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IB Psychology Revision: Excellent Extended Essays #navbar-iframe { display:block }IB Psychology RevisionIB Graduate blog for exam revisionWelcome!Everything you need for IB psychology exam revision is here both SL and HL including comprehensive study guides for the levels of analysis.  Methodology, Internal Assessment and Extended Essay resources are available as well. Bookmark this blog as a study guide or share it with someone who may benefit from it.


Oh, and grab the syllabus in case your teacher has never shown it to you ;)Excellent Extended EssaysSaturday, July 24, 2010 | Posted byblindpet | Edit Post
I have added several psychology excellent extended essays to my mediafire account.  I'm guessing they all scored full marks on each criterion.  They should help you gauge what is expected of you in psychology extended essays.
A Comparative Evaluation of Two Therapy TheoriesApplied Behavior Analysis and Early Intervention Homosexual Harassment and its Psychological EffectsHere are some additional ones I found on Crane's old site but his links are dead so I've added them. They are all from Nørre Gymnasium except the last one.
Nature of IntelligenceStress and CopingThought and Language Road RageLabels:extended essay0comments: Post a Comment

Newer PostOlder PostHomeSubscribe to:Post Comments (Atom)MethodologyExperimental MethodologyQualitative MethodsInternal AssessmentResourcesOnline Video ResourcesRecommended BooksIB LinksIB Psych WikiLanterna Revision CoursesIntense CogitationCrane's EdublogThe Student RoomIB Survival ForumIB Psychology Revision and Exam TipsPsychExchangeMisc LinksGuardian Psychology NewsPsychology Study SkillsPsychology TodayScientific American MindBPS Research BlogSearchLoading... #uds-searchControl .gs-result .gs-title, #uds-searchControl .gs-result .gs-title *, #uds-searchControl .gsc-results .gsc-trailing-more-results, #uds-searchControl .gsc-results .gsc-trailing-more-results * { color:#18728B; } #uds-searchControl .gs-result .gs-title a:visited, #uds-searchControl .gs-result .gs-title a:visited * { color:#878787; } #uds-searchControl .gs-relativePublishedDate, #uds-searchControl .gs-publishedDate { color: #6f6f6f; } #uds-searchControl .gs-result a.gs-visibleUrl, #uds-searchControl .gs-result .gs-visibleUrl { color: #18728B; } #uds-searchControl .gsc-results { border-color: #6f6f6f; background-color: #fff; } #uds-searchControl .gsc-tabhActive { border-color: #6f6f6f; border-top-color: #6f6f6f; background-color: #fff; color: #1F2628; } #uds-searchControl .gsc-tabhInactive { border-color: #6f6f6f; background-color: transparent; color: #18728B; } #uds-searchClearResults { border-color: #6f6f6f; } #uds-searchClearResults:hover { border-color: #6f6f6f; } #uds-searchControl .gsc-cursor-page { color: #18728B; } #uds-searchControl .gsc-cursor-current-page { color: #1F2628; } FollowersShare itIB Visitors

IB Psychology Revision: Excellent Extended Essays #navbar-iframe { display:block }IB Psychology RevisionIB Graduate blog for exam revisionWelcome!Everything you need for IB psychology exam revision is here both SL and HL including comprehensive study guides for the levels of analysis.  Methodology, Internal Assessment and Extended Essay resources are available as well. Bookmark this blog as a study guide or share it with someone who may benefit from it.


Oh, and grab the syllabus in case your teacher has never shown it to you ;)Excellent Extended EssaysSaturday, July 24, 2010 | Posted byblindpet | Edit Post
I have added several psychology excellent extended essays to my mediafire account.  I'm guessing they all scored full marks on each criterion.  They should help you gauge what is expected of you in psychology extended essays.
A Comparative Evaluation of Two Therapy TheoriesApplied Behavior Analysis and Early Intervention Homosexual Harassment and its Psychological EffectsHere are some additional ones I found on Crane's old site but his links are dead so I've added them. They are all from Nørre Gymnasium except the last one.
Nature of IntelligenceStress and CopingThought and Language Road RageLabels:extended essay0comments: Post a Comment

Newer PostOlder PostHomeSubscribe to:Post Comments (Atom)MethodologyExperimental MethodologyQualitative MethodsInternal AssessmentResourcesOnline Video ResourcesRecommended BooksIB LinksIB Psych WikiLanterna Revision CoursesIntense CogitationCrane's EdublogThe Student RoomIB Survival ForumIB Psychology Revision and Exam TipsPsychExchangeMisc LinksGuardian Psychology NewsPsychology Study SkillsPsychology TodayScientific American MindBPS Research BlogSearchLoading... #uds-searchControl .gs-result .gs-title, #uds-searchControl .gs-result .gs-title *, #uds-searchControl .gsc-results .gsc-trailing-more-results, #uds-searchControl .gsc-results .gsc-trailing-more-results * { color:#18728B; } #uds-searchControl .gs-result .gs-title a:visited, #uds-searchControl .gs-result .gs-title a:visited * { color:#878787; } #uds-searchControl .gs-relativePublishedDate, #uds-searchControl .gs-publishedDate { color: #6f6f6f; } #uds-searchControl .gs-result a.gs-visibleUrl, #uds-searchControl .gs-result .gs-visibleUrl { color: #18728B; } #uds-searchControl .gsc-results { border-color: #6f6f6f; background-color: #fff; } #uds-searchControl .gsc-tabhActive { border-color: #6f6f6f; border-top-color: #6f6f6f; background-color: #fff; color: #1F2628; } #uds-searchControl .gsc-tabhInactive { border-color: #6f6f6f; background-color: transparent; color: #18728B; } #uds-searchClearResults { border-color: #6f6f6f; } #uds-searchClearResults:hover { border-color: #6f6f6f; } #uds-searchControl .gsc-cursor-page { color: #18728B; } #uds-searchControl .gsc-cursor-current-page { color: #1F2628; } FollowersShare itIB Visitors

Maybe they do, maybe they don't. My point is instead one of ecological validity (a form of external validity) referring to the extent that experimental findings apply to real world situations. These researchers investigated how anxiety and uncertainty can make us become more radical and committed to religious causes. They did most of this with computers using implicit measures and explicit measures for testing attitudes towards religion. Self-report was used to test whether participants would 'die for their cause' among other things.

Here's the problem: we do not know how or if people who score 5/5 on wanting to die for a religious cause (the participants were undergraduates) are actually willing to do go and risk their life if the religious cause called him/her up and said alright it's go time. Saying you'd sacrifice your life for some fictional religious cause on a computer and actually putting your real life that actually means something to you at risk is completely different from some temporary virtual life you are willing to send off to religious war or what have you.

Think about how careless people can be when playing video games - why would you care if you die, you respawn anyway. It's the exact same problem for experiments that try to test social phenomena: we behave differently when the risks are real vs fictitious.  But doing real world research on terrorists or any other form of criminal is complicated if not impossible.  For example, there are obvious ethical considerations if I wanted to test how likely someone who scores highly on an explicit measure of prejudice is to commit a hate crime. You just cannot do that (at least where I'm from).

Nevertheless, the problem of ecological validity is an important one and should be pointed out whenever possible, though justified as to why it matters in the context of a particular experiment and the real world situation it relates to.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100706103404.htm

Mass study guide updates for biological, cognitive, sociocultural and abnormal.  I will be converting them to pdf soon for on-the-move revision.

I spent the morning doing an extensive update to the methodology page adding tons of content.  I will probably turn it into a pdf cause it ended up pretty long. If anything is unclear, shoot me an email and I'll fix it.

I also updated the video resources page linking to many full movies, documentaries and specials on google video and youtube. Since it's summer time, I figured people would rather watch something than read over the summer ;).

A new review (metastudy) has just been published on the effects of various drugs on sexual performance. They found that most drugs, both stimulants and depressants, decrease sexual performance with the following caveats:
Cocaine facilitates erections in ratsCaffeine makes both male and female rats hornyA little bit of booze removes inhibitory tendenciesToo much booze disrupts sexual performance but this wears off over timePfaus claims that '[o]nly animal model studies can provide direct cause and effect data and physiological information' for sexual behavior.  Alarm bells should be ringing, only animal studies provide causal relationships of drugs on sexual behavior? Really? Not to sound like a speciesist but we can only say that rat studies can inform our understanding of human sexual behavior.  Humans are far more complex neurologically and although cocaine may increase erections in rats it doesn't necessarily mean the same will happen in humans.

Studying animals it is the only logical starting point for studying this sort of behavior but we must be weary when extrapolating the results to humans.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100706103604.htm

Here are some additional ones I found on Crane's old site but his links are dead so I've added them. They are all from Nørre Gymnasium except the last one which is from IB Survival.

