RESPONSIBILITIES

At last… we got our connection to the internet back. Everyone responsible for the day to day running of the college must be patting each others’ backs for solving the problem. A problem which is not supposed to be our problem in the first place! Of course we can blame the service provider, or the telecommunication company, or for that matter we ourselves for not buying our own broadband equipment just like a lot of our students do!

Anyway, we are back in the net and that is what matter. Or is it?

We pride ourselves with our ability, despite the objections from a lot of quarters, to convince the government to allow us to upgrade ourselves into first degree graduate producing institution. We convinced ourselves that we are good, capable and at par with universities, if not more! We trumpeted our success and we expect everybody, especially those at the universities to give us the recognition that we so richly deserved.

This is all wonderful and should be given whole hearted support by everyone connected to the 27 institutions and the parent body. And of course, it is!

A word of caution however is needed here. In the midst of our excitement, let us not forget the reality. All those upgrading and rebranding and whatever else we have been doing so far will come to no avail if it is just superficial, skin deep and haphazardly planned and implemented. Let us ask ourselves, are we really ready for this responsibility? Don’t forget that the government through the ministries of education and higher education, is trying its utmost best to make us the centre of excellence for education not only in this region but also worldwide.

Let us look closely at our abilities, both in terms of infrastructural and human resource aspects. Are we ready?

During the MQA session a couple of weeks ago, it was pointed out that the physical facilities available were adequate but are not really fully sufficient for a degree level institute. Guess what… someone took offence and quietly mumbled at the back that that was not important, as a lot of universities do not even have proper buildings! Some only rented shop lots to be utilized as classrooms!

Valid point, but then it’s a question of responsibility, accountability and integrity isn’t it? If those so called universities are doing irresponsible things like that, should we also be doing the same thing? We are producing teachers after all. Our products will go into society to shape the minds of our future generation, and if we imply to them that it is perfectly acceptable to do things in a not very proper manner, are they not going to pass the same thing to our future generation?

Another thing which I picked up from the numerous mini forums outside the meeting room during the MQA session was that failure to get accreditation was not an option because of two things. One, the government had poured millions of tax payers money into the programme (well we did but as everything else in Malaysia we pass the responsibility and accountability to someone else) and all those millions will become money down the drain if we failed to get accreditation. The government will get a lot of questions in parliament if that was to happen (notice it’s the government and not us- my sincerest apology for the minister who has to answer for us). Second, the programme is in its last semester. If the programme was not given accreditation now, it would never get one, at least for the current students who would have nothing but their SPM certificates to show for after five and a half years of study. What kind of a cruel person would let such a thing happen? It would never happen; not in Malaysia!

There was an air of confidence that everything would turn out alright!

Maybe I am missing a point here. A very important one by the look of it!

I am not a chess man, and I would never gamble with my students’ future! Imagine if the MQA panel decided that the programme did not deserve accreditation?

I share the optimism that everything would turn out alright for our students, but I am now 0.01% less confident that we will get the acknowledgement from the education fraternity that we so richly deserved. It is Hard for me to steadfastly defend my assertion that we are at par with our colleagues from the universities when we still don’t seem to understand the meaning of responsibility and accountability.

Our stated mission is to produce world class teachers, but it seems that some of us still do not understand the meaning of that mission statement.