Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Chasing Dreams

Here's the article I wrote for Oriental Daily on 7th October entitled "Chasing Dreams". It was basically written to encourage more Malaysian students to seek an education at some of the top universities overseas, and the fact that I believed that my own choices have made a huge difference to me personally. I also compared the success enjoyed by Singaporeans in gaining entry into the world's top schools as compared to Malaysians.

I certainly look forward to the day where our own education system places emphasis on encouraging our Malaysian students to achieve excellence as well as the schools providing the necessary guidance to help them do so.

追逐心中的梦想

每一年,有不同的机构和大学公布全球大学的排名榜,藉以衡量各别大学的素质与信誉。尽量各别的评估方法引发争议,然而这些排名榜所列出的前10所或20所全球最佳大学可谓分歧不大。

很多人都对这些名列前茅的大学,包括美国的哈佛大学、普林斯顿大学、耶鲁大学、麻省理工学院、史丹福大学,以及英国的牛津大学、剑桥大学、帝国学院再熟悉不过。我有幸到牛津大学深造,而这段经验确实丰富了我的人生。否则,我要谈何挤进牛津大学及获得毕业,更不可能碰上许多迎面而来的机会。

因此,我要直接问大家:每年有多少国人获录取进入这些大学?更重要的是,有多少国人梦想要挤入这些世界第一等的学府?

1991年,只有3个国人获牛津大学录取,反观新加坡有14人。更甚的是,我是通过新加坡的教育体系挤入牛津,另外两人亦是海外中学的毕业生。其他顶尖大学亦有类似情况,即修读各类学位的新加坡人往往超越马来西亚人。如今,虽然有更多国人挤入这些大学,但我们还是远远抛落人后。更讽刺的是,新加坡人口只占我国的六分之一。

这是否因为新加坡人比我们聪明?

不是。新加坡人生来绝不比我们聪明。当中的原因有二。其一乃马来西亚教育体系不容优秀生有更大的发展空间。除了限制独中发展之外,政府很少通过有系统的栽培与引导方式,协助优秀生申请进入顶尖大学。此外,我国教育水准日益滑落更让这些学生望梅止渴。

然而,更重要的是,我们必须将“追逐梦想”心态殖入每个学生脑海中。我们的教师必须鼓吹“敢于作最好尝试”的学习文化。许多优秀生不能挤入顶尖大学绝非因为他们不够资格,而是因为他们缺乏有关大学或申请程序的资料,当然还跟个人信心不足有关。

因此,我国学生有必要获取更多这类资讯。随着互联网通行,这个过程当然容易得多。与此同时,国内优秀生必须对本身更具信心,并相信他们是世界最优秀的人才,而且有很高机会获录取进入这些大学。很多人总喜欢问万一失败了怎么办,但为何你不问问自己:万一成功了又怎么办?

4 comments:

Chen Chow said...

I stand to be corrected on this by others, but from what I heard, there are 4 new first year student from Malaysia at MIT vs 1 from Singapore.

While this is just one example of when there are more Malaysian admits compared to Singapore admits, I have to agree that in general, Singaporeans do outnumber us by a great margin in most top universities, especially in US. Don't forget that we have 6 times bigger population than them. So, what goes wrong?

So now, the question is how can we match them or beat them? Or rather should we encourage more Malaysians to get into those top universities? If yes, how can we do that? What role can each of us play?

Guess I am putting more questions than answers, but hope to trigger thoughts by the readers of Tony's blog.

Anonymous said...

Hello Mr Pua!

Just a thought... How do you manage to maintain the standard of your chinese language after studying in Singapore & overseas for such a long time? I have been in Singapore for almost 4 years (graduating soon) and my Bahasa is quite horrible now - though Chinese is still ok as I speak chinese at home. Haha.

- Ming

Anonymous said...

(Didn't realize that comments are moderated)

Anyway, here's my email: sp4hybrid@gmail.com

- Ming

Golf Afflicted said...

Umm... for one, my Chinese is pretty much work-in-progress. I wasn't from a Chinese school, although I grew up speaking Mandarin.

So while I write my own articles now, they get "edited" by the right people ;)

Tony