Terence Netto | Apr 14, 2012
Malaysiakini

Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng gave a little homily on institutional economics on the occasion of state government awards to top students and schools in the 2011 STPM examination.

Lim told his audience of proud parents and top-scoring students at the award ceremony in Komtar today that the Pakatan Rakyat government’s clean and effective administration conduced to higher rewards for its citizens.

As example, he cited the RM500 rewards to the 50 top-finishing students in the state in the STMP examination of last year, up from RM400 given to top scorers in 2010.

The monetary awards were inaugurated in 2009, a year after the DAP-led Pakatan government came to power in Penang.

“The reason we can give more this year is simple: we run a government that is not corrupt,” he said.

“Because our governance is competent, accountable and transparent, we can show a surplus of income over expenditure enabling us to plough back progressively higher benefits to the people,” he explained.

Lim went on to list the escalating range of recipients of annual state government handouts to Penang residents, from senior citizens (60 years and above), the bereaved, university entrants, and year one and four schoolchildren, and year one and four secondary school students.

He said that it was not for nothing that Penang was the top state in terms of gaining the highest quantum of manufacturing investment among Malaysian states for the years 2010 and 2011.

“We have gained that ranking because of our clean governance and we intend to stay that way to make Penang a clean, green, healthy and safe place for people to invest, work and live,” he claimed.

M’sian students fail to enter Harvard

Lim derided the view that the education system in Malaysia was superior to ones in United Kingdom and Germany and noted as reproof the failure of Malaysian students to gain entry into Harvard University for the second year in succession.

He said that Thailand and Vietnam had bested Malaysia in this respect, sending more students to the world’s premier tertiary institution.

He urged the top-scoring STPM students, whom he envisaged would proceed to the study of medicine, law, engineering, accountancy and architecture, to pursuits that would require a multidisciplinary orientation.

To fortify his point, he cited US President Barack Obama’s nominee for the post of World Bank president, Jim Yong Kim, a medical doctor who went on to head the World Health Organisation HIV/AIDS programme and to co-found Partners in Health, an NGO that did good work combating the scourge of tuberculosis in the Third World.

Jim went on to be president of Dartmouth College, a prestigious academic institution in the US.

Lim told students that the “world was their oyster” and that they should steer by a compass that would lead them to be trailblazers, more than just successful professionals.

“After your have qualified, come back to Penang to make this state a green, clean, healthy and safe place in which to live and work,” advised Guan Eng.

The bulk of the 50 recipients who all obtained 4As in the STPM were from Jit Sin Secondary in Bukit Mertajam, the top scoring school in the state, and from Chung Ling chapters in Georgetown and Butterworth.