Yankee Doodle Bangalore

Online NewsHour: Tom's Journal: American Jobs in India -- March 9, 2004 relates how as many as 4 million American jobs to be outsourced to India over the next 10 years (which I find conservative). New York Times columnist Tom Friedman spoke about the now large and ever growing outsource industry and identified a truly concerted Indian strategy to offer exactly what American firms needed - cheaper, yet well-trained English speaking human resource who have nothing to lose and everything to gain!

Ever heard of an "accent neutralization" class? This is where Indian youths are trained to adopt different accents of the English Language when dealing with calls. This is a fine example of business adaptation which goes to show why India is now arguably the call center capital of the world.

There is even an impact on regional security covered in this segment:

TERENCE SMITH: You were there at a time, just recently, at a time when there is a real rapprochement between India and Pakistan settling some very long-standing differences, or working on it anyway. Is it related to the economic uplift of all these jobs?

THOMAS FRIEDMAN: Directly related, because India now is part of a global supply chain. These American companies -- GE, Microsoft, American Express -- have moved parts of their back rooms to India, to Bangalore. Now, comes along the India-Pakistan crisis -- I'll tell you exactly what happened. These American companies got on the phone and told their Indian back rooms, "Friends, we're going to have to look for an alternative for you. You don't want us to be looking for an alternative, and we don't want to be looking for an alternative."

When you're part of a global supply chain like that, you can't say, "Oh, we're going to take a week off to fight a war. We'll see you." You will shut down whole major corporations. Well, that has percolated up.

The Malaysian equivalent is an old story that is no longer valid with the phenomenal appetite of China. We have lost our manufacturing excellence and relatively cheap skilled labour. We need to identify our new niche - to see ourselves beyond OEM to ODM for example. Have we identified this?
Our skills are moving upstream and as yet, very little in form or intent has been demonstrated. How are we, as a nation equipping ourselves to compete? What steps have we put in place to train relevantly skilled labour? And I am not referring to the current programmes under the purview of our Human Resource Ministry which is merely subsidizing sub-standard skill training institutions.

We speak of building a knowledge-based society. Fair and well, except that for every knuckle-down programming job available in the market, 3 out of 4 finds its way to India and China. As a culture, we can scarce be called a nation of orators, which knocks customer service out of the list.

How about bio-engineering? It is relatively new and our rain forests are unique as they are filled with potential for new medicinal cures and nutrition. Until now, the largest single investment into this was by our much maligned MAVCAP. RM 20 million into a tongkat ali factory that clearly highlights which organs they are opting for when it comes to ideas...

There's Petronas and our natural treasure trove - how many Malaysian are trained to offer value added services and products along these lines? One only needs to ask around to realise that most of the upstream (and even some downstream) revenue is heading in the wrong direction - which is a distinct shame.

After looking east for so long, try Bangalore for new ideas...

Hishamuddin: PTK passing grade very high

(Headline translation: I'm sorry, you failed and it's our fault) according to Education Minister Datuk Hishammuddin Tun Hussein. Now, it is no longer a measure of whether teachers are fit enough to teach, since all of us are well aware of the incredible ability of our local teachers to perform educational miracles - just look at the PMR results, he says...

The question is this. If this is only a tool to determine annual increments for the teachers, should not it be based on the teacher's ability to teach? What does failure indicate? If Teregganu state continues to record the highest number of top scorers for UPSR for 3 years running, surely a majority, if not most of the UPSR teachers would at least pass the PTK. Or am I being irrelevant?

I am sure remunerative rewards or promotions of any sort are not based upon our birthright, since not many of us can claim to have an ex-PM as our father. Now we are told, it is not based upon their ability and therefore teachers should not feel discouraged.

My problem at the end of the day is that I feel that many of the 99.1% who failed deserved to in the first place - and that is not something to be swept under the carpet, even at the expense of poorly thought programs.

My dear PM, your sweeping mandate is one empowering you to sweep away the inconsistencies of such pathetic leadership. Silakan...

Death No.1 - NS

I take no pleasure in pointing fingers. Only wonder what accountability will be assumed by the organisers of the NS - top down. Based at the Universiti Institut Teknologi Mara campus in Kota Samarahan, one wonders what this stint will do to the group of youths faced with such tragedy.

Surely I will be practical enough to accept the fact that accidents do happen. However, a sense of accountability must exists where consideration is given to the adequacy of safety procedures and the abilities of those in charge to minimize, if not prevent such a reoccurance. Once again to ask if indeed the ministry was indeed ready to implement this is in the first place. Will we even see accountability in the first place?

To the family of Awang Mohd Fazil, we can only share in your grief. I wonder what would be the result if one of the evaders "forced" into camp were to become a victim of such an accident. Where will the axe of blame fall on?

Back... at last!

Yeah, and I am the only one waiting with abated breath...

Anyway, during my absence, I got to show my newborn child how life looks like outside mummy's womb and I think we get along really well. Which is more than can be said about our so-called newborn government so far.

Let's look the the skid marks on the road to wherever Pak Lah and bandwagon are heading, starting with National Service - The publishing of names of young people who have evaded the NS. The ACA is nowhere near disclosing the names of people under active investigation for corruption even though some are public leaders who deserve more public scrutiny than a youth gone AWOL from a poorly planned boot camp.

Meanwhile, the problems associated with the training so far only goes to confirm the general suspiscion that it is nothing more that a poorly planned boot camp. The lack of proper trainers, supervision and I suspect, no agenda makes this an expensive but utterly futile exercise.

Lest I be accused of being a back seat driver, let me propose the following:

a. Reduce the number of trainees to a manageable figure e.g. 10,000 and allow the ministry to consolidate its resources like trainers etc.
b. Present a definite objective for the program - racial integration does not happen by putting kids of differrent races in one building - if not the national schools concept would suffice.
c. Present a definite statement of what national service does NOT cover - i.e. religious undertones, capital punushment etc.
d. Coduct a survey before and after the camp. Survey forms should contain questions on the program, trainers and even complains section. Ideally, the forms should be anonymous and collated by another ministry - e.g. Ministry of Youth for example - to promote transparency and prevent cover-ups. The same report should be make public.
e. Motivation for students to enroll - i.e. priority placement in local universities for trainees who achieve the minimum threshold. (P.S. This will definitely draw in the non-muslims)
f. The appointment of ex-headmasters and retired teachers, retired commercial and medical professionals to participate as trainers. How many 55 year olds are there in the program? Think of the experience we are losing out on... Also the trainer demographics should mirror our national figures.
g. The setting up of external inspectors (again from another ministry) to conduct on-site evaluation of programs.
h. The transparent disclosure of all events held at each camp for parents to monitor.
i. The implementation of 24 hour hotline for campers which reports directly to another ministry.

And the list goes on - which goes to show - if one silly blogger could come up with this, how much preparation was done by Mindef?

I am tempted to go onto gaffe no.2 but let's save it for my next posting...