Sorry for the lavish and longish title, but, really, our university students are starving.
A
recent survey of 25,632 students in six public universities revealed
that more than half are actually living on RM 5 a day, while
three-quarters have been in situations where they're too broke to eat.
The very next morning, the Ministry of Higher Education dismissed these survey results as nonsense.
The very next morning, the Ministry of Higher Education dismissed these survey results as nonsense.
A
"Freemeals" program at UKM recently saw all 100 free food packs gone in
600 seconds. A similar program at UPM produced similar results, only
faster. Another "Freemeals" variety called "Suspended Meals" is ongoing
at UPM.
In the wake of widespread outcry, the voluntary groups who organised these free-food programs were harassed by the universities. They were hauled up and quizzed and questioned. Apparently the authorities weren't too happy with the name "Suspender Meals".
In the wake of widespread outcry, the voluntary groups who organised these free-food programs were harassed by the universities. They were hauled up and quizzed and questioned. Apparently the authorities weren't too happy with the name "Suspender Meals".
"No
students will go hungry on my watch", declared the Minister of Higher
Education on 10 January. Brave words. "On my watch"! Wow. This guy
sounds like President Donald Trump. Our ministers are all masters of the
atmospherics. You could almost feel the hot air and the hollow ring. He
forayed further by suggesting that students should seek part-time jobs.
Like what? Housemaids? Uber grabber?
Another minister, this time a blue blood, rejected offhand the whole notion as sensationalism and theatrics. According to him, nobody's starving in this great country, not even the homeless. Hard to believe that a minister for youths can be so out of touch with the youths. Maybe he's still busy consoling last year's SEA Games female gymnasts.
Another minister, this time a blue blood, rejected offhand the whole notion as sensationalism and theatrics. According to him, nobody's starving in this great country, not even the homeless. Hard to believe that a minister for youths can be so out of touch with the youths. Maybe he's still busy consoling last year's SEA Games female gymnasts.
If
these ministers don't already know, students go to universities and
colleges to do one and only one simple job: study. That's why they're called
students, and not pump attendants, or surgeons. If they have to study AND work at the same time, we
have a problem. Just imagine a surgeon who has to cook while doing a coronary bypass. Or a chef doing a bypass while cooking. Either way, the food wouldn't turn out good. I can't find a better analogy, but I think you get my point.
The public are again divided on this.
Why I said again? Because people are already divided. We're already divided over the RM 2.6 billion donation. We're literally, figuratively, badly beaten, shaken, broken. It's like a big fat hole, with those who believe on one side and those who don't on the other side.
Going by the social media dynamics and statistics, the ratio of believers to disbelievers is roughly 1 to 99. Loudly lopsided, I know. But don't be discouraged by that 1%. If you understand mathematics, 1% of 30 million population is actually 300,000, including some newborns and Nepalese. This is one hell lot of people, equivalent to the entire population of Kuala Terengganu. Imagine, the whole boring people of Kuala Terengganu believe that an Arab has donated RM2.6 billion, while the rest of the country don't. In my 60 over years, we're never this divided.
On this case of starving students, we're again split into believers and disbelievers. The line is less clear though. Those who believe that students are starving are mostly those who don't believe that there's an Arab somewhere throwing away RM 2.6 billion, while those who doubt students are starving are mostly those who believe in mad Arabs.
Believers are naturally sympathetic and very angry. They felt that the government had wasted loads of money on floating submarines, illegal speed traps and Mongolia mines, starving the students of funds. They also believed that RM 2.6 billion, mad Arab or dead Arab, could've been mobilised to feed the students for the next 100 years.
While the doubters or disbelievers came down hard on the students themselves, levelling the blame squarely on the students for their financial profligacy, you know, things like iPhones, prepaids, Starbucks, girl friends and so on.
If you asked me, I think there's a strong and valid case of hungry students. Even if you didn't ask me, I still think there's a strong case. A couple of old classmates with children in public universities are grappling with the classic opportunity cost dilemma: anak vs mamak. More money for anak means less for mamak. With cruel cutbacks on Mara and Ptptn handouts, the parents have to fill the void. We'd never know whether the students would starve without their parents' financial lifeline. No parents would run a trial to find out.
I went to UKM for my degree way back in 1975. A local bank fell for my charisma and handed me a handsome scholarship of RM 2400 a year. I won't shame and name this unfortunate bank. The government scholarship was about RM 2000. I thought could live like a king.
