Monday 31 December 2018

Principle of Time of Flight 3D Camera

https://upcommons.upc.edu/bitstream/handle/2117/13573/1232-Lock-in-Time-of-Flight-(ToF)-Cameras_-A-Survey.pdf


A near-infrared light (NIR), via light-emitting diodes (LED), is emitted by the system
and then reflected back to the sensor. Many authors [9]–[12] provide formulations for sinusoidal signals, although other periodic functions can be used. Every pixel on the sensor samples the amount of light reflected by the scene four times at equal intervals for every period, (m0,m1,m2 and m3 in Fig. 1), which allows for the parallel measurement of its phase

Thursday 6 December 2018

Conservatism vs Liberalism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN9bu6CP318
There are some good arguments in this youtube but they all miss their points.

The lecturer repeated say that being in that University is a privilege.
For ordinary listener, you do not realise the implication of what he is saying.

It is not easy to go to that university. It means that, even though you have money, you may still not be able to get into that university. Which is not the whole truth. You may not have money to pay tuition fees.

What listeners do not realise is that money is not taken into account  by that lecturer. He assumes that only academically deserving students are allowed in that university.

Why would they argue about placement? It is about affirmative action policies in USA, where places in a university is reserved to minorities or races that had been subjected to discrimination.

The lecturer argued that affirmative action is completely wrong because a deserving student will lose places to a less qualified student and correcting racial discrimination in the past is completely wrong. Which is exaggerated. Just becasue you cannot catch all criminals, does not mean that we should abolish all criminal laws.

In ethical considerations, facts must be observed and exaggerations avoided.

Affirmative action policies can still be implemented despite discriminatory practises just like income tax policies, in order to maximise the resources of the nation and increasing the livelihood of its citizens.

One simple way is to stick to academic results, instead of ability to pay. In that way, the standard of education does not drop. So scholarship money should be given to people who really cannot afford it, and it should be paid back or bonded with work obligations.

Giving monetary rewards to best achievers has some good but it should not be overdone.

There are other issues that should be addressed. What is important is to stick to facts.

There are other videos spread by these conservative groups that are the backbone of President Donald Trump. If we have time, we should try to listen to them and understand their viewpoints.

Sunday 2 December 2018

Response to Facebook's Ridiculous Censorship

You have given a very dangerous precedence.

Paranoid responses are allowed but explanations of the actual meanings of the phrases are not allowed.

How could you allow people to insult national languages and the name of a country, and when people responded, you complained that it is racist.

It is like the Jews in Israel killing innocent Arabs, and when we commented that the Jews in Israel killed Palestinians, it is condemned as racist, because it incites hatre. Bloody idiot. You are hiding the truth in order to hide hideous racist crimes.

Racism should be tackled with truth, not paranoid. We cannot just disallow any condemnations of a person of a certain race, and consider it as racism, and therefore allow worse responses such killing them for complaining against a member of the race.

My post that had been deleted is such a clear example. A Malay guy was insulted by a racist chinese salesgirl who insulted his language and country, that happens to be the language of the country that the girl is staying and supposed to be loyal.

To add salt to injury, she offered alcohol to everyone at a public place, without any approved license. You do not serve alcohol at a supermarket. Only display canned or bottled drinks.

In response to that insults he asked if the girl is chinese.
Is that racist, if we are to ask for someone's race? Yes, to racist bastards like chinese and jews.

Because the chinese in Malaysia believed that they were insulted by being called racists, they justify a really racist actions of terminating his employment and threatening his children that study in a chinese school. Actions are what constitue racism. Not insults against individuals.

Facebook may have a duty to protect harmony but do you want to protect harmony of child rapists, murderers and racists? Why should we care if we insult them and their actions? In fact, it is our duty to insult these bastards so that they realise the consequences of their actions.

Stopping an article because it hurts the feelings of others is also stupid. Because many people feel insulted if they are proven wrong. So, should we stop all posts that try to explain all the wrongs in the world? This is what FAcebook is doing right now through its idiotic reviewers.

When a Malay wants to insult people, he will use the word "babi" or :"pork" but why should the pork eaters feel insulted. It is just like people calling others as beef eaters, or shark eaters etc. Are you insulted if you are called with such names? You will be an idiot if you are.

Worse, there are ulteriour motives behind being insulted, which I detected as extreme racism, i.e. getting excuses for the blatant racism that the chinese in Malaysia exhibits.

As to "cina keturunan babi" insulting to the chinese race, this is completely false. The Malays will use the same insult to any person of any race, because the Malays consider "babi" as dirty.

In Malay, the phrase "cina", translated as chinese, does not refer to a race but a person. It is just the way the Malay grammar is interpreted. Malays like to use this kind of insult when directing to a person, even to its own race, Melayu bangsat (Malay bastard) does not mean that the entire Malay race is bastard. The race is put as an idicator that he is a traitor for his race by being a bastard.

If you start interpreting pig, or "babi" as an racist insult, then you should start disallowing others animals as well, such as crocodile, shark, etc. It is just ridiculous how people can be so sensitive.

