A nation built by foreigners, brick by brick

Sharing with you here a good article about foreign workers in KINIBIZ

A Nation Built by Foreigners, Brick by Brick 

KINIBIZ As the Malaysian construction sector boomed over the past few years, with a 12-quarter run of double-digit year-on-year growth rates in terms of construction work value up to the third quarter of 2014, much of it had been on the sweating backs of foreign labourers.

A telling point is that the number of low-skilled foreign workers in Malaysia has increased by 152 percent between 2000 and 2013, according to a strategy paper that formed part of the 11th Malaysia Plan (11MP) that was tabled earlier last year.

Statistics can be deceptive. According to Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) data, the sector employs 9.5 percent of the Malaysian workforce, or 1.2 million registered workers in 2013. Of these, only a quarter of them are foreign workers, according to CIDB.

UM should not punish the students for holding press conference

Six of these University of Malaya (UM) students were faced with disciplinary proceeding by the university 2 days ago (15 Feb) just because they hold a press conference to raise the issue of Internet quota in the university. It is inconceivable that such simple press conference could get them into hot water.

 

I wonder how UM as an institution of higher learning can encourage students to think critically in the search for knowledge if it can't even tolerate simple dissent like internet quota. No, this is not what a world class university, which UM aspires to be, would do. 

The time the university management takes to think of how to discourage dissents should be better spent on how to improve the R&D in the university, how to attract more good faculty members, how to equip the students with skills that are important to the job market etc etc.