This research is by no means new, but the ripple effect of the original study is still salient - even more than 10 years later.  For those of you who do not know, the original study found a correlation between children who had been administered the MMR vaccine (measles, mumps, rubella) and autism.  Immediately, vaccination rates dropped drastically in the UK and this silliness eventually infected its way to the US.  It is worth mentioning that the original study had a sample size of 12.  That's it, just 12 - 11 boys and 1 girl.  That doesn't seem very balanced, especially since the prevalence rate for autism in boys is up to 4 times higher than in girls. The reason the news spread so quickly was because of the media and its penchant for over-dramatizing and misrepresenting scientific findings in order to sell newspapers.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a relatively newly identified phenomenon as Penn and Teller rightfully point out.  Individuals with ASD in the past would have been labeled as weird, the clever kid, the socially awkward computer geek among others.  Now that we have the ability to diagnose - albeit with a lack of specificity hence the spectrum in ASD - the amount of individuals diagnosed has risen.  So of course, since more children are getting vaccinated and more parents want to protect their children against diseases there is an increase in both and an illusory correlation can be made.  That doesn't mean that they are linked.  As I'm sure you've heard a million times before, correlation ? causation, and it never will.

One of the hilarious things in last night's episode of Penn and Teller's Bullshit was Jenny McCarthy's role in the anti-vaccination movement.  Apparently she had a child with autism who was cured - there is no cure for autism - and now she parades around the US campaigning against vaccinations.  What an upstanding citizen, preaching as if an expert on a subject she knows little about, preventing parents from protecting their children from diseases because her child was misdiagnosed as having ASD.  Misunderstanding science can be detrimental to society, luckily for you the IB won't release you from its clutches until you understand the fundamentals of science.  Consider it a vaccination against ignorance.

http://www.sho.com/site/video/brightcove/series/title.do?bcpid=14033851001&bclid=424690572001&bctid=424695376001

Back in the day, kids with ADHD were labeled as the hyper kids - the ones with tons of energy on the playground.  Nowadays of course, they have a 'disorder'.  This study found that almost 1 million children are potentially misdiagnosed because they are the youngest and most immature in the kindergarten class. This suggests a serious flaw in classification criteria like the DSM-IV which could have adverse consequences for victims of misdiagnosis.

Kids at a young age are interpreting the world, trying to make sense of it and developing their schemas so it is natural for them to want to take in as much of their environmental stimuli as possible - thus concentrating less time on one specific task or stimulus.  ADHD drugs are stimulants which if taken in spite of a misdiagnosis will have developmental effects on the neurology of the child's brain - and not necessarily a positive one, more likely is a negative rewiring of the child's brain.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100817103342.htm

At least while we're young, we have a preference for kindness and goodness.  In Paul Bloom's study he had infants watch several puppet shows.  One puppet showed a puppet helping a puppet in need while another show had a puppet being a nuisance to the puppet in need.  After the shows, the infants are presented with a choice: grab and play with the helpful puppet or the unhelpful puppet.  Does this mean that infants are innately good or just that they prefer toys that are helpful rather than annoying?  Maybe annoyance avoidance is innate ;).

You can check out this short video showing the actual experiment.  The experiment is genius even if the conclusions are questionable.

http://www.mediafire.com/?773a86qbz10mtvp
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/magazine/09babies-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

But what happened to these academic icons? Was it merely a case of these venerable institutions being surpassed by more ambitious upstarts? Was it merely oversight that they were left off the list? Or was it a result of deliberate attempts over the years to sideline these institutions because they were founded by the British and/or missionaries?

Or was it sheer mismanagement on the part of the government that these once most prestigious names in Malayan/Malaysian education were allowed to fade along with the general perception of the quality of education in the country? Did, like so much else that is wrong with Malaysia, politics get in the way of academic stewardship?

Just consider the contributions these schools have made to society and business. Besides Tunku, the Penang Free School also nurtured the likes of Tan Sri P. Ramlee, actor and director extraordinaire, Danny Quah, a prominent economist and head of the department of economics at the London School of Economics who also sits on the National Economic Advisory Council which is formulating Malaysia’s new economic model, and Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development in the United Nations’ Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

Apart from the prime minister, St John’s groomed one of Asia’s top bankers, CIMB CEO Datuk Seri Nazir Razak, one of the world’s top central bankers Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz and the former vice-chancellor of the National University of Singapore, B.R. Sreenivasan.

Methodist Boy’s School produced the chairman of the Genting group, Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay, the chairman of the OCBC Bank and former CEO of Singapore Airlines, Dr Cheong Choong Kong, the vice chancellor of UKM, Professor Tan Sri Dr Sharifah Hapsah Syed Hasan Shahabudin, Tan Sri Tay Ah Lek, managing director of Public Bank, and Singapore’s former Minister of Education Ong Bang Poon.

Besides Ananda and Yeoh, Victoria Institution also educated the one of the world’s richest men, the Sultan of Brunei, Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, former Singapore Deputy Prime Minister S. Rajaratnam, as well as some of Malaysia’s most legendary sportsmen, footballer Mokhtar Dahari and all four Sidek brothers.

Even if there was no list of top 20 “high performance schools” there would be little disagreement that these schools are now just a shadow of their former selves and can no longer command the respect they once did.

What does it then say about a government that allowed such historic and educational gems, some that date back nearly 200 years, to slip down the ranks in less than 50?

A closer look at the list also reveals something of the government’s apparently negligent attitude towards heritage conservation. Seri Bintang Utara made it to the list as a high performance school despite having to survive the demolition of its premises in Jalan Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur where the “ginormous” Pavilion mall now stands and what appears to be attempts to wipe out its identity as it was formerly known as the Bukit Bintang Girls School, or more popularly BBGS.

To this day, while I like and enjoy the high quality of the Pavilion mall, I still feel a wave of disgust every time I set foot in it that seemingly nothing of BBGS, Kuala Lumpur’s oldest and one of its most prestigious schools, was preserved in the construction of the mall and that the government did not see fit to mandate any preservation either.

And all this is more than an academic shame as these schools are reminders of a time when students of all races grew up in school together and were taught to discard their racial lenses and be Johannians and Victorians, a truly depressing contrast to the current situation where Malays grow up in national schools, Chinese in Chinese schools and Indians in Tamil schools.

Can the Najib administration reverse the decline of these once prestigious schools? Anything can be achieved if there is sufficient will so the bigger question is, do they even want to?

* Lee Wei Lian attended the Bukit Bintang Boys School in Petaling Jaya. Nisi Dominus Frustra.

Addendum: The list of Malaysia’s 20 high performance schools are: Sekolah Tun Fatimah (Johor Baru), Sekolah Dato’ Abdul Razak (Seremban), Malay College Kuala Kangsar, Sekolah Seri Puteri (Cyberjaya), Sekolah Menengah Sultan Abdul Halim (Jitra), Kolej Tunku Kurshiah (Seremban), Kolej Islam Sultan Alam Shah (Klang), Sekolah Menengah Sains (SMS) Tuanku Syed Putra (Perlis), Sekolah Sultan Alam Shah (Putrajaya) and SMS Muzaffar Syah (Malacca), Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan (SMK) (P) Sri Aman(Petaling Jaya), SMK Aminuddin Baki (Kuala Lumpur), SMK Sultanah Asma (Alor Star) and SMK (P) St George (Penang), Sekolah Kebangsaan (SK) Seri Bintang Utara (KL), SK Taman Tun Dr Ismail 1 (KL), SK Bukit Damansara (KL), SK Zainab (2) (Kota Baru), SK Convent Kota (Taiping), SK Bandar Baru Uda 2 (Johor Baru).

The process of industrialization when there is a development in manufacturing industry started in Britain in the late of 18th and early 19th centuries has a big impact on families’ structure.
Before the industrial revolution, families were unit of production and considered to be multifunctional. Every member of the family had to work, including small children, families had wide kinship networks and supported each other and main sectors of work were agriculture and small cottage industry. With development machines and equipment which could make people’s job easier and had higher productivity, people had to adapt to new conditions and change something in their lifestyle. Firstly, the industrialization demanded higher geographical mobility which led to a reduction of kinship network and appearing of a nuclear family which was better fitted to that time. Families didn’t need such support that they needed before from their relatives. Also the appearance of social mobility gave people opportunities to get higher qualifications and created division of labor. Families couldn’t perform all the functions they had to before and some of them were taken over by other institutions. Families continued to reproduce only main functions and became isolated nuclear as Parsons suggested in his research. Family became to be unit of consumption. However his view was criticized and as Laslett found in his research, in pre-industrial Britain, nuclear family was the most common type of families; however he defined the nuclear family in different way with functionalists (Parsons) and said that it is not necessary for extended families to live under the same roof and they can have close relations in distance.