We cannot allow guilty people get away with murder just because people express their displeasure towards them in a truthful way.

You may read more about my analysis of the possibly insulting phrase at:
https://othmanahmad.blogspot.com/2018/12/is-cina-keturunan-babi-racist-and.html

Is “cina keturunan babi” racist and incite hatred?

To some people yes.

But to these people, to be called “cina” or “chinese” is already racist and insulting.

Our official policy now is to consider it as insulting, but it is only applied in West Malaysia.

In Sabah, where I live most of the time, this is not the case. We identify them with their races and sub divisions. Again, this is only true in the Eastern part of Sabah. In the West Coast, the Kadazans, part of the Dusun tribes have a strong movement in creating a strong ethnic group KadazanDusun.

A lot of Malaysians consider Sabah as a model of racial tolerance. My theory is due to our pride in our individual identities. This is again not true for Filipinoes in the West Coast or those in West Malaysia. They felt insulted when asked about their race, and I suspect they lied about their true races.

My belief is that for true racial harmany, we just need to be honest. Lying will only complicate matters and leads to racism. Categorising races in Malaysia as Malay, Chinese, Indians, Natives will only lead to frictions among the races. These major divisions are created to enhance unity in each of these divisions so they lie about their races in order to gain legal advantages.

That is why even facebook allows people to consider calling anyone chinese as insulting and racist. I think similarly for Jews. It is not surprising when you consider that the founder Mark is a Jew and his wife Chinese.

This is ridiculous. It is not according to facts and logic. It will be disastrous sooner or later.

What actually is racism?

Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.
‘a programme to combat racism’

So any antagonysm is considered racist, even the truth. so catching a thief of a different race is called racism? Certainly not correct but widely used. Especially by chinese and jews, and this facebook reviewer.


Racism is the belief in the superiority of one race over another, which often results in discrimination and prejudice towards people based on their race or ethnicity

Racism cannot be used against one individual of a race.

In Malay, the word “cina” alone refers to an individual or a country. To refer to a race, we must attach the adjective “bangsa”, or “race”.

“keturunan babi” means “descendents of pig”. It is a deregatory word used by Muslim Malays against anyone who eat pork. It can be applied to all other races, including, non Muslim Malays.

Is it deragotary, but not racist. It is applied to many races. Ok, you may call it anti-religion but it does not apply to vegetarians. It is just the view of one religion over the others. I am sure vegetarians do not look kindly to all the carnivorous humans.

From the perspective of the chinese or pork lovers, can it ever be deregatory?

For example, I love eating fish, even sharks. Do I feel threatened when labelled as shark-eaters?
The speaker may think it is deregatory, but for me, it is an honour. Sharks may be our enemies, but its strength and speed in water is something to be admired.

So why should the chinese feel insulted when called "descendents of pigs"? They love eating pork, so they must be proud of pigs. If the chinese feel insulted, it is just they are too senstive and look for excuses to feel insulted. Just like being insulted when called chinese.

Going back to the word "cina" that looks like it is referrng to a race. I have explained that it is directed to a person. 

https://www.roketkini.com/2015/08/17/wahai-najib-bangsa-melayu-bukan-bangsa-bangsat/
Malays like to insult other Malays with the word "Melayu Bangsat".

It does not mean that entire race is bangsat (very bad, unprincipled). Only that he is a traitor to the Malay race.
So when we say, Cina Bangsat, it means the chinese who betrayed the chinese race by being bangsat, not the whole race.

Similarly for the Cina Keturunan Babi. He refers to her as a chinese who betrayed her race as descendents of pigs. That means he acknowledges that some chinese are not. He must have thought that pig genes are not infused to some chinese so are more acceptable.

This misunderstanding is due to poor command of Malay. The Chinese do not mix with Malays, and only learn Malay in schools. In schools they are not taught how to insult others.

How about Melayu Mudah Lupa, a book, written by our Prime Minister, Dr. Mahathir Mohammad?

It is only a book title so grammar is not strict. The meaning defaults to a singular person. A Malay tends to forget easily. Or An Englishman Tends to Forget easily. It is never meant to condemn the entire race, although Dr. Mahathir's intention is to refer to the entire race, including himself. True to Dr. Mahathir's style, he does not use the correct grammatical form Orang Melayu Mudah Lupa, if he wants to refer to the entire race.

Does the author of the phrase "cina keturunan babi" intends to insult the entire race?
Maybe, but the grammar and usage of the words does not support it.
He probably exploited the chinese ignorance of the Malay phrase to maximise the insult on her.

And yet, the hypocritical chinese insults the Malays using the same phrases to the PM, Sultans of Malaysian States and the Bugis Race, as descendents of Pirates.

Similarly for the Jews. The Jews are the ones who complained of being subjected to racism and yet disallow Arab residents from returning to their homes or get citizenship, but allowing Jewish immigrants automatic citizenship, which is clearly racism, in all definitiions.








Monday 29 October 2018

Stupid illogical and devoid of facts pro-poor policy by a Professor in Economics

 I did not realise how dangerous this article is until I read the pro-poor policy. It has never been sanctioned anywhere in the world, but was championed by racist bastards in DAP for many decades already. His statements are devoid of any fact at all.
 