After one semester, I discovered that I was actually a king on a shoestring. At the time, a full-blown breakfast cost under RM 2.00. No smart or stupid phones to make you go mad. Water was free from water cooler. We used payphones and public transport. We ate pretty much what the prehistoric men ate. But still there were days when we'd to dig deep and dip below United Nation's recommended daily dietary intake. I stayed off campus, ten or maybe fifteen of us in one house. Yes, we pioneered this communal concept, not the Banglas. It's a basic and spartan lifestyle. Lifestyle, yeah. At the end of every day, I only had enough left to fight another day.
So I'm the least surprised that some students are hungry now. Education is mentally and financially draining, even in the heavily subsidised public universities. Private colleges are even more intimidating. Premium brands like Sunway, Taylor's, Nottingham, Monash etc charge upwards of RM 90,000 for a 4-year degree. QS recently ranked our private tertiary education the fifth most expensive in the world (cost relative to income). Father PTPTN will never give you enough to cover your fees, let alone your feed. If you go to these colleges, you'd die of starvation.
Thing is, university life is not supposed to be a walk in the park, at least not for most of us. Occasionally missing meals is no big deal. It's par for the course during my time and more so now with GST in full flight and Ringgit in freefall. Plain roti canai is RM1.60 a pop now and you've to compete with the cash-rich Bangladeshis and Indonesians.
So I'm not sure why the ministers or the universities or just about anybody would've to be up in arms and deny this. Just accept this as part of education. It preps the students up for later life. I know you can pinpoint a lot of ugly things to Umno, but starving students isn't Umno's doing. The grand old party has done a lot of good, building 20 public universities in the country, with another five new ones if they win in 2018. It's unfair to expect them to feed the students as well.
Hungry students are pretty much everywhere, in India, in Mongolia, in Malaysia, and even in richer countries like the US.
Which reminds me of the inspiring story of Indra K Nooyi, the current CEO of PepsiCo. She's championing the "performance for a purpose" management mantra, which espouses responsible business. Pepsi now has less calories than Coke. She left Tamil Nadu for Yale to do her MBA in 1978, and, in her own words, "I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. I was totally, completely broke. I'd no money to buy clothes". She worked on campus on minimum wage and probably survived because she's a vegetarian.
She's quite rich now, of course, and has been generously giving back to her university. Yale is just happy to reciprocate her generosity with a Classroom and a Deanship named after her (Nooyi Classroom, Nooyi Dean). "My gift to Yale pales in comparison to the gift that Yale gave me". Such humility. I'm sure there are fewer hungry students in Yale now because of her gift. She gave again early this month, her biggest so far. No numbers were disclosed, but it's thought to be between 20 to 30 million. US Dollars!
It would be nice if our own ex-starving students who make good take a leaf out of Indra Nooyi's playbook and give back to their universities. They may start with RM2 and work all the way up to RM 20 million.
I must admit that, with depleting retained earnings and a girl deep in college and another very soon, I can't afford much. Maybe Ahmad Maslan, a fellow UKM alumnus, can. I don't think he was starving when he did his MBA at UKM. No hungry students would graduate with 3.85 CGPA. I'm sure he's fairly rich, I mean, he's a deputy minister with three or four jobs, and Umno, don't forget. If he wanted to, he could start his own legacy in UKM with Ahmad Maslan Suspender Meals!
Believe me, there's hardly a cause greater and godlier than giving. Donate to your alma mater. Don't donate to your prime minister.
The public are again divided on this.
Why I said again? Because people are already divided. We're already divided over the RM 2.6 billion donation. We're literally, figuratively, badly beaten, shaken, broken. It's like a big fat hole, with those who believe on one side and those who don't on the other side.
Going by the social media dynamics and statistics, the ratio of believers to disbelievers is roughly 1 to 99. Loudly lopsided, I know. But don't be discouraged by that 1%. If you understand mathematics, 1% of 30 million population is actually 300,000, including some newborns and Nepalese. This is one hell lot of people, equivalent to the entire population of Kuala Terengganu. Imagine, the whole boring people of Kuala Terengganu believe that an Arab has donated RM2.6 billion, while the rest of the country don't. In my 60 over years, we're never this divided.
On this case of starving students, we're again split into believers and disbelievers. The line is less clear though. Those who believe that students are starving are mostly those who don't believe that there's an Arab somewhere throwing away RM 2.6 billion, while those who doubt students are starving are mostly those who believe in mad Arabs.
