Wardens and the Malaysian education system

I'm entering my final year in MB in a couple of months time. When you are undergoing an engineering course in your final year, you'll have to complete a final year project. So you'll have to find a title that you are interested in and consult with the warden who proposed the title. The engineering faculty of MB has about 25% foreign wardens and 75% local wardens. In addition to finding a suitable title, you'll also have to find a suitable warden.

Now, this is where it becomes tasty. Two of my friends went to a local warden (Lizard) for a FYP (final year project) title, one of them has a CGPA of 3.8 something (Rose) and the other with a CGPA of 2.8 something (Orchid) and they wanted to do a title together. But this Lizard wouldn't let them do a title together because he thinks that Orchid wouldn't be able to complete the project because of her low CGPA. There's no harm in guiding and helping Orchid right? I believe with the proper guidance and hardwork, anything can be done. So Lizard had a brilliant suggestion to help Orchid (I believe it's more of a plan to help himself). He suggested that Orchid do an easier title and let Rose continue with the original title. This way, she wouldn't need much of his help or time to finish her project.

Then there's Elvis. I'll blog on how he got that nickname in the future. Anyway, Elvis is a local warden who sets some very high requirements for his FYP titles. For one, you'll have to have quite a high CGPA to do his titles. To me, this means that Elvis just wants to help himself by getting a smart student so that he doesn't have to spend much of his precious time guiding and teaching his student cause he needs that time of his to practise his dancing moves.

Thus, there is a wide difference between the foreign and local wardens. You can notice that the foreign wardens are more accomodating and would take their time to explain to you things until you understand. Some of the local wardens do this too but only a few.

But I dont blame the local wardens for this problem. I blame the Malaysian education system. We Malaysians love smart students. Parents send their children for tuition for every subject that they can think of. Students are pressurized to obtain that perfect string of A's and to attain this, they'll become kiasu (afraid to lose). Every year some fella will try to best the record number of A's obtained in the SPM (national high school examination). That number now stands at 17 and i dont remember who achieved that even though it was only a few months ago. So it is the Malaysian mentality which requires you to have many A's and be very smart in order to command respect from people.

Anyway, the local wardens should learn from the foreign wardens. Teach and guide the students, explain to them on what they dont know no matter whether they are the weak students or the smart asses because everyone is in the university to learn and not everyone learn at the same rate.

*contributed by ys