Just because you are poor does not mean that you deserve government aid above those who are more capable of contributing more. This is standard practise as shown by awarding scholarships to deservings students, and even giving money to people regardless of poverty in UBI, Universal Basic Income, which is the main theory to prevent disasters as a result of automation.
 
 https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/2018/jan/12/money-for-nothing-is-finlands-universal-basic-income-trial-too-good-to-be-true
 
 http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/un/unpan005788.pdf
 
Pro-poor policies had been identified as failures especially in commuist countries that later turned into socialists. DAP turned to socialism when the chinese supported mainland China with its communist policies.
 
 “It will also lead to a more confident, cohesive and resilient multi-ethnic society without the country being labelled as one of the very few where affirmative policies are needed for the majority rather the minority group as seen elsewhere,” he added.
 
The above is also a very dangerous statement made by racists, and had no bearing to the meaning of affirmative action AT ALL.
 
For example, the minority chinese and indians in USA are never candidates of affirmative action. It is just ridiculous to apply affirmative action on a minority.
 
Affirmative action is only applied to disprivileged people, regardless of whether they are majority of minority. The disprivileged is due to past racist practises that are hard to control legally. In USA, it was the whites who are racists, but they happen to be the majority. In Malaysian, it is the chinese, despite being the minory, had managed to control the economy. 
 
It is ridiculous and racist to assume that the minory chinese are successful because they are intelligent and hard working, whereas the natives are not. It is their racism that contribute to a large extent to their successes at the expense of the natives.
 
Just look at the multinationals and the Malays in Singapore.

Any racism is a waste of natural resources. If the chinese were not racists, the natives could have contributed to greater utilisation of Malaysian resources, for the good of all Malaysians.

Pro-poor policies, if implemented fairly, will make it worse for the chinese, who by defintion are not really poor, compared to the majority of the natives. I said implemented unfarily because the urban people are given more emphasis, compared to the rural natives. The rural natives do not even have proper hospitals, schools and roads. 
 
By providing the roads, schools, and hospitals in the rural areas for the poor, there should be no money left for the urban poor, that already have good roads, schools and hospitals by being in the proximity of all these facilities.

As to evidences of racism, it is as clear as daylight, and yet, Malaysia still has not implemented any anti-discrimiantion regulations, unlike USA. Many capable Malays are denied places in Chinese companies, given various excuses that are not even valid. For example, ability to speak Mandarin. Many Malays were denied employment despite being able to speak Mandarin. As for Malays, why should they work for these racist companies which form the majority of the companies in Malaysia?

We identify the racist by the stupid, illogical and untrue statement that affirmative action is not for the majority. Nonsense. Affirmative action is to stop racism.

Google Search:
affirmative action
noun
North American
  1. action favouring those who tend to suffer from discrimination; positive discrimination.
     Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirmative_action
    Dishonest and racist people may quote from this, without understanding it:
     
    affirmative action
    noun



    Definition of affirmative action 

    : an active effort to improve the employment or educational opportunities of members of minority groups and women

     

    "Members of minority groups" and "women".
    This is nonsense, because chinese and indians are never given any affirmative action privileges. Only Red Indians and Blacks. Not even Hispanics are given affirmative action, in general.

    And women, they are certainly not the minority.

     
    Follow the discussion here:
    https://www.quora.com/Why-are-Hispanics-a-part-of-affirmative-action-when-they-were-never-slaves

    Just like this racist chinese bastard.
    Cedric Chiu, Radar Engineer working on Weapons


    Originally, the idea of Affirmative Action is to help people under a systematic disadvantage, like kids from a former Slave Parents/Grand Parents.
    But as time progressed, it became a tool for "Racial Rebalance" of a organization (like a Soft Quota).
    So Hispanic is part of Affirmative Action Bonus, not because of the "Systematic Disadvantage" standpoint, but for "Racial Rebalance" Stand point.
    It is kinda Ironic, Since Asian actually had a systematic Disadvantage against them (Asian Exclusive Act that lasted till the 1940s, and Japanese Concentration Camp of the 1940s), but today they are being punished under Affirmative Action.. It clearly spells out the fact, that people (schools, companies) care more about their Image (Racial Rebalancing) than actual historic remedy.

