flynn099

 Recently I was invited by Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN) as a panelist in a forum that discussed about the impact of curriculum on graduate employability. One participant (a student) raised the issue about the relevance of curriculum with the actual demand of the job market, i.e., whether what they learn in three or four years curriculum is adequate to prepare them for the real job. Another participant (a teacher counselor) also echoed the same concern of their students, especially at a point when the students are deciding which programme to take at the degree level. For example, if a student take a programme in Forensic Science, would he/she end up working as a forensic personnel? I think in some professional courses such as medicine, pharmacy, law and perhaps engineering, it is reasonable to expect that the graduates would end up as medical doctors, pharmacists, lawyers and engineers because there is always a great demand for them in the government (public) and private sect...

" Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime .” This phrase is simply mean that having a good job is better than giving someone a handout. This is an inspiring story of Dr Muhammad Yunus ( read his biography ), the recipient of 2006 Nobel Peace Price for his creation, the Grameen Bank , to help the poor people in Bangladesh. Grameen Bank provides small loans through a micro-credit (small loans for self-employment) scheme to millions of poor families in Bangladesh to start and grow their own business. Since its establishment the Grameen Bank has helped almost half of them work their way out of poverty.The repayment rate was said to be more than 98%. " You cannot get a dollar without a dollar in your hand ", he said. Dr Muhammad believes the concept of Grameen can end world poverty: " There is no reason why poverty should be here. This is a rich country - 120 million energetic, hardworking, intelligent people. The...

Picture source: Flickr " Education is a human right with immense power to reform. On its foundation rest the cornerstones of freedom, democracy and sustainable human development.... there is no higher priority, no mission more important, than that of Education for All " -- (Kofi Annan, 1998) " ....essential learning tools (such as literacy, oral expression, numeracy and problem solving) and the basic learning content (knowledge, skills, values and attitudes) required by human beings to be able to survive, to develop their full capacities, to live and work in dignity, to participate fully in development, to improve the quality of their lives, to make informed decisions and to continue learning " -- (World Declaration on Education for All 1990). Nearly one quarter of the world's population live in extreme poverty, on less than the equivalent of US$ 1 per day. 70% of these people are women. 39% of the 1.3 billion people live in South Asia, 34% in East Asia and the ...

" If someone is going down the wrong road, he doesn’t need motivation to speed him up. What he needs is education to turn him around " – Jim Rohn . " The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn " - John Lubbock . In the TED talks, Shukla Bose tells the story of educating the poor in India’s slums through her groundbreaking Parikrma Humanity Foundation which brings education to the deprived group. As Bose puts it, the goal of the foundation is to help build a better India by tapping its greatest strength: the vitality and potential of its people. " Education of children is at the core of our aim to transform poor communities into self-sustaining, contributing communities , says Bose.  The vision is to see every street and slum child gets the opportunity and access to education. S he adds " We also believe that it's the content that is more important…it's not the infras...

" There are places on Earth, in every country where, for various reasons, good schools cannot be built and good teachers cannot or do not want to go. And those places, as it turns out, is often where trouble comes from " – Sugata Mitra . The title of this posting is taken from the “Hole-in-the-Wall” website . Hole-in-the-Wall is a famous experiment conducted in 1999 by Professor Sugata Mitra and his research in a slum area in New Dehli, India to prove that kids (in this case deprived kids) could teach themselves and learn on their own without any formal training. In this experiment, a computer was embedded in a wall and connected to high speed internet and left it there. True enough, curious children were immediately crowded around the computer and “playing” with it. Within hours and without instruction, children began browsing the Web. "I repeated the experiment across India and noticed that children will learn to do what they want to learn to do", said Mitra. Fol...

This is an animated version of a talk given at the RSA by Sir Ken Robinson, world-renowned education and creativity expert and recipient of the RSA's Benjamin Franklin award.