Believers are naturally sympathetic and very angry. They felt that the government had wasted loads of money on floating submarines, illegal speed traps and Mongolia mines, starving the students of funds. They also believed that RM 2.6 billion, mad Arab or dead Arab, could've been mobilised to feed the students for the next 100 years.
While the doubters or disbelievers came down hard on the students themselves, levelling the blame squarely on the students for their financial profligacy, you know, things like iPhones, prepaids, Starbucks, girl friends and so on.
If you asked me, I think there's a strong and valid case of hungry students. Even if you didn't ask me, I still think there's a strong case. A couple of old classmates with children in public universities are grappling with the classic opportunity cost dilemma: anak vs mamak. More money for anak means less for mamak. With cruel cutbacks on Mara and Ptptn handouts, the parents have to fill the void. We'd never know whether the students would starve without their parents' financial lifeline. No parents would run a trial to find out.
I went to UKM for my degree way back in 1975. A local bank fell for my charisma and handed me a handsome scholarship of RM 2400 a year. I won't shame and name this unfortunate bank. The government scholarship was about RM 2000. I thought could live like a king.
After one semester, I discovered that I was actually a king on a shoestring. At the time, a full-blown breakfast cost under RM 2.00. No smart or stupid phones to make you go mad. Water was free from water cooler. We used payphones and public transport. We ate pretty much what the prehistoric men ate. But still there were days when we'd to dig deep and dip below United Nation's recommended daily dietary intake. I stayed off campus, ten or maybe fifteen of us in one house. Yes, we pioneered this communal concept, not the Banglas. It's a basic and spartan lifestyle. Lifestyle, yeah. At the end of every day, I only had enough left to fight another day.
So I'm the least surprised that some students are hungry now. Education is mentally and financially draining, even in the heavily subsidised public universities. Private colleges are even more intimidating. Premium brands like Sunway, Taylor's, Nottingham, Monash etc charge upwards of RM 90,000 for a 4-year degree. QS recently ranked our private tertiary education the fifth most expensive in the world (cost relative to income). Father PTPTN will never give you enough to cover your fees, let alone your feed. If you go to these colleges, you'd die of starvation.
Thing is, university life is not supposed to be a walk in the park, at least not for most of us. Occasionally missing meals is no big deal. It's par for the course during my time and more so now with GST in full flight and Ringgit in freefall. Plain roti canai is RM1.60 a pop now and you've to compete with the cash-rich Bangladeshis and Indonesians.
So I'm not sure why the ministers or the universities or just about anybody would've to be up in arms and deny this. Just accept this as part of education. It preps the students up for later life. I know you can pinpoint a lot of ugly things to Umno, but starving students isn't Umno's doing. The grand old party has done a lot of good, building 20 public universities in the country, with another five new ones if they win in 2018. It's unfair to expect them to feed the students as well.
Hungry students are pretty much everywhere, in India, in Mongolia, in Malaysia, and even in richer countries like the US.
Which reminds me of the inspiring story of Indra K Nooyi, the current CEO of PepsiCo. She's championing the "performance for a purpose" management mantra, which espouses responsible business. Pepsi now has less calories than Coke. She left Tamil Nadu for Yale to do her MBA in 1978, and, in her own words, "I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. I was totally, completely broke. I'd no money to buy clothes". She worked on campus on minimum wage and probably survived because she's a vegetarian.
She's quite rich now, of course, and has been generously giving back to her university. Yale is just happy to reciprocate her generosity with a Classroom and a Deanship named after her (Nooyi Classroom, Nooyi Dean). "My gift to Yale pales in comparison to the gift that Yale gave me". Such humility. I'm sure there are fewer hungry students in Yale now because of her gift. She gave again early this month, her biggest so far. No numbers were disclosed, but it's thought to be between 20 to 30 million. US Dollars!
It would be nice if our own ex-starving students who make good take a leaf out of Indra Nooyi's playbook and give back to their universities. They may start with RM2 and work all the way up to RM 20 million.
I must admit that, with depleting retained earnings and a girl deep in college and another very soon, I can't afford much. Maybe Ahmad Maslan, a fellow UKM alumnus, can. I don't think he was starving when he did his MBA at UKM. No hungry students would graduate with 3.85 CGPA. I'm sure he's fairly rich, I mean, he's a deputy minister with three or four jobs, and Umno, don't forget. If he wanted to, he could start his own legacy in UKM with Ahmad Maslan Suspender Meals!
Believe me, there's hardly a cause greater and godlier than giving. Donate to your alma mater. Don't donate to your prime minister.
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