Also geographical mobility led to increase in urbanization that is when households move from rural areas to towns in order to satisfy the demand for labor and find better job. Both these processes changed not only the structure of the family but also relationships within families. Women and children were stepped aside from work in order to perform family’s functions and men were seen as breadwinners.
However people interpret the effect of industrialization and urbanization differently. And if Functionalists see these changes in family structure necessary in order to cope with all the changes around and be the best fit for the society, Marxists see them differently. They see the main function of the family is reproducing the social conditions and the appearance of new forms of families with these processes will help to better reproduce labor power, give emotional support for workers and help children to socialize in the world of inequality. For feminists, Oakley, industrialization gave the beginning of women’s primary role of caretaker and domestic labor.
Also these processes of industrialization and urbanization have different impact on different social classes and, for example, for upper classes a wide kinship network had always been significant (Gomm).

What does the IB want? I spent 2 years trying to answer this question. I scoured the internet, browsed forums and attended revision courses to try and find answers. What I will be doing is trying to pass on the knowledge I discovered so you guys can pass your exams. Maybe your school has just started the IB program and your teachers are a bit inexperienced. Do not fear!

Grab the syllabus in case your teacher has never shown it to you ;)

Transport for London is a huge programme carried out in London in order to improve it’s transport infrastructure. This investment project is aimed in five years make some improvements in different types of transport, make green types of transport more attractive and move to sustainable transport system that is a system that makes contribution to the environmental, economic and social sustainability.
Fall in 6,4 % in August due to recession brought many problems into the whole transport system which was planned ahead. This decline in demand for underground might be caused by switching to it’s cheaper substitutes or by fall in income.
Decline in revenue due to decrease in demand for underground complicated questions of TFL funding as they wouldn’t receive the same amount of money and so will have to find other ways of finding money for their project. Managers of TFL project will have to work hard in order to raise demand for underground even if there is a recession. Peter Hendy, London's transport commissioner, said "Revenue is not where we expect it to be in this year's budget. A decline in revenues now will also have a budgetary effect in the years to come".
As there is a fall in Tfl finances, managers of it cannot be sure whether it will be possible to end the programme in five years and make all the changes that were planned to do. In order to have an adequate Tfl has to either increase number of passengers or raise prices for tickets. However, Tfl have very pessimistic expectations about the former, while the pressure on fares will be and prices for tickets might increase by almost 6% next year already if number of passengers remain the same.
Also Tfl will have to continue to seek reductions in costs of improving infrastructure and remain efficient and useful.
Another consequence of this decline in revenue might be that some constructions which are already started will have to be delayed in continuing and so possibly create traffic jams or increase time spend on the way to work for people and thereby they would be more tired and annoyed, and thereby lose concentration.
Because of decline in demand for underground Tfl is not sure whether demand will rise again and if it rises, how much and so it is difficult to plan how many trains will be needed and how other types of transport have to be improved; whether buses will be more demanded rather than underground or not.

It's been a while since my last post on this blog. I've been buried in my dissertation for the past six months. Thus the neglect of my blogging duties. It's been a long journey, one that has been physically, intellectually and emotionally challenging (and oftentimes exhausting) but after approximately 6 years here at Duke, I successfully defended my dissertation on Wednesday, March 31st, 2010! Later, I'll write a lengthier post on the process of obtaining my PhD but for now, I'm enjoying the feeling of having the PhD monkey off my back!

With the announcement of a Talent Corporation to bring home Malaysians who've gone overseas, this research — Plugging the Brain Drain — seems relevant. The findings are quite accessible to the layperson, but if you have a little statistical background, you'll definitely get a chance to grapple with some of the most extensive publicly-available analysis of our brain drain (that I know of, at any rate).

It has its flaws, especially with regard to data collection (full disclosure: Kian Ming and I helped the author with some of the statistical analysis), but it is of course only an initial foray into studying the reasons behind why Malaysians leave — or come home. If you have any comments, do post them here or contact the author, Evelyn Wong, directly. Also do share if you know of any similar studies, or scholars working on this topic!

Forecast is a future estimate usually based on past information. It is important to make predictions about the demand for transport since transport plays very important role in economic growth. It can be assessed in terms of usefulness of transport in providing services for people and connecting different steps in the supply chain. Economists make forecasts of demand for transport in order to predict how much the provision of transport services is needed and this is sometimes called ‘predict and provide’ approach. Another reason of making forecasts is to know in which parts of roads there will be the highest amount of cars and the biggest congestions might occur. This will help government in taking measures to reduce these congestions before they occur.
In the UK, for example, it was forecasted that by the year 2010 road congestion will increase by 65%, while motorway congestion by 268%. By introducing 25 years plan ‘The Future of Transport’ government is considering to increase the capacity of roads and by reduce congestion.
Also forecast of transport demand can show the effectiveness of introduction of transport policies at both national and local levels. In order to make these forecasts economists have to gather and analyze past statistics of demand and also make other assumptions of population growth, GDP growth, fuel prices and the amount of license holders. For freight transport industrial output and import of goods have also to be assumed.
However, as forecasts are based on past info, they might not reflect the real picture of situation and lead to market and government failure.

Historically, young people were a significant force in the development of this country.

They were heady with the victory for independence. The mahasiswas debated, protested and demonstrated for pro-justice, pro-human rights, justifying their position and manifesting the education they receive in the best institutions of the country.

Back in 1974 during the Tasik Utara issue they were reckoned forceful enough that desperate villagers look towards them to help. Twenty-six years ago, a staggering 5,000 students went to demand for the eradication of poverty in Baling.

Where are they now?

In Pavilion, sipping RM15 cappucino lattes, using a Blackberry to play “Texas Hold ‘Em”. In shopping malls, stretching daddy’s credit card to buy more things they don’t need to impress people they don’t like. Apathy, ignorance, oblivion is a pandemic amongst Malaysian youths. One can give the excuse that the mahasiswas of before were spurred by the injustice they saw when they worked as teachers in the outskirts. One can continue by saying it is not our fault that we are robbed of such experience and enlightenment. One can even cite the magic word: Akta Universiti and Kolej Universiti. Such an argument is nothing but a conscience struggling to save some face.

First-class facilities did not rob the students at the University of California, Berkeley and several other universities of their conscience. For months, theirs was a persistent effort to bring together students of all race, gender and opinions to pass a Bill to divest from any investment from companies that provided financial and military support to Israel. Compared to them, we fall short miserably in terms of empowerment, independence and desire.

Sure, AUKU is a reasonable excuse. Being expelled and blacklisted, the possibility of not graduating, not getting a job or, worst of all, the dreams of owning a BMW evaporated are deterrents. However, AUKU is a blatant disregard to Article 10 of the Federal Constitution which advocates freedom of speech, expression and assembly, an insult to Article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and has successfully played a part to place us at the lowest tier in terms of human rights. We proudly proclaim ourselves university students, in complete awareness of this knowledge, yet though our inaction we blindly accept this insolent law.

Aminul Rasyid, Teoh Beng Hock, Kugan, GST, subsidy cuts, economic burden on the rakyat are only a sliver of the issues insulting basic human rights. An innocent kid shot directly to the head by an irresponsible police officer. Economic terrorism leading to families not even able to have basic amenities such as water, electricity and education. We see, hear and know of all these injustices. Our awareness, if there is at all any, makes our silence all the more embarrassing when compared with our student bodies of 30 years ago, the outspoken student crowds of our neighbouring country, Indonesia, and America’s student unions divestment effort to stop Israel’s crimes towards Palestine.

Have those RM15 cappucino lattes completely numbed our conscience?

Thankfully, all is not lost. There are a few, but not enough, out there who publicly denounce AUKU and have courageously listened to their hearts and conscience, such as the recent famous four from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia caught participating in the Hulu Selangor by-election. To these brave young men and women, I salute you.

China Effect which is a huge economic growth of the China has a big impact on all other countries. As GDP is growing rapidly in China and the country faces increased demand and demand-pull inflation, the UK will face inflationary pressure from this country and as China is the top producer of coal, steel, cement, and 10 kinds of metal, not only UK but all parts of the world will suffer from inflation. This might lead to an increased trade deficit in the UK when the amount of imports exceeds the amount of exports. But as Saunders, the economist of Citigroup said: “At the same time, growing demand from these countries is pushing up commodity prices across the board”. Also UK faces a high competitiveness from China and has to increase its spending on supply side policies in order to increase productive capacity and remain competitive in the market. Also UK has to increase its lower productivity and reduce unemployment when facing increased demand for goods from overseas.
China’s exchange rates are relatively low compared to pounds and so UK could enjoy cheaper imports for a while however this will not be always “and the exchange rate provides just temporary shelter against import price rises.”

