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The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion

Posted: 27 Aug 2011 05:18 PM PDT

AUG 28 — When I first arrived in Hong Kong, riding the taxi was a luxury. I was amazed that there were people who took the taxi to and from work daily. Fresh from Kuala Lumpur then, where the flag fall was RM2, Hong Kong's flag fall of HK$18 (RM7.20 three years ago) seemed really expensive.

These days though, I have become a regular commuter. The summer heat coupled with an increasingly heavy belly and overly regular hospital visits (eight in August alone) while juggling school runs mean the taxi has become a necessity. Also we have reasoned that taking a taxi every day would work out cheaper than maintaining a car.

So I have a thing to say about a recent accolade bestowed upon the city's taxis: third best in the world, based on a survey of 5,000 travellers from 23 countries by Hotels.com.

Hong Kong's taxis voted third best in the world.

New York and London came in first and second for the fourth year in a row but this is Hong Kong's first time surfacing in the poll's top 10.

Tourists crowned HK taxi drivers the best in geographical knowledge of the city and cleanliness. New York cabbies were rated the worst for geographical knowledge.

Is it true? Do the taxis here live up to the lofty title? Yes. It is amazing how they can find almost any location you mention – providing it is in Cantonese. Of course, if you are a tourist in search of touristy destinations, English is not a problem.

For instance, when I jump into a taxi, I just have to say the name of my apartment complex and the driver will immediately respond with the district it is located in to confirm the destination. How cool is that?

They will also get you there by the fastest route, and will know this via their inner GPS. The driver will even offer you a choice of routes or inform you if there is a traffic jam along a particular stretch. This information has been true in my experience.

Improved services have been attributed to higher fares and younger and better educated drivers. Drivers now earn between HK$400 and HK$500 a day compared to HK$200 during the 2008 financial crisis.

Back in KL, I and I'm sure many others, set out expecting to be ripped off by the driver. We eye the meter warily, waiting for a sudden jump in fare or numbers that are running too fast. Or worse, find the driver taking an excruciatingly long detour. I found myself doing just this initially but here I don't even think twice when a driver suggests a particular route.

Here, there is almost no cause for such worry. First of all, by law, a taxi driver is not allowed to refuse a passenger so long as the destination is within the taxi's boundary*.

Overcharging HK residents is uncommon; we tend to complain to the authorities. Tourists boarding taxis at the airport are the more likely victims of overcharging. It can be confusing to a newcomer to add up the metered fare with tunnel charges and luggage fee. A small fee also applies to strollers (See "Good to know: #2").

If a driver overcharges a passenger, he would have committed an offence and will be liable to a maximum fine of HK$10,000 and a jail term of six months.

The passenger may lodge a report with the police or the Transport Complaints Unit hotline. And if you're thinking that you will be flying out of the country in a few days and think it will be a waste of time to lodge a report, the police will keep in touch with progress reports. Should there be an investigation, the tourist may be required to return to Hong Kong at the government's expense to give evidence. How's that for a free holiday?

Another reason for drivers here to take their work seriously is the cost of owning a license and the steep monthly rental. Earlier this year the cost of buying a taxi and license reached HK$5.13million**, almost the same as a small apartment. Car rental is about HK$15,000 a month. New licenses have not been issued since 1994, capping the number of taxis at 18,138.

Hence it is in the driver's best interest to avoid committing traffic offences, overcharging or refusing to take a passenger to avoid having his license suspended.

So in what instance would I choose to catch a bus instead of a taxi? I mean, saving money aside (a trip to Central would cost only HK$4.70 by bus from my home and HK$90 by taxi).

Well, I would advise those with motion sickness to be prepared for the worst – drivers here are notorious for their penchant to step hard on the brake, sending the car lurching forward. They drive fast, then brake suddenly, speed up again, brake – all within a short distance.

Add to this the winding. hilly roads and you'll be saying goodbye to your lunch. I've learned to say "I feel like throwing up, please drive slowly" as soon as I board and that has often ensured a smoother ride.

While I am partial to catching the bus, I love the little red circle "For Hire" flag on the taxi's dashboard. It is easily spotted a distance away, doing away with needless squinting to see if the taxi already has a passenger.

*Good to know:

There are red, blue and green taxis. At present there are 18,138 taxis in Hong Kong, of which 15,250 are urban taxis (red), 2,838 are New Territories taxis (green) and 50 are Lantau taxis (blue). All three serve the airport.
The current flag fall for red taxis is HK$20; blue taxis HK$15 and green taxis HK$16.50. See here (http://www.td.gov.hk/en/transport_in_hong_kong/public_transport/taxi/taxi_fare_of_hong_kong/#) for a fare table. There is also a schedule of estimated fares at the taxi stand at Chek Lap Kok airport. Passengers are handed a card with a hotline number to lodge complaints.
Always ask for a receipt. This will come in handy should you wish to lodge a report or retrieve a lost item left in the taxi.
It would be helpful to get a local friend or hotel concierge to provide the Cantonese name for the street or building you wish to get to.
The Transport Complaints Unit hotline is +852-28899999.