 
Focus on reducing income disparity

The Pakatan Harapan government should focus on reducing income disparity between the rich and poor, regardless of race, in its pursuit to eradicate poverty, said economists. NSTP picture by ASYRAF HAMZAH.
KUALA LUMPUR: The Pakatan Harapan government should focus on reducing income disparity between the rich and poor, regardless of race, in its pursuit to eradicate poverty, said economists.
The New Economic Policy (NEP 2.0) must be amended based on the gains of the old NEP that has substantially closed the gap between the majority and minority ethnic groups.
Sunway University Business School economics professor Dr Yeah Kim Leng suggested that a pro-poor or inclusive NEP should be emphasised to strengthen Malaysia’s socio-economic foundations.
“This could help to shape more sustainable and resilient economic policies for Malaysia to attain high income status by 2024, as envisioned in the mid-term review of the 11th Malaysia Plan,” he told NST Business recently.
Yeah said the government’s intervention programmes like education, employment and business quotas and fiscal as well as financial incentives would raise the income of the bottom 20 per cent (B40) group.
“The attention on growth with equity should still be the primary policy focus. Without growth, restructuring of the economy and raising the living standards will be much harder and less sustainable,” he added.
Yeah said greater transparency and accountability will be important for the people to eliminate the identification of race with government policies.
He noted that steady economy growth over the years has strengthened labour demand which in turn has increased the ethnic diversity of employees in most organisations across sectors and industries.
“An inclusive and pro-poor NEP will foster national integration and equitable income distribution between and within each ethnic group.
“It will also lead to a more confident, cohesive and resilient multi-ethnic society without the country being labelled as one of the very few where affirmative policies are needed for the majority rather the minority group as seen elsewhere,” he added.
Malaysian Institute of Economic Research (MIER) executive director Professor Dr Zakariah Abdul Rashid, meanwhile, said socio-economic development in the current context of Malaysia was all about growth with equity as outlined by Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
“Now everything lies on the implementation of good strategies. Bumiputera should also get its equal share of the prosperity of economic growth and development of the country,” he said.
Zakariah said the country’s largest Bumiputra population cannot be left behind economically for sustainable and stable economic growth of Malaysia.
“While subscribing to the principle of a free market, the strategy should be equally friendly to the major racial groups which have significant political and economic presence,” he said.
Bank Islam Malaysia Bhd chief economist Dr Mohd Afzanizam Abdul Rashid said the NEP 2.0 seems to be a delicate balance between promoting an equitable economic growth and instilling financial discipline.
“The government is committed to reducing the level of its debt and plugging any loop holes in spending,” he said.
“In this regard, the development of Waqf asset such as land and cash can be the right policy tools which can be harnessed to complement fiscal policy.”
Afzanizam said through Waqf, redistribution of income and wealth can be more equitable and effective, and would lessen the need to introduce new taxes as the wealthy could be more than willing to take part.
MIDF Research chief economist Dr Kamaruddin Mohd Nor concurred that the NEP 2.0 should make way for the poor to better themselves and improve their livelihood.
“Education, training and income generating programmes with direct assistance and guidance are vital to raise their income.
“Assessing the effectiveness of existing programmes and their respective weaknesses are key elements to ensure the success of the programme,” he said.
Kamaruddin said the improvement of the rakyat’s wellbeing, regardless of social orientation, should be the government’s primary objective.
“Equitable distribution of wealth should be promoted via various skill enhancement programmes to enable faster social mobility.
“More customised social economic programmes are essential to address unique characteristics of various categories of the rakyat,” he said.

Sunday 14 October 2018

Anwar's Election Result in Port Dickson

https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2018/10/13/gods-will-that-anwar-leads-malaysia-says-nazri/

Hypocrites like Nazri and libelers like Saiful, thought they can fool honest people. They are wrong. They can only fool idiots and people with black hearts.

Many people, like Daim Zainuddin, accused Anwar of being a hypocrite by pretending to be better than he really is, meaning, by abstaining from women and alcohol, Anwar pretends to be holier than what he actually is.

Many people also accused Anwar of being power crazy, so impatient to gain power that Anwar is willing to sacrifice the Malay race by breaking its unity. Unity in disgrace is stupidity and cruel. Just because you are evil, do not expect other people to be evil as well.

That power craziness of Anwar is easy to prove to be false. Look at all the ass lickers in UMNO. They still remained with UMNO because they are the real power crazy people. Anwar left because he stuck to his principle. Justice and fairness above others, not even unity or power. Anwar could just have tolerated all the corruption and injustices around him, if he had wanted to become Prime MInister quickly.

If Anwar were the holy men type, he would have just joined PAS, where he was most welcomed, but he did not. Anwar enjoyed his life with activities such as horse riding where he broke his neck. I heard, Anwar even went Scuba diving.

Anwar even tolerated corruption around him as long as he is not aware of it. I heard that during the UMNO battle to capture Sabah from UMNO, Anwar's operation room smelled of money. Even in the PD election, he went to the Army camp and attend dinners sponsored by his supporters, which were questionable election practises by an incumbent political party. There were other practises that Anwar was accused of, which just proved that Anwar was flexible, not extremist. If you want extremist, go to PAS and DAP. Even, they were duped into doing questionable practises.

I still remembered very well why chinese hated Anwar. Anwar was deemed as racist for allowing non-Mandarin certified teachers to become Principals in Mandarin schools. Anwar should have stuck to fhis principle that the best qualified should be the leader, not based on some racial prejudice. True to his style, Anwar gave in. So now, the racist practises made victims of teachers like my colleague's wife, a Mandarin-speaking but not certified teacher, because she teaches English and Maths, will never be considered for promotion to become a Principal.

That is the weakness of Anwar. He is too flexible. In contrast to Mahathir. My nature of character favours Anwar's style, but that does not mean that success will be guaranteed. I hate Mahathir's style, but sometimes, that is what is needed.

