SOME people happen to think we should cease paying for our best to be educated abroad and divert the monies and talents into boosting the ranking of local universities. Is this a tough call or an argument fraught with frailties? The fate of our universities, to begin with, is not shaped entirely by the talent-material. Students are unpolished assets to be moulded by ambience, ambitions and traditions of our universities plus the global dimensions of our overall education system. China’s future top managers at the leading business school at Tsinghua University are regaled by the most inspiring teachers in the world, some of them retired American corporate chiefs. They enrol for programmes developed with the help of top international gurus. They gallop ahead by dissecting economic modules adopted by emerging economies while some of our local university students go gaga reading over marriage plans of entertainers. Consider also the frustrations of a group of fresh students at the Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) in Shah Alam who sauntered through their secondweek at campus attending just a solitary class so far. Teething problems admittedly as UiTM has successfully dealt with mega numbers. Admiring the mass success of local institutions should not however obscure the need to look at the globe as one seamless lecture hall. Dipping our children into foreign waters to dramatically boost brain circulation via twinning programmes and such should be an abiding goal so that the virtues of multiple successful cultures are channeled into our economy. Malaysia desperately needs the equivalent of a Harvard Business School to attract the cream of students from China, India, Vietnam and Indonesia so that our best compete with Asia’s most-driven youngsters. An endowment fund conceived by top corporate figures is not such a bad idea. Granted that some have ploughed money into the education system and some prefer not to talk about their deeds. However, it’s time for them to help usher corporate social responsibility to the next level. Several of our corporate high-flyers could teach at the resultant business school. I believe one Tengku Zafrul is already on the campus-circuit planting new ideas in the young minds. Having the brightest and most ambitious Asian youths studying here would yield us short and longterm benefits. This ranges from prodding existing universities to work harder to future global networking as the products of such institutions will occupy top positions in their countries. In fact, we should not stop going out even when we have our own top business school or when Universiti Malaya climbs up the top university-ranking. We must keep craning our necks to pick up from the rest. The core-motivator is nation building. Yes, we don’t have a diaspora, not in numbers matching overseas Chinese and Indians investing in their home economies. The 780,000 or so Malaysians working abroad, as Deputy Human Resource Minister Datuk Noraini Ahmad briefed Parliament the other day, must surely include the sizeable Malaysian labour force in Singapore. Yet, the sweetest success of Merdeka is to have Malaysian-born managers, scholars, and businessmen of all races living abroad or overseas Malaysians longing for home – Malaysia. Our students abroad also acquire the dogged determination of a modern-day migrant or international class manager; of one constantly in touch with home yet fully integrated into best practices of the world. To hear a white gentleman from Trinidad and Tobago speak glowingly, and in a curious accent too, of his black countryman professional footballer Dwight Yorke, is to encounter further evidence of successful co-existence all over the world. The less academically inclined souls too should be circulating abroad, earn good money and return home refreshed, ready to do better and to be an inspiration to the younger ones in their hometowns. The rich countries are coming to terms with a rapidly ageing population. Ageing Japanese need something like one million care workers. Can we fill the gap? Will Japan tweak its policy on foreign workers? In any case, by offering foreign languages at secondary school, our education will conceive a nimble system where the average student could be trained in the services sector with the world as a potential workplace. Then, Bank Negara will start telling us how much money is repatriated by overseas Malaysians. No, there is no such thing as a strategic, planned Diaspora. That shall not stop us from acquiring new ideas and skills – and returning home enriched and enlightened.
• Rashid Yusof, on sabbatical from 24-hour journalism, is looking to dredge up a range of arguments and a smattering of ideas for the public domain.

Source: Malay Mail – July 14, 2008