Secondary data refers to the data that are already exists. This might include historical documents, autobiographies, photos, novells, statistics.
Official statistics are one of the major types of secondary data and they are produced by local and national government, its agencies and organizations. Official data is widely used by positivists since they see all types of quantitative data as the main source of information. While intepretevists see statistics as not useful source of data because they do not help in answering why certain group of people committed to suicide, for example, and what made them to do so, but they just give a factual information about the situation.
When using Official Statistics, for sociologist it is important to know how was these statistics constructed. For example, statistics about the educational attainment might be different for different ethnic groups and social classes, however statistics may not provide with such information.
Also use of this source of secondary data may reflect somebody’s interests and as it is governments who is responsible for the statistics, it might try to show itself in favourable light and hide the real information about the current situation. Also another limitation of Official Statistics that sociologists can not affect the topic and sources of information that will be used for creating the statistics and governmental representatives and officials decide what is useful and what is not.
However, there are many advantages for using official statistics. They are available and cost usually nothing for researchers. Also they are often updated and so sociologists can compare change in the survey over time.

Politicians about the Family.Some quotations which might be useful when writing essays. (Can’t remember from where I quoted them)

LABOR PARTY.
Family breakdowns are leading to youth crime, unemployment and anti-social behaviour, according to a parliamentary report; women's attitudes have shifted significantly, undermining traditional ideas of patriarchal control and economic dependency.

New Labour's consultation document Supporting Families says that "women increasingly want to work and have careers as well as being mothers". There is no attempt to force women back into the home. On the contrary, the thrust of New Labour's Welfare to Work policy has been to get lone parents, the section of women least likely to work outside the home, into the workforce.

- “Marriage is the "healthiest environment" for the family.” – report Supporting Families

The report comes as Home Secretary JACK STRAW is expected to announce that the government will set up an Institute for the Family, aimed at preventing the breakdown of family life in the UK.
- The New Deal program is primarily motivated by the need to cut back on benefits by encouraging, and as this isn't working, coercing lone parents into work. Those that stay at home to look after their children, either through choice or because they can't get a job, are made to feel guilty for doing so.
- Married couples should get better tax-breaks and child allowances.

CONSERVATIVE PARTY

DAVID CAMERON insisted the modern Conservative party was the party of all families – single parents, divorced parents, widows – and it would be supporting all of them.
So a Conservative Government will give families the support, flexibility and financial help they need.
Financial help:
- Money worries can put a huge strain on relationships – so we will end the couple penalty in the benefits system and recognise marriage in the tax and benefits system
Flexibility:
- We will introduce a new system of flexible parental leave which gives mothers and fathers 12 months' leave to split between them
- We will extend the right to request flexible working to all parents with children under the age of 18, and ensure the public sector becomes a world leader in providing flexible working opportunities

As we can see, both parties are for traditional nuclear family.

By Ken Vin LekSPECIAL FOCUS KUALA LUMPUR: Higher education is a passport to a better life, but unfortunately many Malaysian students do not enjoy easy access to it. More often than not, it is a goal they seek but cannot attain. It has seemingly become a privilege and not a right.If given a chance, many would want to enter and graduate from top-notch universities in the US and UK. But the reality is that the route to these prestigious institutions is out of reach and many are left stranded at home.What future do they have in Malaysia? Access to higher education to local public institutions of higher education is limited. A quota system introduced under the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1970 and spiralling fees in private institutions have not helped matters.There are currently 20 public universities and 627 higher education institutions (IPT), with Universiti Malaya being the oldest university in the country.According to PJ Utara MP, Tony Pua, this was more than double in proportion to the population when compared to Singapore.Under the 10th Malaysia Plan (10MP), the government does not intend to establish any more new public universities, while the private sector will not be prevented from setting up private institutions of higher learning.FMT takes an indepth look at the trend emerging in Malaysia’s higher education system.
Only 29% obtain higher education qualificationsAccording to a report published by the United Nations Economic and Social Council (Unesco) in 2005, only 29.9% of Malaysians obtained higher education qualifications.In contrast, both Singapore and Thailand have a higher percentage of population with tertiary education qualifications at 46% and 41% respectively, while in South Korea a whopping 89% of its population boasts higher education qualifications -- three times the percentage of Malaysia.Said Professor James Chin, head of Arts of Monash University Malaysia: “Malaysia can never be a developed country if the rate remains this low. On the one hand, we have the problem of quality; on the other, the problem of percentage.”“Quality is obviously harder to improve, and we are nowhere near becoming a knowledge-based economy,” he added.FMT did a study of the many publications of the Higher Education Ministry and came up with a startling fact: only one in 60 secondary school students in the 1960s had access to higher education, and this trend is still rising today.Malaysia, however, has set a target: it wants to see 40% of the population in the 19-24 age group enjoy access to higher education by 2020.Fahmi Reza, a Student Power activist, has over the years been vehemently advocating that higher education be made a right and not a privilege.“Everyone in this country deserves to get access to higher education... we must realise that obtaining a degree gives an individual an edge over another person who probably had no access to higher education... this is blatantly unfair,” he said.Under the 10MP, it appears that the government is moving towards corporatising public universities in Malaysia.According to a report by the Higher Education Ministry, some 50% of public funds for higher education will be disbursed based on the needs of the government by 2015 and 25% of all public university places will be fee-paying seats.Currently, the government subsidises all seats in public institutions of higher learning at the rate of 90%. Students only have to fork out a meagre fee for critical courses. The government sets aside as much as RM8.5 billion a year subsidising fees of these institutions.A medical student, for example, only has to pay RM19,000 to complete the course, with the government subsidising RM181,000. An engineering student only has to pay RM10,760, with the government subsidising RM94,644.When asked about the trend to make seats fee-paying ones, Chin said the government has no choice but to move towards this direction.“This is a worldwide trend, especially in countries like the UK where the numbers of seats have been dropping and the US where higher education is viewed as a privilege and where one benefits substantially from having a degree.”“The only problem is that if we take this route, there will be repercussions -- if one has to pay for a service, the quality has to be there and quality has always been a problem faced by IPTs in Malaysia,” Chin said.According to a report released by the Ministry of Higher Education, between 2001 and 2010, 15% of the students who had access to higher education were enrolled in public institutions, while another 15% were studying in private ones.It is predicted that by 2020 as many as 90% of higher education students will have to go through a private institution to obtain their degree.But if the education system is moving towards a corporate, fee-paying culture, how many Malaysian families can afford to send their children to institutions of higher learning?When FMT did a random survey of fees charged by universities, it was found that for an individual to pursue medicine at the International Medical University (IMU), he would need RM351,000 or RM5,850 a month to finance his studies, excluding the cost of living.Considering that more than half of Malaysian households earn a monthly income of less than RM3,000 (according to the Department of Statistics), few students can afford to pay their way to a tertiary education without getting a scholarship or a bank loan.Mushrooming of private institutionsPrivate universities did not come into existence in Malaysia until 1996. Prior to that, many Malaysians who could not obtain a place in local public institutions but who had the money, would pursue their tertiary studies overseas.In the 1990s, only 7.2% of Malaysians at university age were enrolled in local tertiary institutions, compared with 35.8% in Argentina and 54.8% in South Korea.Private institutions emerged because of the lack of places in public institutions. Moreover, Malaysians who pursued overseas studies had also caused a large outflow of currency.According to a 1995 Unesco report, some 20% or 50,000 Malaysians were studying abroad and this cost the country about US$800 million a year in currency outflow, constituting nearly 12% of the country’s current deficit.Given this scenario, the government enacted the Private Higher Educations Institutions Act in 1996, which gave birth to private institutions.Since 1996, the number of private institutions had been mushrooming, starting with six universities in 1990 and growing to 69 in 2010.Many government-linked companies and political parties saw the rapid growth of private educational bodies as an opportunity to make money.Universiti Tun Abdul Razak (Unitar) owned by Umno was formed in 1998; Tunku Abdul Rahman College (KTAR), owned by MCA, was set up in 1969; Asian Institute of Medicine, Science and Technology University (AIMST), owned by MIC, was launched in 2001, and Gerakan-owned Wawasan Open University was established in 2005.Chin sees the growth of these institutions in a positive light. “Malaysia made the right decision. A lot of people back then could not get places, the majority of whom were non-Bumiputeras,” he said.Pua also concurred, saying that the move (to set up private institutions) has benefited the non-Bumiputeras because it is cheaper now to pursue a degree locally.“The problem, however, is quality. There is nothing wrong with setting up private institutions but there has to be quality. Don't just think of making money.“If you read the advertisements published by these institutions, all of them boast they are quality institutions.”Pua suggested that an independent organisation be formed to rank these universities so that the public will be well informed of their competency.It is worth noting that private institutions have a significantly lower percentage of academic staff with PhD qualifications than those in public institutions and this could affect the quality of education delivered.When FMT did a survey of the vast distinctions between public and private institutions, it was discovered that a significant racial divide existed in these institutions.Currently, private institutions consist of 95% non-Bumiputera students while 70% of students in the public institutions are Bumiputeras.Said Fahmi: “Surely, the government did not intend it to be that way but this is clearly the outcome of the NEP, which made it compulsory for 70% of seats in public universities to be allocated to Bumiputeras.”He added that this is completely against Article 12 of the Federal Constitution which states, “Without prejudice, there shall be no discrimination against any citizen on the grounds only of religion, race, descent or place of birth in administration of any educational institution maintained by public authority, in particular admission of pupils.”Chin, however, was of the view that the blatant implementation of such a ratio in public universities left non-Bumiputeras with no other choice but to head to private institutions to pursue tertiary education.The group worst affected in the race to tertiary education is the poorer sections of the ethnic minorities.They are left behind by private institutions because they lack funds to finance themselves. They are left behind by public institutions due to the quota system. Their only hope is to obtain brilliant results so that they can secure a scholarship, lead a better life and get out of the poverty trap.