Saturday 13 October 2018

Better Alternative to ROAD TOLLS based on Switzerland

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6OfpgOZdoY
I agree with Dr. Mahathir or even Najib. Ridiculous to remove tolls especially for people who do not use highways.
Unfortunately a promise is a promise. We can still fulfill the promise by twisting some of the words, while making highways more efficient.
Some highways need their tools to be removed because they are not conducive to free flow of vehicles. Also ;difficult to enforce the proposed method of charging highway use.
The solution is to use highway permits. Instead of tolls, use highway permits as used by Switzerland especially for tourists. We can do the same and charge tourists higher for the use of highways.
You may say it is the same as tolls, but not really. It does not stop the flow of traffic. It makes travelling to highways much faster and more efficient.
For tourists, it is not fair because we have to pay for the whole year when we only use it for two days, so I do not use it.
For the Malaysian case, we can make it more affordable by not breaking our finances. Special highway permits during special occasions, at rates that are much lower than current tool rates. We can even make it permit free for these occasions but this is not advisable.
Malaysians should pay some lah. It will allow more people to use the non toll roads, and it will not congest the highways so much also.
As for subsidizing the highway by lowering the cost of the permit, this is not true because under heavy use, the cost of tolls should be much less. More people using the highway the cheaper it becomes because highways do not consume much resources once built. Only depreciation and maintenance costs which should be much less once divided among more users.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorways_of_Switzerland
The Swiss autobahn/autoroute system requires the purchase of a vignette (toll sticker) — which costs 40 Swiss francs — for one calendar year in order to use its roadways, for both passenger cars and trucks.[4] The Swiss vignette is offered only as an annual toll sticker. Trucks also have to pay a toll based on the tonnage and the distance.

Monday 16 July 2018

CGPA vs iCGPA

CGPA is Cumulative Grade Point Average whereas
iCGPA can be interpreted as Integrated Cumulative Grade Point Average.

CGPA results are shown as grades per subject such as Physics, Biology, Chemistry etc that make up the programme. There are so many subjects that make up a course, more than 30 subjects for a Bachelor course.

iCGPA results are shown as grades per programme outcomes such as knowledge, problem solving, team work, ethics, communication skills, lifelong learning. There are not many of these outcomes. Under MQA, Malaysia Qualifying Agency, it requires a minimum of 8 Programme Outcomes to be shown to have been achieved.

 http://www.mqa.gov.my/portalmqav3/rujukan/learning_outcomes_docs/2011/00000-1-daycourse-notes.pdf

 http://www.mqa.gov.my/PortalMQAv3/dokumen/maklum%20balas/MQF%20V2%20DRAFT2.pdf

In fact MQA requires educational institutions to achieve learning outcomes such as documented by the iCGPA objectives, instead of just by subjects as required by CGPA.

You may argue that CPGA implements only the Knowledge outcome of the iCGPA but actually many components such as the writing of Thesis also measures communication and critical thinking skills, but they are averaged in the marking scheme in order to come up with the CPGA points.

iCGPA breaks down the marking schemes into learning outcomes. These learning outcomes should support programme outcomes. You may argue also that iCGPA is just a different marking scheme.

Since there are only a few programme outcomes, the iCGPA results can be presented as a spider web concept map. No, Spider Web diagram is not invented in Malaysia for the iCGPA.

Refer to this publication. 
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/41429939_Visualizing_Desirable_Patient_Healthcare_Experiences/figures?lo=1

I had attended a forum and question and answer sessions on whether iCGPA is to be implemented.
There was a vote, and most do not want iCGPA to be implemented. It means that they do not want to have MQA certification.

Thursday 12 July 2018

Najib gets a taste of his own medicine

https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2018/07/389721/my-own-personal-bank-account-was-frozen-last-week-says-najib

He is lucky. Many more even have their children gifts of rm10 confiscated.

This is the power given to MACC by Najib.

Najib of course has the right to claim back all those but it will take years. Many did not get any news for years. They are supposed to have engaged a lawyer to claim back the money but even then MACC can just ignore them without any consequences.

We are supposed to be protected by judges who should not approve extensions but if there judges can believe that someone who is on the verge of getting married and another on the verge of going for hajj suddenly commit suicide, you know what your chances are.

Worse, we have Federal Counsel who believe that even rm10 should be confiscated and kept in zero interest is their right, as well as all unclaimed or recovered money in their possession, to be fought all the way to the Federal Court, despite winning the argument in lower courts.

So how long can you recover your money? Never, or after you are dead. Do not believe me? I just heard a case from my colleague. His lawyer is trying to work out behind the scenes. This is common practice. I had a few court cases that had been worked out behind the scenes even without my knowledge.

Acceptance of this DAYUS practise is the main culprit. DAYUS means pathetic, and is the 2nd most severe sin in Islam but widely practised. So severe that you are guaranteed hell no matter what other good deeds you had done.

Tuesday 26 June 2018

Weak graduates are not caused by weak teaching!

