by criticism that it is the only major nation in the world to have an affirmative action policy that benefits the majority race. It’ll also undoubtedly keep many high-achieving Malaysians here, contributing to our economy and helping us become a developed nation.
As politician and former IDEAS CEO, Wan Saiful Wan Jan says: “As long as ethnic-based affirmative action remains in place, we will continue to be a society operating in a downward spiral of suspicion and discomfort about each other’s culture. The pervasiveness of ethnic-based discrimination in our society is sowing distrust among fellow citizens.”
And above all else, it’ll be the ethical thing to do. If we don’t repeal our discriminatory policies, on what moral ground can we criticise or comment on those who disfavour others in foreign lands?
Improving the economy
Instead of looking to foreign direct investment (FDI) as the main way to boost the economy, Malaysia needs to concentrate on nurturing local companies so they become world-beaters.
This is the route that countries such as Japan, South Korea and China have taken to fantastic heights. These nations – thanks partly to their business-conducive policies – possess a coterie of incredible companies that have established themselves as industry leaders.
In an effort to emulate their success, we should concentrate on nurturing and incentivising high-value, tech-forward industries so as to keep abreast – or even better, ahead – of the times.
The government should encourage and incentivise the private sector, including Bumiputera firms, to take up this challenge.
For a start, we could look at the drone and agriculture industries – two industries for which we possess the tools to disrupt.
Malaysia’s drone startups – the best-known being Aerodyne and Poladrone – should be given the support needed to grow into global behemoths.
A specific step the government can take to enable this is by relaxing stifling aviation laws to allow drone deliveries of food, packages and mail – an area of immense potential that hasn’t seen much progress due to regulatory roadblocks, despite significant advances in technology. This is the government’s chance to propel Malaysian companies to become pioneers in the yet to be disrupted, billion-dollar, global drone delivery market.
Another sector we should massively bolster is agriculture – an industry that, if expanded and modernised, will not only make us food-secure but also provide a much-needed shot in the arm to the economy.
With ample rainfall, plenty of consistent sunlight and swathes of arable land, we have the necessary preconditions to make our agricultural sector the envy of the world. However, our overemphasis on oil palm and rubber cultivation has made us dependent on other countries for basic food crops such as rice and vegetables.
To remedy this, we should develop our expertise in precision agriculture: an approach that uses cutting-edge technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, machine vision and many more to make farming more profitable, resource-efficient and environmentally-friendly.
Moving to robot-driven manufacturing
Malaysia needs to transition from low-value, foreign-worker driven manufacturing to high-value, robot-driven manufacturing as soon as possible.
And there is no better time to do this than now, as Covid-19 has severely disrupted the ability of companies to acquire cheap, foreign labour. To add to this, in the past decade alone, labour cost in Asia has increased by 10% to 15%, according to Bank Negara Malaysia.
This double whammy makes the case for adopting industrial robots more compelling than ever. Robots might have a high up-front cost but have low recurring costs, can work around the clock, produce more consistent work, don’t complain about working conditions, and never take days off. Even their up-front cost, if amortised over a few years, will almost certainly end up being cheaper than having full-time workers.
To encourage this, the government should only allow companies to employ a certain number of foreign workers, exceeding which they’ll have to pay a penalty. Additionally, companies with the highest robot-to-employee ratio should be rewarded. This will incentivise companies to invest in R&D and innovate their way out of the problem.
Such an incentive structure could spawn a host of local companies which design and manufacture industrial robots, tapping into the approximately RM90 billion global industrial robot market which is set to more than triple by 2027. In addition to being a huge revenue-generator, it’ll also provide many high-performing Malaysians with high-paying jobs.
Rethinking our education system
Among the reasons many Malaysian critics give for our national school system being broken are: poor teaching standards, differences in infrastructure available to urban and rural students, frequent policy changes, a perceived overemphasis on Islam and too much politics in the administration of education.
I wish to deal with teaching standards here, as I feel it is a major reason for the current state of affairs. There are two main reasons for the drop in standards: (1) our teacher training institutions churn out sub-par educators, and (2) teachers are overburdened by administrative and clerical duties, thus impeding their ability to do their primary job of teaching.
This results in the teaching in national schools being highly-inconsistent – a few students receive a good education, but the vast majority don’t. One way to remedy this is to only recruit top graders for teacher training, not those who can’t get other jobs and end up applying for teacher training. We also definitely need technology-savvy teacher trainers of high calibre.
Another potent way is to utilise the tools that artificial intelligence (AI) technology affords us today.
As a first step, we should implement an AI-powered grading system – something China is doing to great effect. Almost a quarter of all schools in China now use this powerful system which is capable of doing things that only human graders could do just a few years ago.
In addition to being able to ascertain the logic of the text and judge an essay’s overall quality, it also provides recommendations on the writing style and theme. It’s also accurate, grading it as a human grader would 92% of the time.
As a further step, we should adopt AI systems which will eradicate the problem of inconsistency in teaching and learning. This could include platforms such as education giant McGraw Hill’s ALEKS (Assessment and Learning in Knowledge Space), and Chinese AI learning platform Squirrel AI.
These systems allow students to go at their own pace and make sure there are no knowledge gaps in their thinking. In addition to teaching the topic at hand, they also test students on prior material to ensure memory retention. Squirrel AI’s ambitious founder Derek Li goes so far as to say: “In three hours we understand students more than the three years spent by the best teachers.”
I believe these suggestions, if implemented effectively, could help reverse Malaysia’s rot. We owe it to ourselves to make it happen, as nothing less the future of our nation depends on it.
The writer can be contacted at [email protected].
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.