Elasticity of demand is the responsiveness of a quantity demanded to a price/income/price of another good change. This concept is hugely used for business purposes and it plays very important role in determining the demand for transport. Transport is a movement of people and goods for personal and business reasons. Now in the UK most of the transport modes are owned by the private sector and firms who own these modes, that is means of transport, use elasticity as one of the most influential concepts when forecasting demand. Firstly, if we look at price elasticity of demand, that is the responsiveness of a quantity demanded to a price change, even if it an estimate and may not reflect the true picture of a situation, it can show whether this or another mean of transport is normal good and demand is elastic or inelastic. If it elastic, for example, as in case of air travel, businesses have to be careful with changing prices and can be sure that with lowering prices they might be able to increase their market share. Low cost airlines in the UK such as EasyJet or Ryanair are good examples of this situation, when they by introducing very low prices in comparison to big and established companies, such as British Airways, could increase their market share and outrun BA in the amount of flights per year. However, in case of private cars, which have relatively inelastic demand, increase in taxes or fuel might not have such a huge effect since private car owners see obvious advantages to travel by car in some cases. But as private cars are considered to be unsustainable mode of transport, government is taking different measures in order to make drivers switch to ‘greener transport’ by making it more integrated, improving the quality of services.
Another type of elasticity of demand – income, which shows how change in income affects demand, also widely used in transport, because by knowing that decrease in income will reduce demand for long haul airtravel, businesses might decide to increase provision for short-haul flights. However, again Income Elasticity of Demand is just an estimate so it might not show correct figure and if businesses will heavily rely on it, they might make wrong decisions and end with market failure.
Cross Elasticity of Demand is another concept of elasticity which shows how change in price for product A will affect the quantity demanded for product B. There are substitute goods that are competing goods and complements which have joint demand. In case of transport, substitutes might be just two different providers of services such as Oxford Bus Services, for example, and Stagecoach. By analyzing the income elasticity of demand they might see whether increase in ticket fares of one provider will lead to a huge decrease in demand for another or whether this change will be insignificant, which will allow to consider that this Bus Company has bigger market share and more successful in the market.
In case of complements, which might be train and bus which provides a service in the nodes of traveling by train, increase in prices for train fares might lead to a decrease in demand for them and therefore less people will demand this bus service. So businesses will be able to know how big effect the change in the price for train has on change in demand for bus.
So, as we can see elasticity of demand plays very important role in transport by helping businesses be aware of the situation in the market and take measures according to it.

We were recently alerted to the existence of a programme called The Vacation Research Programme. All Form 5 students are eligible to apply; those accepted will be placed with medical researchers at various institutions in the country. This looks like an interesting research opportunity for interested secondary school students. The website is http://vacationresearchprogramme.wordpress.com/.

I took the opportunity to ask the Minister of Higher Education as to the steps being taken to prevent academics with dubious qualifications from being hired by our local universities during the Budget debate 2 days ago. The following was the relevant exchange:

Tuan Pua Kiam Wee [Petaling Jaya Utara]: Yang Berhormat Menteri, penjelasan. Minta maaf, topik tadi berkenaan mengenai PhD yang diambil oleh universiti-universiti tempatan. Saya ingin tahu, kita memang perlu meningkatkan jumlah pemegang PhD dalam universiti kita, tetapi saya mendapati bahawa memang ada juga yang pemegang PhD itu tidak mempunyai PhD dari universiti yang dikatakan sebagai recognized iaitu ada pemegang PhD di dalam universiti kita dan saya ada nama di mana mereka mendapat PhD mereka melalui correspondence course.

Pihak yang mengambil PhD memang tidak ada PhD yang credible boleh didapat di
correspondence course. So, apakah langkah yang diambil oleh kementerian supaya pemegang PhD seperti ini tidak dilantik dalam universiti kita.

Dato’ Seri Mohamed Khaled bin Nordin: Pertamanya kementerian sedang dalam peringkat untuk memperketatkan lagi peruntukan yang ada dalam undang-undang khususnya
undang-undang Akta Institut Pengajian Tinggi Swasta (Akta 555) untuk tentukan kita berkuasa untuk mengambil tindakan terhadap kes-kes yang sedemikian. Keduanya seperti kata Yang Berhormat ada tenaga akademik yang mungkin mempunyai PhD yang sedemikian tetapi kehadiran mereka dalam IPT atau pun universiti mereka masing-masing mungkin berasaskan Ijazah yang lain sama ada masters dan sebagainya.

Oleh kerana sesuatu PhD itu tidak diiktiraf, ia tidak di ambil kira. Saya percaya kalau pun ada nama dan saya juga mengalu-alukan kalau nama itu dapat diberi, kita boleh menyiasat dengan lebih teliti mengenai kedudukan pensyarah yang sebegini. Akan tetapi daripada laporan yang saya dimaklumkan, kalau pun ada pensyarah yang memiliki ijazah dan juga sarjana dan sebagainya, mereka juga membuat dan mendapat PhD mungkin melalui correspondence sebahagian daripada khususnya universiti awam, kalau PhD itu tidak diiktiraf, memang ia tidak diiktiraf dan mereka tidak mendapat apa-apa tambahan atau kebaikan daripada kedudukan mereka sebagai anggota tenaga akademik.

Tuan Pua Kiam Wee [Petaling Jaya Utara]: Akan tetapi dalam resume mereka, dalam laman web, semua letak Doktor. So ini agak mengelirukan dan tidak baik untuk penuntut kita di universiti juga. Terima kasih.

Dato’ Seri Mohamed Khaled bin Nordin: Saya akan memberi nasihat dan makluman kepada semua dalam kes yang mana boleh guna profesor, boleh mengguna nama Doktor dan
sebagainya. Jika Yang Berhormat boleh bekerjasama dengan kementerian memberikan saya
nama-nama itu, kita akan follow up dengan pihak universiti dan kerana kita tidak kompromi dalam soal-soal yang boleh menyentuh kesan penjanaan tenaga akademik dalam universiti kita.

a) When making a research among pupils it is important to consider some problems which sociologists have to avoid such as sensitivity of children: they might be shy and not answer questions for example in group interviews, that are interviews based on a group of people and where the interviewer asks questions and respondents answer in turn. So sociologists are more likely to choose unstructured interview where the interviewer can develop rapport that is friendly and trusting relationship and thereby collect more valid and in depth data. However,
Willis, for example, used in his study of ‘lads’ group interviews which allowed pupils to talk freely about their views and values and this gave him opportunity to understand reasons of creating counter school culture. However the researcher could find it difficult to interpret interviewees answers and this might lead to the interviewer bias.
Questionnaire is another convenient type of research which might help to collect data among pupils about some sensitive topics which they might not discuss orally, however this type of research does not guarantee validity of data since pupils might not respond correctly and they just may not understand a question. Also questions might mean for every person something special, so they can answer for the same question in different ways. This makes quantifying and making statistics more difficult. Marxists Bowles and Gintis in their research used self-completion questionnaires for employers and students to compare which personal traits are valued by students themselves and which personal traits are valued by employers in their workers. They could compare and find a correlation between these personal traits to explain and support their Marxist approach. Questionnaires gave opportunity for the researchers to use a large sample and use comparative method. However, questionnaires may be biased since some students could try to show themselves in favourable light and also they could misunderstand some questions.
When researcher wants for example find out how many pupils like mathematics, it is difficult to decide which sample he has to choose. Because if it is a random or systematic sample, it doesn’t mean that it will be representative, because a lot of pupils might be from science ability group and the result of the research will not be valid. Stratified samples are more useful since they give opportunities for researchers to divide the sample into strata such as age, type of school, type of ability group, etc. and make the sample more representative.