Despite huge amounts of money spend on education, Malaysians perceive that our graduates are of decreasing quality.


Based on the iCGPA system that is based on OBE, outcome based education, is blamed for putting more burden on lecturers which resulted in poor quality students because less time is spent on teaching.


But teaching is never the reason why graduates are of low quality in the view of employers or the public. No matter how much time is spent on teaching, if low quality students who do not know fundamentals, no interest in learning to the point of submitting assignments and if willing to submit, only know how to plagiarise unchecked, are allowed to graduate, the quality of the graduates will still be low.


The quality of the graduates DEPEND ON THE EVALUATORS, not TEACHERS. The most important function of a teacher is actually not just to teach but to determine who are of sufficient standard to graduate. This had been the case since the Silat and Kung Fu teachers. They just demonstrate how to perform some functions, but most of the time, they just observe how the students perform in order to give feedback on their performance. Students must take the effort to learn the skills by themselves by practising.


Many Malaysians will say that it does not happen in Malaysia but it is very common indeed. Many cases where the entire class got first class honours, with CGPA above 3.5. Why not? If all questions are known, and students are even allowed to bring laptops to the examination hall and the teacher openly help students answer examination questions, right in front of other students.


Just look at the quality of our High School leavers? Who allow them to graduate despite not having basic fundamentals? The examining bodies of course. Despite getting high scores, their standards are still low as determined by international observers.  The number of students that are determined to have passed our public examinations keep on increasing year by year. It appears as though the standard of teaching increases every year. And yet, Universities, Employers and International observers, determine that the standard of education in Malaysia has not increased that much.


And yet, the percentage of students who pass the minimum competency levels keep on increasing. Refer to page 100 of this UNESCO report. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0022/002297/229719E.pdf For PMR, it used to be only 50%, in 2000, to over 60% in 2013.  https://moe.gov.my/images/KPM/UKK/LAPORAN-TAHUNAN-KPM-2016-ilovepdf-compressed.pdf


In Jadual 1, page 107 of the above report, the average grade for SPM keep on increasing from 5.04 to 5.11. It shows that our education system is supposed to have improved. Or does it?


Can we increase the average grade to 7 in 2019? Why not? Just lower the marking marks for these grades. These are just grades. If you really want to be honest, reveal all the marks lah.


You say it is not necessary because grades are subjective because questions vary in difficulties. Let the employers decide for themselves. Raw data is more honest than any messaged grades. I got 88% for my primary 6 examinations in 1969. If they can do it in 1969 for primary schools, why not do it for all examinations today?


The grading system is designed to sort out the qualifications of students. They are not designed to determine the standard of education. They can be messaged in order to satisfy a criterion. If you want the average grade to be 7, then adjust the grading systems to reflect this requirement.


If you want to lower the standard of our students, then lower the lowers for the grades so that almost everybody will get an average of grade 7. If you want to increase the standard of education, then increase the grading mark such that the average is just 3, so that many students fail to graduate.


Then those who graduate are of much higher standard. Those who do not graduate, will be required to repeat, until they achieve the desirable standard. This was what happened during the colonial days. This is what needs to be done if we honestly want to have HIGH QUALITY GRADUATES.


The motivation to learn is far more important to the quality of teaching. Good teachers are good as guidance only. Good teachers are experts in their fields so that they can determine the correct answers for the problems, not that they can explain their subjects well.


If we have public examinations, as for our SPM and STPM, we do not need good teachers at all. Let students take the examinations. Many excellent students managed to score 17 A by studying themselves. I myself, managed to get 4As in GCE A level, in one year, of a two year course, by studying by myself. I was not alone. Another Malaysian also managed to pass the GCE A level examinations by studying by herself as well.


This is not a strange practise because many competency tests are already carried out without requiring any teacher to teach them, such as GRE examination, SAT, TOEFL, driving license, Cisco competency tests and Linux competency tests. Students are allowed to take these tests by studying themselves, or self-learning. So lecturers and teachers should be tasked as testers, not spoon feeders who are required to pass students. This is the current mentality of our education administrators.


That is why, for effective teachers and lecturers, time spent on the iCGPA system is far more useful in increasing the quality of teaching because we are supposed to allow students who achieve a rounded competency, to graduate, instead of just specialised graduates.


Even here, it is up to the employers to decide who should graduate, given the iCGPA data. For the Board of Engineers of Malaysia, it requires graduates to have sufficient knowledge of ethics (PO8)."Apply ethical principles and commit to professional ethics and responsibilities and norms of engineering practice".


Read the requirement carefully. Does it mention about being ethical? Do we need to measure how ethical the graduate is? Not at all. Just apply ethical principles and commit or want to be ethical. That is all.


