http://malaysia-today.net/blog2006/newsncom.php?itemid=5786

only 395 of the 1,456 students who had benefited from the programme had settled their study loans.

Another thing, when we signed our loan agreement previously, there was no such thing as if the borrower is a first class honor graduate, he/she can be exempted to repay back the loan. However, some of my friends from my batch were entitled to do so (after the announcement by the government). This is not fair to the rest of us.

By this I mean the other Singh i.e. the one who likes to drink cows milk with ginger.

Have to agree that the letter doesn’t sound ‘formal’ enough or properly written in Queen’s English but does it matter when the issue highlighted in the letter is as clear as daylight.

PTPTN has been plagued by inefficient and messy administration for a long long time. And I dare say, the same goes for a lot of other government agencies and offices (except perhaps the tax collection department). This is the major problem in Malaysia;
if it’s not lack of planning or ad hoc measures, then it’s bad planning, if it’s not bad planning then it’s lack of proper execution.

What does it take to make civil servants take their jobs seriously ?
What does it take to get the proper people in the proper positions of power to make things change for the better ?

I don’t think his English is that good. Lots of grammatical errors, spelling errors, wrong phraseology and wrong use of words etc.

This is no big issue but, though may not be intended, what was said did come across to some of us as condescending.

When one comments that OMJ’s letter “gives us an indication and insight of the education standards and the standard of English that is being used today”, it may well be criticism directed at our Ministry of Education but it does not mean the person, who is a product of its policies, will be spared from the fallout of that criticism. One cannot, for example, condemn a tertiary institution as substandard and yet expect its alumni not to feel depreciated. This is especially so when the OMJ had been patronised by thje further suggestion that he had not sufficient “taste of the real world” by whining, complaining and getting his blood pressure up every time. Perhaps he is not just whining for the sake of whining but is merely bringing to the attention of this blog here how, from his experience, he or any one of us might be victimized by a government agency like PTPTN not through our own default but its own inefficiency and lache.

Here we have different people of different language facility and the overriding interest is to hear the contents of the message than to evaluate the messenger’s command of the language to communicate them.

If we are to continue to receive feedback on how in various way members of the public and rakyat are aggrieved by our bureaucrats’ inefficiency and lackadaisical attitude, then we should be sensitive not to criticize the messenger and his language that may deter him from daring, the next time around, to express his views freely in fear of exposing his language weakness, which he had been told in no uncertain terms, though he was supposed to be consoled that the criticism was not directed at him but the education system, as if it were a big consolation.

No offence, just my two cents worth.

So OMJ’s problem could also have been created by him.

I hope he resolves his problem soon.

It is interesting you cite this scenario. As one who is not resident in Bolehland, I gave a standing instruction to my bank like you said before I left. No action by this international bank who thinks (and perhaps act) as locals do.

So I phoned them my personal banker who promised a lot of things. Still alot of mess. Whose fault was it? Mine? Theirs? Or could it be the electronic systems which are inflexible and not able react like humans could. Or did I fail to checked all the relevant boxes, left out something, commited a typing error, mail lost in cyberspace etc etc? A thousand and one possible reasons that gave rise to the problem.

If you have a problem, what would be most important would be to sort out the problem and get things up and running quickly and smoothly. And this unfortunately will require some positive action and effort.

My problems with this bank and another local bank took 3 months to resolve. Face it, nothing is perfect and glitches will happen from time to time. If it happens to you, thats tough luck but who’s immune? Thats what make life interesting and frustrating.

Hope all your transactions will be smooooooth and problem free.

I did not chastise or criticise him. But merely said it gives us an insight as to the standard of English as it is spoken and written today especially by graduates. No wonder we have many unemployable graduates who also whine a lot and not take efforts to sort out life’s many problems but thinks the world owes them a living.

If you have noted from the several other letters written in to Kit by graduates and students in recent months on several issues, you too would be appalled. Perhaps the powers there be would take note and take positive action to arrest this deteriorating problem. Perhaps the blog owner might even wish to put up a seperate posting on this topic.

We were once on the forefront on the usage of English but sadly today even Indonesians, Thais, mainland Chinese can put us all to shame. They have taken the centerstage in the world’s arena. You should all therefore clamour for positive action instead of taking your usual cheap daily pot shots and think you are mighty smart or righteous.

Also note that although much money have been spent on e-government etc, in reality a lot needs to be desired. Do not expect everything to be in tip-top shape in Bolehland but DO expect alot of failings to be sorted out the Bolehland way.

Amen.

Nowadays passport could be renewed on the same day and there is little or no room at all for bribery anymore. Congratulation to the Immigration Dept for being efficiency and that is the way to combat corruption.

Sherrif singh, I certainly don’t think OMJ is at fault here. Let me offer you a scenario and I hope you can answer my question truthfully. Let say you take a loan from a bank and communicate to the bank through email (a mode of communication provided by the bank) to have a standing instruction to pay for the loan (which the bank duly comply without any further communication). Then, out of the blue, you receive a letter demanding interest payment for a certain sum. What would you do? Would you say that it’s partly your fault. You don’t have to answer me. I am sure both of us would know what your answer is.

I do agree that the standard of English used by OMJ is a bit off (although I don’t have a good command of English either). We proudly claim that Malaysians bi- or tri- lingual but the reality is that we are good in almost none. Believe me, some Malays don’t even have a good command of proper Malays. Likewise, there are a lot of Chinese who don’t know how to speak Chinese and feel extremely proud of that. I really pity this group of Chinese; they speak English but Malaysian version of English that most native speaker of English has problem understanding, and they’re proud of it. Probably we can call it “Malaysian Syndrome” as like what we see in the PTPTN case, Malaysian are proud of their e-this and e-that while the fact is that these “e”s are not really as good as what they claim (due to incompetencies in their design or implementation).

He may not have as good a control of the English language as you have. But no one should be chastised for his lack of control of a language for merely wanting the attention of his government so that he could discharge his duties as an honest citizen properly.

On the other hand he may not have that many years to his name as someone who has been drinking cow milk more years than he cares to count.