Twentieth century brought big changes in priorities of people and their expectations of relationships.
Over the past 40 years people, generally, tended to marry later and didn’t consider creating the family as the most important thing in their life. Also more and more people choose living alone rather than with family and have freedom. And if before living alone gave negative status for women as they failed in finding partners, now views have changed and it is not blame to be alone. Also increasing number of people prefers cohabitation, that is living with a partner together but not marry, because it might help avoid conflicts. For 40% cohabitation is a good alternative to marriage, while for most people cohabitation is a kind of prelude which helps to test relationships and make them stronger. Main causes of an increase in family diversity are changing in attitudes that is how people now define the ideal family life, increased opportunities in going to University for everyone made people be more aimed in making their own career and be more independent; from 1967 contraception became more reliable and available for all women and sexual relationships became not only the way of social reproduction but also the expression of love.
Weeks suggested that nowadays there is an increased choice in personal mortality, that is choosing different kinds of families is individual choice rather than influence of values and attitude in the society.
Also family diversity has increased due to changes in expectations from marriage and as Fletcher said, now people place higher values on marriage. The Divorce act 1969 made it easier for people to divorce and they didn’t have to prove guilty of their partners.
Beck and Beck-Gernsteim argued that our society is characterized by increased individualization, women don’t need to rely on their husbands anymore and they can achieve the same statuses with them if not higher. High values are placed on self-expression and independence while marriages which were the norm in the society before will limit people’s actions. Another reason of increased divorce rates is that nowadays there is a trend towards confluent love (Giddens) that is when relationships are focused on expression of love, intimacy and support. And if people don’t find this love in their partners, they prefer to change their lifestyle.
Divorces for many people led to changes in values placed on relationships and they choose another lifestyle such as being alone or cohabiting. More people become to be lone parents as this make their life easier, and as feminists argued, women will escape violence, conflicts and destructive relationships for them and their children (Bernardes).
In recent years increased opportunities for same sex relationships have formed a big number of households based on same-sex relationships. Dunne suggested in her research that lesbian and gay couples are less likely to have conflicts as they share responsibilities and domestic duties.
So as we can see there are many alternatives to marriage which led to increased numbers of family diversity and as Giddens said, diversity is a reflection of opportunities and priorities in modern era. However, Gittins argued that still nuclear family consisting of heterosexual couple and their offspring acted and acts as powerful ideology for most couples and alternatives of the nuclear family are still considered to be abnormal. Her opinion was supported with another sociologist Chester who used the term ‘neo-conventional family’ describing that even if there was some growth in family diversity, generally, most people marry, have children; nuclear family remains the dominant family structure.
New Right ideas about the family diversity are that the decline in traditional values and appearance of new types of households are a big threat to the society and destruct it. Murray said that, for example, single mothers are a principle cause of crime.
In my opinion still a big importance is placed on societal values and expectations and most people will behave in a way that is considered to be normal for the society.

The documents cover a wide range of secondary data, written and recorder material such as biographies, letters, novells, photos, radio and TV broadcasts. From interpretevists’ point of view, this type of data is very important and plays a significant role in their research methods since some kinds of documents are based on people’s understanding of the world and explains reasons for human’s behavior. Diaries, letters may help in understanding the past and compare how people’s views and attitudes are changed over the period of time. It helps to discover and interpret the meanings which guide people’s actions. There are different types of analysis of documents that are used by interpretevists: they might classify the content of the documents into different categories to make the data quantitative( Content analysis) This type of analysis might be valued by positivists since they see translating all the things into numbers as the most suitable way of research because it helps to make comparisons. Also intepretevists might pay more attention on the motives and ideologies of a particular document.( Thematic analysis) And some sociologists may be more interested in text analysis when looking at the text to understand how can it affect people’s ideas and create an impression.
However when using the documents, no one it is difficult to be sure whether what is written is genuine and sociologists can rely on that. While positivists by using Official statistics, will be surer that this data is valid and reliable.

In my "political life", one of my key themes is the fact that the Government is out of cash, and is desperately trying to raise funds via various forms of taxes, as well as sales of assets. However, the clearest indication of the shortfall of funds has to be the ridiculous nature of some of the budget tightening process at our Ministries.

It raises the question as to whether the Government knows what it is doing and whether it is just being penny wise and pound foolish. Officials appear to be concentrating on minor cost cuts eating into essential expenditure, instead of the big ticket items which are often wasteful, and are the real culprits to wasteful expenditure.

The opinion by former chief news editor of NTV7 and 8TV with regards to the cuts in our local boarding schools highlights the ridiculousness of the situation. Excerpts of his article are as follows.

Of schools, hostels and tight budget

...After the few early callers, a lady who was put on air. But instead of commenting on the topic she went on to say that her children who were studying in a boarding school have been told to go home every weekend. Reason being, the school (which she did not name) could no longer provide meals for the students during weekends.

Apparently, the days of giving hostel students meals seven days a week are gone. Why? Well the lady claimed she was told that the school’s annual budget had been slashed. Meaning the school is running on less money.

[...]

But it did not stop there. Several calls later, another listener called in to say that at the hostel his son was staying, students now had to do group study sessions in the canteen. They used to study in classrooms but not anymore. The lights in the classrooms are now switched off. Reason? Apparently to save on electricity bills, i.e., cut costs, i.e., austerity drive.

[...]

Over the weekend I bumped into an acquaintance who happened to be a hostel warden. He is a school teacher but, as warden, he is additionally tasked with looking after the well-being and security of students staying in his school’s hostel.

I asked him if it was true that students are now required to go home on weekends.

“Yes,” he said. Initially, all students were instructed to leave for home on weekends, he added, but the ministry then decided the go-home move could not be made mandatory. So students are “advised’ to go home on weekends. Most students do so, he said. Wonder why?

“Why this ‘nasihat’?” I asked. Why has it come to this?

“No money” was his reply. Well, not exactly “no money” but, rather, limited funds. Put simply schools are operating on tight budget.

[...]

Parents, coaches, teachers, students – many people are angry. Rightly so. The consequences of the budget cut are dire and many. We all know it, all too well. There’s no need to repeat ourselves. Suffice for me to ask again: “How come?” Why no money?

Then, there’s the 2008 Auditor General’s report highlighted by The Malay Mail recently. The AG report said the Education Ministry paid RM250 for each of six peacock flowers for a school. The market price for the plant is RM30.

The report went on to reveal the ministry had spent RM57,493 for the supply, sowing, gardening and maintenance of flowers and trees for the same school – 880 per cent higher than the most expensive quote available from local nurseries.

And it was reported also that the ministry had replaced doors in two schools at prices 56 per cent to 64 per cent higher than figures quoted by the Works Ministry.

Then there was the RM480 paid for a door when the Works Ministry quoted RM272.70.

There are more examples, of course. But enough said, lest our hearts ache further.

But I ask – why the big spending? How come there’s money to spend?

[...]

Inflation is a sustained rise in the price level over a period of time. One of the main macroeconomic objectives of the government is having a low level of inflation. To achieve it government can use different policies. One of them is monetary that is decisions on the rate of interest, money supply and exchange rate. The main instrument of monetary policy is rate of interest. By changing interest rates, government can influence producers and consumers. But whether to use different policies, it is important to know which inflation is it and how high it is. If inflation is demand pull, that is caused by increase in AD, high interest rates may influence people’s consumption and reduce it while savings will increase and so this might reduce inflationary pressure. However it is difficult to consider how high interest rates should be in order not to have surplus in the market.
If inflation is cost push, government can reduce costs by appreciating exchange rate and make imports cheaper and maybe reduce some costs of firms. High exchange rates however can cause current account deficit and make the country less competitive. Also in order to deal with inflation, government can increase supply of money and make it easier for banks to lend more and people spend more, however increase in the money supply lowers interest rates as banks will have a bigger amount that they can lend. And so this again affects AD. Also it is difficult to consider how much government has to increase it’s supply. So all instruments of monetary policy are connected and affect each other. When government is seeking to reduce inflation in the long run, government will use supply side as by increasing productive capacity, quantity and quality of labor productivity can increase and costs will reduce. AD will be increasing with parallel increase in AS.

High speed rail is a kind of transport which is much faster than usual trains and their average speed is about 200 km/h and faster. High Speed Rail has many advantages over other types of transport. First of all, it is called to be environmentally friendly and green transport due to a lower consumption of energy per person, big capacity, reduced land usage and also smaller amount of carbon dioxide emissions.
Also when we compare High Speed Rail service with other types of transport such as car, trains, the former has advantage in being much faster and connecting city centers, while trains or aircrafts usually stop outside the city and passengers will have to find ways of getting the town after their plane/train. This advantage increases demand for rails and make them more convenient rather than others.
Besides, there is no need to book and buy ticket beforehand usually, so if one decides to go somewhere he easily can use rails without any reservations. Also some rails allow standing passengers in comparison to planes or buses where only sitting passengers are allowed and this increases capacity of high speed rails. However, on the other hand there is a big disadvantages of using rails when we compare them to private cars, because in your own car you can do whatever you want and change your destination or plans anytime, while in rails if you forget something, it would be difficult to come back then find another rail. The same is with other types of public transport.
In terms of safety, High speed rails are less likely to have different accidents as they are much simpler in controlling due to their predictable course, however it is not 100% safe transport.
Another advantage which we can find in use of High Speed Rails is that they are not so dependable on weather as planes of cars. In businesses’ point of view, High Speed Rails are convenient types of transport since they don’t require going through customs, or repeated checking baggage and highly time-reliable as they usually depart and arrive on time. Also they allow use of mobile phones or internet, while planes not.
When we talk about costs of High Speed Rails it is obvious that this types of transport is more expensive in comparison to buses for example as they require to create the whole modern transport system, also even if they are green transport, they create negative externalities the same with other types of transport: air and noise pollution.