Do high ranking universities also have this PO? They do, if they want to comply with the Washington Accord agreement which USA, UK, Singapore, Australia and many others agree to.  http://www.abet.org/global-presence/mutual-recognition-agreements/engineering-washington-accord/  https://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/427182 (Is the iCGPA really ill-conceived?) https://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/429170 (Is the iCGPA really ill-conceived? A rebuttal) That is why comments such as the above are just silly. They just do not know what iCGPA is all about. Worse, they implement the iCGPA wrongly, making their work so much harder. For example, when measuring the PO for ethics, which is PO8, we can use one subject, called Ethics and Law in order to measure whether students manage to achieve the standard required by the Washington Accord, in PO8. If you want to simplify your work, just use the whole marks for this subject as the mark for PO8. It is not accurate, but sufficient. What if the student fail in this subject? Should we fail the student in PO8 as well? If you have one subject, you have no choice. That is why, we should have other subjects or circumstances in order to measure.


Our method is to break it into two CO, course outcomes, for the subject Ethics and Law for Engineers. One outcome is measured using exams, the other using Case Studies, i.e. assignment based, backed by Turnitin anti-plagiarism software. We also attempted two more circumstances, such as attendances in selected subjects and marks for proper citation in Final Year Projects. These are weak indicator of commitment to Ethics but it gives a measure of backup or support.


That is why, for each PO, it is better, but not compulsory to have at least 3 CO to backup measurements of this PO. What if a student pass in one CO, but fail in two other COs? We can still allow the student to pass, based on certain circumstances, to be determined by our criteria. If the student fail in all COs, it will be bad.


We can safely say that the student had failed to comply with PO8 based on our passing criteria. This is the contention. What is the passing mark? In order to increase our standard of graduates, we should increase it to over 80% but it will mean most students will fail, and it is also meaningless.


So, the argument that iCGPA is useless in increasing the standard of our graduates is nonsense. It allows us to measure the achievement of our graduates more precisely, instead of just relying on examination results.


Since the quality of graduates is mostly determined by the standard of testing, just like marking of examination questions, more time in marking questions and analysing the results will be most useful in guaranteeing the quality of our graduates.


iCGPA is just a quick way to observe the quality of our graduates, whether they are balanced or not. It is not that unbalanced graduates may not be successful.  For example, students who have high CGPA in fundamentals but weak in ethics. The spider diagram shown by iCGPA will not show a round figure but more oval because some POs have low marks.


iCGPA will just show the diagram. It is up to the employers to accept the graduate or not. If an employer wants to gamble with a student who are strong in fundamentals but weak in ethical knowledge, it is up to them. The employer may be able to provide additional training on ethics later on.


Again, let me emphasise that the quality of graduates depends on the quality of testing. Less time spent in teaching is acceptable. What is the point of teaching, if you do not know your objective? Blindly and aimlessly teaching without knowing the outcome is very bad.


The argument that with less testing, more time can be spent on teaching, is not encouraged because it will lead to spoon feeding. Spoon feeding is so discouraged by the Washington Accord that an entire PO12 is given towards self-learning. (xii) Life Long Learning - Recognise the need for, and have the preparation and ability to engage in independent and life-long learning in the broadest context of technological change."


The importance given to PO12 is similar to PO1, "(i) Engineering Knowledge - Apply knowledge of mathematics, natural science, engineering fundamentals and an engineering specialisation as specified in WK1 to WK4 respectively to the solution of complex engineering problems."


Faculty of Engineering, UMS, has developed an iCGPA online computer program, that uses the BEM PO as the main objective. This fact is included because there were some comments that OBE is different from iCGPA, which is entirely false.  BEM PO, as required by Washington Accord is the OBE developed by ABET. iCGPA is just a renaming of OBE to be applied to MQA standards that is to be applied to other courses in Malaysian universities.


The argument that iCGPA is not used by world leading universities is also false because NTU and NUS engineering courses are required to comply with the Washington Accord. Of course, each university and country will apply different implementations of the Washington Accord, but BEM has chosen to apply word for word the entire Graduates Attributes that are required by the Washington Accord. MQA is different but follow the same spirit.  In fact, MQA requires only 8 PO. https://www.mohe.gov.my/muat-turun/awam/penerbitan/icgpa/124-rubrik-icgpa page 27.


In the example iCGPA, ethics is closest to HPP-4.


https://www.mohe.gov.my/en/download/awam/penerbitan/icgpa/126-pamphlet-icgpa-bi/file page 2, should be 1.


As to iCGPA being not measurable, it is up to the programme to determine outcomes that are measurable only. If you ask yourself to measure something that is unmeasurable, such as how ethical a person is, of course you cannot do it. In fact, impossible. There is nothing wrong with iCGPA. It is the programme that has failed to apply iCGPA properly.


The Minister of Education has made a statement that iCGPA implementation is no longer compulsoray. For Engineering Faculties, implementing the ideas of iCGPA is compulsory because BEM mandated it. For other faculties, it is recommended that they make the extra effort to measure the attributes of their graduates more accurately using the iCGPA guidelines.


Faculties who do not implement iCGPA guidelines will not be able to take the opportunity to produce balanced graduates which is required by Malaysia in order to be progressive. If properly implemented, employers will appreciate it more. Just show the results of the iCGPA, instead of just CPGA, and let employers decide for themselves.


As to the deteriorating in the standard of our graduates despite these advanced measurements, we should not blame the system. It has nothing to do with teaching at all. It is the lowering in the standard of passing for students.