** Source: http://topics.scmp.com/news/hk-news-watch/article/Investors-queue-up-for-HK5m-taxi-ride

* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.

SAPS: Boon or bane?

Posted: 27 Aug 2011 05:12 PM PDT

AUG 28 — If a teacher you know has been a little bit curt and short-tempered with you these past few weeks, don't worry. It's not you. It's SAPS.

The Sistem Analisis Peperiksaan Sekolah (SAPS) or the web-based school assessment system is one of the Ministry of Education's National Key Results Area (NKRA). It was introduced recently to help the ministry monitor the academic performance of pupils and students enrolled in schools all over Malaysia.

My colleagues and I were briefed about the system recently. It is interesting to note that this new system is similar to the one we teachers had been using all this while in Johor.

After each monthly test or exam, each class teacher would be required to key in the marks for all the pupils in their class. At least, that is how it is done at my school.

Using the aforementioned software which is distributed by the Johor state education department, each school must ensure that the all exam-related data is keyed in before being compiled by the school's exam coordinator for exam analysis purposes.

Although the process is a bit tedious since teachers would have to key in the raw data first, it helps with the exam analysis afterwards and does make our job easier.

Now, I can just print the analysis for each class and see their progress without having to manually calculate the numbers myself like I had to before.

The main difference between the two is that the one we use in Johor is not web-based. This means that teachers can complete the data entry on their own computers and without having to rely on a sketchy system or hope for a stable Internet connection to get the job done.

Not all teachers have a reliable Internet connection at school or at home and even if we do at home, it is paid out of our pocket. We do not get a special Internet allowance to complete the work bestowed upon us by the good people from the Ministry.

So while I do understand and see the good benefits from the SAPS, having used a similar system myself, I do wonder why such an unstable system is used by the ministry when a better version could have been developed first before being rolled out for teachers all over Malaysia.

Not only that, there are also security issues seeing that the website is not encrypted even though it contains sensitive information such as pupils' birth certificate numbers.

Using the SAPS today brought me a lot of headache and heartache. For some reason unbeknownst to me, the data from the software cannot be imported into the system.

This means I would have to do the same job twice and key the data in again into the SAPS, seeing that I had already completed the data entry for the software earlier this month.

The SAPS requires the subject teachers to key in marks for all the tests and exams that had taken place this year. Since my school has had two monthly tests (March and July) as well as the mid-year exam last May, this means keying three different marks for each class.

For the Year Six, although they didn't sit for a monthly test in July, I still would need to do the data entry for the UPSR trial exam.

So in total, as I had keyed the marks in for four classes, totalling 544 times, doing it twice would mean having to do it 1,088 times. With each class taking me about six minutes, the task should be completed in about half an hour.

The truth is it took me longer than that, mainly because the website wasn't stable and crashed a lot. I had no problem logging in and getting to the page where the data was to be inputted. The problem was actually sending the data over. My patience was severely tested during the 10-hour episode of "Me against the SAPS."

Like a cranky child, the website could suddenly decide to throw a tantrum. It would stop responding and crash in the middle of processing the data I had just keyed in. This happened countless times and had me so frustrated because it meant I had to redo it all over again.

I think I died a little bit inside each time I saw the marks I had painstakingly typed in before had vanished into the tangled web of the World Wide Web. By right, they should have been stored into the system but since the website crashed, obviously that didn't happen.

Since even wailing to the gods wouldn't bring them back, I had no choice but to key the marks in again. This happened several times and at one point, I got so fed-up that I actually left the site to watch some funny videos on YouTube instead (have you seen "Epic Rap Battles of History"? That is some quality entertainment).

It took me about 10 hours just to finish the data entry for all four classes, not including procrastinating of course. In my defence, the procrastination and funny videos were absolutely necessary to keep my sanity in check.

It took everything in me to not quit and just plough through the many challenges I faced just so I could finish and be done with the dratted website.

Now that the work has been completed, I know for sure I can sleep soundly tonight. I must say that those who used the website during its earlier days have had it worse than me.

It seems to work better now and I really must give credit to the ministry for taking the necessary steps to improve the quality of the SAPS. I do however hope that the next time we teachers have to use it, which will be in a couple of months, the SAPS would be more stable and will cause us less headache because quite honestly, we teachers don't really need more drama in our lives!

* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.

Kredit: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com

Ahad, 28 Ogos 2011

The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion

The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion

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