The United Nation's Convention on the Rights of the Child. (UNCR)
From 15 January 1992, when the treaty came into force, every child in the UK has been entitled to over 40 specific rights.

The Children Act 1989. Welfare rights of children

Children support agency
“Our role is to make sure that parents who live apart from their children contribute financially to their upkeep by paying child maintenance.”

Women's Aid is the national domestic violence charity that helps up to 250,000 women and children every year. We work to end violence against women and children, and support over 500 domestic and sexual violence services across the country.

Refuge's network provides emergency accommodation for women and children when they are most in need. -- Financial guide for women experiencing domestic violence.

The new Adoption and Children Act 2002, in force from 30 December 2005.
Improvements in adoption services. Unmarried couples may now apply
to adopt jointly, for example, making sure that any child they adopt will have
two full legal parents.

The Civil Partnership Act - December 2005. The act grants same sex couples identical rights and responsibilities with heterosexual couples

The Divorce Reform Act 1969( since 1971). Don’t have to prove guilty of a partner and have to be married at least three years in order to get divorced.

The Family Law Act 1996. A one year waiting period before a couple can get divorced

Links used:
http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/family_parent/family.htm
http://www.womensaid.org.uk/
http://www.csa.gov.uk/en/about/index.asp
http://www.refuge.org.uk/homepage.html

Lai, the deputy director of the Malaysian Independent Chinese Secondary School Unified Examination Committee under Dong Zong, said that Dong Zong rejected the UPSR move until the government proposed a detailed alternative student assessment system.

“We do not agree to abolish UPSR immediately until we know more about the alternative formula,” Lai said, adding that the group would also decide on the matter of PMR when an alternative assessment system was proposed.

Lai also demanded for the school-based assessment proposal by Malaysia Examination Board director Datuk Dr Salbiah Ismail at the discussion today to be made public.

Salbiah’s proposal included creating an internal school assessment system and a guided methodology on how to conduct assessments up to the Form 5 SPM level, as well as implementing “psychometric tests” on students’ emotions and character, said DAP national publicity secretary Tony Pua.

Pua said Salbiah’s proposal showed that the Education Ministry seemed to have decided to scrap the two public examinations even before talks were completed.

Education Director-General Tan Sri Alimuddin Mohd Dom said last week that a report on the roundtable discussions would be submitted to the Education Minister by the end of August.

The ministry’s first official roundtable discussion took place on July 19, and was attended by over 120 educators, district education officers and teachers’ unions representatives.

The National Union of the Teaching Profession (NUTP), the Sarawak Teachers’ Union, the West Malaysia Malay Teachers’ Union, and education academics reportedly favoured replacing the two public examinations with school-based assessments.

However, PAGE chairman Datin Noor Azimah Abdul Rahim said that her organisation favoured retaining the two public examinations because a school-based assessment system was open to abuse.

“If we were to rely on school-based assessment, it is subject to manipulation, leaks, favouritism. A national assessment is independent,” said Azimah.

“Most (in the discussion) were in favour of keeping both (examinations), but with the adjustments of making it better,” added Azimah, pointing out that the focus of the current examination system on rote should be replaced with more open-ended questions.

Academic Tan Sri Datuk Seri Panglima Dr Abdul Rahman Arshad also called for the rigid examination system to be revised instead of abolishing UPSR and PMR.

“We must change the nature of the exam. You don’t demolish everything,” said the University-College Sedaya International chancellor.

“A good number are for adjustments to be made,” added Abdul Rahman.

MIC representative Tan Sri Professor T. Marimuthu said that his party was against scrapping the UPSR and PMR examinations, citing concerns of a school-based assessment system that is open to abuse.

“We are concerned about teacher load and teacher bias in a school-based assessment,” said the MIC education committee chairman.

Marimuthu added that the MIC wanted UPSR especially to be retained and for the government to address the pressure faced by UPSR students.

“Any change must be based on informed research. I am not sure what research has been done on this,” said Marimuthu, adding that majority in the discussion wanted to retain the two public examinations.

The DAP is also against scrapping the UPSR and PMR examinations and claimed yesterday that students performed better when subjected to public examinations as shown by international research.

“If the government is insistent in proceeding, as it appears to be, to scrap the exams, do a pilot project first,” said Pua, adding that the government should compare those who took public examinations and those who did not after several years.

“The consequence of scrapping exams for the whole country at one go is a highly risky move. We call for the (Education) Ministry not to repeat the mistake of PPSMI,” said Pua, pointing out that Putrajaya had proceeded with implementing the policy of teaching science and mathematics in English despite public reservation but was forced to abolish it a few years later.

We often think about schooling as simply getting good exam results; maybe at best, we regard it as a way to practice our intellectual skills. But schools are where the adults of tomorrow learn not just how to read and write, but how to live. Our schools do a good job of teaching us basic literacy (and arguably quite a poor job of helping us think about the things we read and write), but even our best schools are often only mediocre when it comes to preparing us for life outside academia.

A friend of mine, Lim Su Ann, wrote an excellent post some months back on how deeply unsatisfying the opportunities for extracurricular growth are in our schools — it's a piece I recommend highly. Most of us in school simply go through the motions of extracurricular involvement — we don't really care about what we do. Most of the extracurricular things I pursued in school had nothing to do with my school. Until our schools allow students the freedom to pursue the things which interest them outside the classroom, and encourage responsible decisionmaking instead of simply usurping all of students' autonomy, we can't say our schools are properly preparing the adults of tomorrow.

The case of Anucia, which Tony blogged about last month, seems to have struck a chord with you all: there are over 60 comments and counting on the post. Many are critical of Anucia's failure to research the government's requirements for a teaching post. A lot of people seem to have missed the critical point: if we want better teachers, we need to recognise more good universities. That's basically it -- as for what Anucia should do in her personal situation, the answer is fairly obvious: look for a private sector job, be it here or overseas. But what I want to draw more attention to is the important issue of information when it comes to education; there is an immense knowledge gap which often makes a huge difference in where people end up, and not enough people seem to have this in mind.

My father comes from a rural New Village. The fact that he has a PhD from a prestigious foreign university is almost a fluke. He was fortunate that my grandparents earned enough to put him through university overseas; he tried to apply for a government scholarship, but received what he thought was a rejection letter. Looking back, he realises now that he could have gotten a scholarship if he'd tried harder -- and if not for my grandparents' good fortune and hard work, he might not have gone overseas at all.

Tony and Kian Ming both went to Singapore for secondary school -- like many other middle- to upper-class Malaysian students, they escaped our rapidly-deteriorating public school system. But not many Malaysians know about these kinds of opportunities -- I was only vaguely aware of them when I was in school, and I am in a solidly upper-middle-class area. A lot of times, the question of who gets what opportunities is pretty much up to the roll of the dice, because so many people are not in a position to know what opportunities are out there.

In my part of Petaling Jaya, many students from SMK Damansara Jaya and Damansara Utama go on to attend one of the prestigious United World Colleges for pre-university. Are the students at DJ and DU particularly smarter than their peers elsewhere? Not particularly -- it just happens that a few DJ and DU alumni found out about the UWCs, applied there, got in, and then told their juniors about the opportunity. I never even heard of the UWCs until I went to university.

One of my friends, who is now working, applied on a whim to Bates College -- one of the best liberal arts colleges in the US -- because one of her best friends applied there. He applied there because many of his family members went there. Because she applied, her friends applied as well. For several years, the Malaysian population at Bates was almost entirely comprised of this motley crew. There's no particular reason that this should have been the case, except for simple information asymmetry.

If all Malaysians knew about the UWCs, or about American liberal arts colleges, the situation would be quite different, I am certain. But nobody really seems aware of just how important awareness is. Knowing is easily half the battle here -- you can't apply to Harvard if you've never heard of it. You can't get financial aid from a liberal arts college if you don't even know what financial aid is.

One commenter on Tony's post wrote: "I feel that being young (a subjective measure of age) and having parents that are not well-educated (as you have assumed) are not valid factors that contribute to [Anucia's] predicament now." This is flat-out wrong. If Anucia were older when she applied to do her degree, and if she had come from a more educated family background, she would have more information about how the education system works and what sort of opportunities are out there. That's about as straightforward as you can get.

People in urban areas and from upper-income backgrounds often underestimate how much luck can play a role in securing a good education. People from rural areas and from poor backgrounds simply do not have the educational resources or practical experience to make the right decisions, and this is a major reason why so many Malaysians do not get as good an education as they could have. Blame them for their predicaments all you want -- that will not solve the problem.

Basically, a primary school in Taman Tun (a suburb of KL) held an election for the post of head prefect -- supposedly the first time this has happened in the country. They had a formal nomination and campaigning process, all conducted by the Election Commission.