Lecturers are pressured to pass students. In the end, unqualified students are still allowed to pass. It is much easier to pass students than to fail them. If you fail students, you need to justify why students fail.


In the iCGPA, as in all quality systems, CQI (continuous quality improvement) is important. When we identify that many students fail to satisfy our standard, we must find ways to investigate the reasons for the failure.


The easiest way to solve the problem is to lower our standard, then all students will pass. You cannot blame the iCGPA system for this. We must blame our honesty in this regard. The very best system in the world will fail if we are not honest.


Should we therefore abandon iCGPA because we cannot be honest? Just go back to the basic evaluation system which is well established and much better understood. However, if we are not honest, the same lowering of standard of graduates will occur. Making it worse, you do not even know in the areas that the graduates are weak in. The extra teaching hour will never produce better graduates because we allow sub-standard graduates to pass.


Because employers and the public are not stupid. They know that the standard of passing has dropped so they just ignore the grades. In fact, in many companies, especially multi-nationals, the minimum passing mark is CGPA 3.0. If we lower this standard even more, sooner or later, the minimum standard will be CGPA 3.5 and later on, even CGPA 4.0 will be useless, as had happened to certain qualifications in Malaysia and even whole nations.


The solution to this problem of the lowering of standard is just to reverse the practise. If we are really honest in getting high quality graduates, we just ignore all failures, but all passes need to be justified, and even had to go through another independent but simplified test. Exit tests for graduates is vital towards achieving this higher standard. If any students who are deemed to pass, and yet fail in their exit tests, the lecturers had to explain why.


The CQI for iCGPA creates another pressure to pass students because the criteria of quality here is the passing rate. If we use the passing of the iCGPA of students as a performance indicator for lecturers, the best options for the lecturers will be just to pass as many students as possible, thus lowering the quality of graduates.


For me, I use the results to determine new methods and duration of teaching that need to be spent on the subject matter. If the poor results are due to the poor quality of students, this should be investigated. Lecturers should never be investigated for failing students but must be investigated why students pass when their fundamentals are weak.


It will look as though, we may encourage lecturers to point fingers to other lecturers but this is inevitable if we want high quality graduates. Lecturers who just pass students need to be investigated, instead of lecturers who fail students.


Lecturers who fail students are the real heroes of our education system. They have managed to maintain the quality of our graduates all these while. They are a dying breed, I am afraid. So, I appeal to everybody, lecturers, students and the parents, to consider carefully why we must uplift the standard of our graduates.


Why should we care whether the standard of our graduates is still high? How about those who fail? Shouldn't the cost of education so high if we keep on failing students, although we allow them to repeat their subjects?


The answer to the questions above is simply to question our honesty. If we are honest in increasing the quality of our graduates, we need to take drastic measures. Costs are secondary. If we can afford it, we can allow students to repeat. If we cannot, we should just let them fail or take up other courses that are more suitable for them.


If we are really concerned about costs, we should allow brilliant student to graduate early. My estimate is that about 10% of them will be able to graduate a few years early by letting them study by themselves. In fact, courses should be crammed and limited to as few years as possible.


Even for Engineering degrees, 3 years should be the duration of courses. Arguments that it cannot be done for Malaysia is nonsense. Malaysia had implemented 3-year courses it and many students graduated on time. In UK, graduates, including myself, routinely graduate within 3 years. In USA, many students graduate within 2 years, although the entrance requirement is just SPM. In USA, they allow short term courses during the vacation period so that some students can graduate within 2 years.  Why are we kidding ourselves? Some students can study by themselves exceptionally well. Even during colonial days, some students were allowed to upgrade classes in primary schools. Once independent, we downgrade ourselves by pretending that our citizens are not able to do it. There was a scheme that allow students to upgrade by class starting from primary 3, by taking special classes, but it was abandoned. Students as well as nations, save money by graduating early, and yet, we discriminate against ourselves, by pretending that students can get better results by taking more time to graduate. The better examination results by taking longer to study is meaningless in determining the quality of our graduates as shown by UK 3-year graduates vs Malaysian's 4-year graduates.


http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.458.7060&rep=rep1&type=pdf,  and others show that the younger the scientist start working, the more productive they become. Similarly, for inventors, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0040162513001911#bb0165.


As to the larger number of failures for 3-year courses, but allowing weaker students to repeat, will allow the same number of graduates within 4 years also. There was no study of Malaysian students who took the 3-year Engineering degrees in Malaysia and how many of them managed to graduate within 4 years. I bet, that the number of students who graduate should be the same as those who took the 4-year courses. It means that, a significant number of students manage to still graduate within 3 years, that would otherwise waste time studying slowly with the rest of the weaker students. The nation saves tremendous amount of money, that Malaysia need to develop our nation quickly.


The problem is that the Washington Accord only allow 4-year guided courses. No self-learning allowed. Not even 1 year spent on Industrial training, which is surprising to me. To skip this requirement, UK universities still graduate within 3 years but add another year to get an Master, in order to qualify for Chartered Engineering status. http://www.eac.org.my/web/document/FAQ.pdf