The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion
The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion |
| Posted: 03 Jan 2013 04:36 PM PST JAN 4 — Yes, it sucks big time and those involved in it have put themselves too high on a pedestal to realise this. Newspapers globally are already in a crisis (except for The Star, whose circulation is mysteriously increasing!). Television news seems to have the potential of heading the same way too and is slowly losing viewers, if it does not heed my all-important advice. I wonder if anyone agrees with me that watching news on television has really been uninspiring these last few years? I don't think I have to wonder. To be honest, I've actually stopped watching television news altogether. I get my news fix almost solely from online sources now and I know so many people who do the same. I feel very strongly that television news should just stop trying to compete in breaking news. Just outright cease and desist. The Internet has proven to be king in this area and its immediacy means that no other traditional media can come close to it. Television news needs to change, adapt and evolve if it wants to continue to be relevant and the best way to do this is to not report the news as it has always done for decades. Instead, television news should explain the news. Do something fresh and disrupt the industry rather than try and compete in an area you know it is impossible to win. What's the point of reporting "live" on what happened from a particular location several hours after something has happened? And worse yet, after the happening has been tweeted and retweeted a thousand times over by people who were actually there when it happened? What makes more sense is for television news to gather experts or relevant people involved and discuss it so that the news can be easily digested and understood by viewers. And here's another thought. Those same viewers, and also those who had tweeted and retweeted the story, can play an important role in this new reincarnation of television news. And here, again, television needs to realise that they cannot beat the immediate interactivity of the Internet. So they need to inject some added value to it. Television news needs to stop looking at user-generated content as a source of limitless content. Instead, it should look at it as a legit voxpop or eyewitness source of information. And the added value that television news can put in to it is to moderate, filter and fact check this content that is coming from the public. Then it should put it in perspective, analyse it and debate it so that, aside from having an interactive news programme, it presents something of value to the viewers. By doing so, television news can achieve a one-up on the Internet because it actually helps to build credibility for amateur user-generated content and also legitimises it. Television has never had the benefit of being able to give audiences ample time to understand its information that it presents. This is due to the constraints of time. For example, one news programme only has a limited 30 or 60 minutes, and that means a single news story is roughly limited to two or three minutes. The Internet has no such constraints and and people can slowly browse around to complete their information consumption. But that doesn't mean that television news is at a disadvantage. At the end of the day, television needs to reflect and look back at what it does best. And what it does best is to convey information to the viewers in the simplest form, in a brief amount of time, and in the flashiest way possible. Television needs to move ahead with the times. It's no longer sufficient to have a series of two to three-minute packages of reporting in a scheduled line-up anymore. So that's why I believe that the base of how television news can move forward is to summarise and explain all the news and information out there for their viewers. It's time for television news to change if it wants to survive and not go the way of the newspaper. And to do so, the revolution definitely has to be televised. * This is the personal opinion of the columnist. |
| Posted: 03 Jan 2013 04:33 PM PST JAN 4 — It is an open secret that we are still losing the best and brightest overseas. Ask any of our medical, law, engineering students beyond our borders and very few have the desire to return. Low patriotism? Perhaps. Poor remunerations — definitely. In their place we have doctors who were trained in Indonesia, Ukraine, Russia and the latest to join the fray — teachers imported from India. It would seem that we are no more capable of producing professionals — sorry, I mean good professionals — any more than we are capable of producing security guards, factory workers, domestic helpers, con artists, etc. We are outsourcing every single profession we can to Third World countries. The only profession we are never short of, are politicians — if you call that a profession. I can see a melting pot of cultures from Nepal, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Iran, Nigeria coming together demanding for citizenship and equal rights in this 1 Malaysia of ours in the near future, while we current Malaysians either scramble to find opportunities overseas or fight to preserve what ever is left for us in this small nation. Scary when you think about what we are actually capable of doing as a nation, besides self-destruction that is. I still remember all my teachers in primary and secondary schools. I cannot thank God enough for each and every one of them. If only they are still around to knock some sense into the current education system as they did with me. Those who made me dream algebra, photosynthesis and the likes in English at night. Other professionals aside, Malaysia churns out thousands of teachers annually, and have allocated about RM500 million training them for 2013. But after millions and millions of ringgit spent on training them in the past, how sure are we that the 2013 batch will be better? Our tertiary centres are churning out graduates who are not employable by current industry standards, across the board. From those with industrial, nursing and now teaching backgrounds. The only avenue for these unemployable graduates is government posts, which are now brimming with little Napoleons surviving on tax payers' contributions. The credit should be given to the government who must realise this slide — ever mindful of the many, many world class, world renowned, world standard, 4- and 5-star universities and colleges that mushroomed on our shores when hiring American teachers, and soon teachers from India to teach our young Malaysians English. Desperate times call for desperate measures, I suppose. But here is my take on the current issue — firstly why don't we look within our borders? We have ample of experienced teachers who are retired and I am sure, who will be more than willing to help out should we give them the same remuneration we are currently giving the Americans. Put them in teaching colleges to train our current crop of English teachers. Bring back the good old days where Malaysians spoke impeccable English instead of the current language we pass off as one. Secondly, please bring back PPSMI. With PPSIMI in place, the teachers will be forced to teach and communicate in English beyond the language lessons. It puts pressure on the schools, teachers, administrators and the ministry to get their act together rather than having only one subject in English every day. Students will be forced to learn English beyond a few sessions every day and necessitating them to improve their grasp of the language if they really want to do well in other subjects. Thirdly, peg our syllabus and examination format to one that has been proven to produce results. The UK syllabus naturally comes to mind, but even if the government is fixated on the US, or India why not? Adopt one that works until we learn to formulate one that we can be proud of. Send the papers overseas for marking if necessary. Fourthly, and if the government insists on marking the exam papers, they need to be transparent about the awarded grades. We would like to know how the answer papers were marked, and the actual marks for every grades given. Malaysians also should know what are the passing marks for each subject. Too many As and passes were given out which do not reflect the real education standards in this country. For instance TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) revealed in 2011 that 33 per cent of our students didn't know what CO2 means even when 92 per cent passed the SPM Science paper. Lastly, and most importantly, leave politics out of education. Do not try to make a Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia out of our education system. Be charitable with tuition fees, equipments, food in canteens but never with grades. This undermines every effort to better the education system and is irresponsible beyond repair. Shame on our politicians for congratulating each other for meeting their KPIs and for the increase in the number of high performing schools this year. One even said that our education system is better than those of the Western world. While more students from Ghana and Kazakhstan know what CO2 means than our very own students according to the same TIMSS report. There must never be a compromise on the quality of education in this country. Edward Everett said, "Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army." At the moment of writing, we have neither. * This is the personal opinion of the columnist. |
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