Singapore vs Malaysia

(in response to Malaysia being highly rated as compared to Singapore by their ASEAN neighbours as reported by a survey)

Singapore is just like Israel...always has siege mentality...always thinks highly of themselves, surrounded by hostile neighbours...close relation with the US...and militarily strong...I am not surprised if one day they secretly develop nuclear weapons too.

But in many ways we should emulate them. Their universities are among the best in the world (NUS is top 25 in the world) while our best can only be no.192nd? On this I think our Government should allow at least one university to be truly based on Meritocracy. Let them choose their own VC, take in students based on merits (regardless of race), practise true democracy in student elections, promote professors based on academic excellence and do away with bumiputera quota just for this one university. Let's see this university can be as good as NUS. The outcome will prove whether or not our poor ranking is due to absence of Meritocracy and lack of freedom due to Univ & Univ Colleges Act. If the ranking improves then we know the real reason why we are rated so low on the world ranking.

Other things that Malaysia would do well to emulate are their achievements in biotechnology. In fact, the have created Biopolis, something like our MSC but forbiotech where they attract famous professors/researchers from US and Europe to do groundbreaking research in biotechnology. Some years ago Malaysia also has a scheme to attract Malaysian professionals working abroad to return and contribute to development of this country. But I hardly see any "brain gain" coming our way. What I see is the reverse - "brain drain". I can testify to the fact that some of my Malaysian friends and many others who are now in Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia etc.?

On world ranking for corruption perception they also do better than us. While we claim we are true Muslims (model for the Muslim world), we don't do well on the corruption index either.
And, by the way, two other muslim countries have won the Nobel Prize for this year: Turkey for Literature and Bangladesh for Peace. What happened to this model Muslim country of ours?

17-10-2006