When contacted, the EC deputy chair said he believed that teaching democracy to primary school students is unnecessary, but that the Federal Territories EC was just doing its job in helping conduct the elections. I can't really imagine why he would say this.

The job of the Election Commission, after all, is to safeguard our democracy! Why on earth would they oppose the teaching of democracy or democratic values? What does the EC have against democracy or elections?

The excuse that year 4 or year 6 kids are too young to understand how the democratic process works is ridiculous. Even in year 1, we were electing class monitors. If you're old enough to buy something from your school canteen, you're old enough to make at least some decisions for yourself -- and I see no reason to exclude political decisions from this. If you're old enough to learn how to spend money, you're old enough to learn how to decide who to vote for.

Of course, we can debate whether the position of head prefect should be an elected one -- but assuming the candidates are drawn from the body of prefects, all of whom have already met minimum standards of discipline and responsibility, I can easily see why it may make sense to elect the head prefect.

What I can't see is why the EC should be involved in this. If the teachers' understanding of elections and democracy is so poor that they don't know where to start with holding an election, then that is a serious failure of both democracy and public education. It does not make logical sense for the same public agency to be holding both parliamentary and primary school student government elections.

Overall, I'm hopeful that we can expand civics education in our schools and see more applied lessons in democracy like this one. While it's debatable whether how this election was held was actually instructive, I think in general, schools ought to be a fantastic environment for learning how our country's political system works, and what our democratic values look like when put into practice.

PSD scholarships – to scrap or not to scrap
SAT, 26 JUN 2010 06:11

By Ken Vin Lek

KUALA LUMPUR: Every year around the months of May and June, hundreds of “straight A” SPM students receive the news of not being offered the “illustrious” Public Service Department (PSD) scholarship.

Thousands of complaints are made by various parties, the issue becomes politicised and many people start crying out about the injustice and inequality existing in the system of allocating scholarships.

Recently, Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak announced that PSD scholarships would be phased out over time, and he was promptly supported by Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, Nazri Aziz, who said that the move is an effort to “reduce brain drain” and that the government “lacked capacity” to fund students.

FMT has made an indepth study into the arguments surrounding the PSD scholarship issue, and we leave it to the public to make up their mind on what’s right and what’s wrong.

Many parties have questioned the suitability of using the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) as a benchmark for PSD scholarships.

PJ Utara MP, Tony Pua, questioned the process of awarding scholarship at SPM level and instead suggested that students be picked based on their pre-university qualifications.

“The problem now is, we have too many top scorers for only 1,500 scholarships on offer. We should use pre-university qualifications as the benchmark as it is of a higher threshold and students would have then gained admission into top-class universities.”

“What we are doing now is, we are pre-determining whether one is suitable for courses like Medicine and Law based on the SPM results without the students receiving any offers from universities to pursue these subjects,” he added.

Pua also criticised Nazri for linking the phasing-out of scholarships to an effort to reduce the brain drain.

“It is nonsense to say that phasing out scholarships can actually reduce the brain drain. We all know foreign institutions are capable of developing talented leaders in their various fields,” he said.

For full article with in-depth analysis, click here.

Hi,

My name is I Lin Sin and I'm a PhD student in Sociology at the University of Edinburgh. I've just arrived in Malaysia for fieldwork. Over the next few months, I will be looking for and chatting with various individuals to inform my study on the link between a UK degree and the occupational and status advancement of young adult Malaysians. If your profile meets the following characteristics, I would like to invite you to take part in my research:

* Malaysian, aged 18-30 years
* Student studying in Malaysia for a UK degree(via offshore or transnational modes of study, e.g. 3+0 programmes, etc.)

OR

* Recent graduate (2-5 years after graduation)
* Studied for a UK degree(in the UK or/and in Malaysia)
* Currently working in Malaysia
* Malaysian, aged up to 30 years

The research will take the form of a face-to-face, casual and private conversation with me. Simple and straightforward questions will be asked. Key themes will include the advantages and disadvantages of having a UK education, strategies to obtain a job and feelings and aspirations in relation to the transition from studies to work.

The interview conversation will take about an hour and will be conducted in a suitably quiet location (usually in cafes and college/campus grounds) in PJ or KL, central to the participant and me as the researcher. There is a slight possibility that I'll extend my fieldwork site to Penang, but this will come at a later stage. The interview will be recorded in audio to allow a detailed examination of data. No one other than myself will have access to the recording and the participant's identity will be kept strictly anonymous. My study is subject to the university's ethical guidelines and hence, the participant can be assured that I will take the necessary measures to conduct my research responsibly.

The findings of the research will contribute to my PhD thesis and will be shared in various forms such as published journal articles and presentation in seminars and conferences. Very little is known about this topic, so your participation will be very useful in guiding understanding on the study and work experiences of young Malaysians. This is an excellent opportunity for those interested in learning more about the nature and dynamics of an academic social research.

I look forward to chatting with you and learning about your experiences. I can be contacted at: I.Sin@sms.ed.ac.uk.

Eds.: The following is written by Tee Sui Seng, a Cantabrigian.

The news that a Malaysian has been recognized as the top law student at the University of Cambridge initially filled me with much joy and pride and I wasted no time in letting my friends from all over the world know that we Malaysians are more than able to hold our own academically amongst the best brains in the world.However, this feeling of pride gradually gave way to a more sobering disappointment and eventually, even a little embarrassment as the facts of the story slowly sunk in.

It did not take long to find out that the young man in question has spent his pre-university days in neighbouring Singapore, taking his A-levels on a scholarship there. This then led to the discovery that our dear neighbours very quickly realised his talents and wasted no time in offering him a scholarship to the University of Cambridge. It then came as no surprise why further down the article, it was then stated that our prodigious young talent will be joining the Singapore legal service.

This disappointment was poignant, but however, upon further reflection, should have been expected. The local media can never be accused of lacking patriotism. The newspapers have always been very quick to seize upon stories of successful Malaysians all over the world and credit must definitely be given to them for sourcing them out. Unfortunately, these reporters may have sometimes been a little over-zealous by stretching the Malaysian connection a little too far. A recent example that comes to mind would be the appointment of the Malaysian-born Penny Wong as finance minister in Australia. I dare not assume to know how much the minister would take pride in her Malaysian connection, but I am assuming that becoming a minister of a nation state would definitely require taking up citizenship of that country. It then follows that since Malaysia does not allow dual-citizenships, the good minister's Malaysian connections would be distant at best.

Patriotism is a virtue if we know what to be thankful and grateful for. The accident of being born in a certain nation state is not reason enough to imbue one with a sense of pride for being a citizen - this pride needs to come from appreciating one's achievements in the context of the opportunities that are endowed with being part of that nation. If the achievements of an individual cannot be attributed to the opportunities gained by being part of the nation state, we must then be very careful in sharing the accolades that were showered upon an individual who happens to share our citizenship.

Upon further reflection, the news article was about the achievements of a young man, who did exceedingly well in Law at the University of Cambridge, who clearly impressed his very experienced tutors there and who has also shown tremendous humility when talking about his achievements. It is only mere coincidence that this young man is also Malaysian. When we as a country has shown little effort or foresight to acknowledge or reward his talents before these accolades, we should not be too quick to claim collective pride over his praise.

All is not lost - at the very least, we are heartened by the fact that the country has no lack of talented citizens, although the sceptical among us would very quickly question how long we can retain them. Much has been said about the brain drain from all layers of the society including those in power, so the severity of the problem is nothing new. Now let's hope the next news story would be how we are successful in luring these minds back onto our shores. In the mean time, it would probably be wise to be a little less excited the next time a Malaysian connection arises in the news. We can only share praise if we have invested in it, lest we be too distracted in cheering our neighbours on to mourn our own loss.

My friends and I are running a series of workshops in several cities from this month through August on the US university system and its application process. There'll be one-day sessions in Kota Kinabalu, Kuching, Penang and the Klang Valley, and a longer two-day workshop only in the Klang Valley in August.

The info sessions will give you an idea of what the US university system is like, and an overview of how to apply. They're FREE. The workshop will explain in depth how to apply, and since it lasts over two days, we'll cover a lot more material. There's more information on dates and venue at the website.

If you're a Malaysian thinking about university, or know someone who is, I can guarantee you this will be useful (it's something most of us wish we had when we were in your shoes). At the least, it'll help you learn about your options (including financial support -- the US is pretty amazing as far as scholarships go).

Even if you're not thinking about the US, it's worth attending. The UK and Australia are the default and often expensive options for most Malaysians considering a foreign university, but hardly anyone thinks about the US. There's no good reason for this to be the case. Hell, if you can get in, a lot of universities will throw money at you to convince you to attend.

All of us running the workshops are either students or alumni; no university or for-profit group is funding our activities. It's a great chance to learn about an underappreciated overseas opportunity.

Space is limited, so sign up soon! You can register on the website.