MALAYSIA’S USELESS DOCTORAL THESES WHICH DO NOT BENEFIT ANYONE OTHER THAN THEIR AUTHORS.
…AND HOW SOME WHO MIGHT HAVE ACQUIRED STALE KNOWLEDGE FROM HARVARD AND THE OTHER MAJOR AND MINOR UNIVERSITIES.
By Mansor Puteh
HOW MANY OF THE DOCTORAL THESES WHICH MALAYSIAN SCHOLARS HAVE WORKED ON HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED?
ARE THEY NOT PROUD TO HAVE THEM PUBLISHED TO ALLOW THE MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC AND ACADEMIC COMMUNITY TO PERUSE THEM TO SEE IF THEY ARE OF ANY SUBSTANCE?
AND HOW MUCH OF WHAT THEY HAD DISCOVERED IN THE COURSE OF THEIR RESEARCH ON THEIR THESES COULD BE SAID TO HAVE BECOME USEFUL AND WERE IMPLEMENTED AS STATE POLICIES?
Do they know what are doctoral theses for in the first place?
These are interesting questions that have to be asked.
Because the government wants to encourage Malaysians to work on their doctorates, but what they have not said is why should they all want to do that if all that they can ever do is to write a lengthy essay on anything that does not bring any benefit to the respective industries and society?
What’s the point of getting many Malaysians with doctorates, when they can never be trusted with anything?
What’s the point too for Malaysians to go to some of the prestigious universities abroad when they can just go to anyone if the only reason for them to pursue their degrees or doctorates is to get them but without using what they had spent a lot of time to research on?
They can just add the ‘Dr.’ prefix before their name and get everybody to refer to them as Doctors. There are also some who call themselves Doctors in the first person instead of using their own names.
These people will feel naked and even stupid if they do not have such a prefix before their names or if they are not called Doctors by the others.
This is a Forties mentality. It is also a Third World mentality.
It is therefore very embarrassing that we can have such people who like to be called Doctors or Professors when they hardly behave like academicians or scholars and who have not been known to have said or written anything original, interesting and intelligent at all.
A country can still be said to be less developed even if every other person has a doctorate. Because it is not a way for any country to be gauged on its development. It is seen from other perspectives.
It is also therefore strange that the government does not require its senior officials to have doctorates. Many of them do not even have a master’s degree despite them being in the government for so long.
In fact, most of those who are in politics and are elected members of parliament and the state assemblies do not have impressive academic backgrounds.
Most of those who are in the cabinet are also of the same stripe.
Maybe it’s because they knew they could not excel in education that they forced themselves to enter politics where the requirements are not as stringent as for someone who wishes to teach at the university.
In the end, it’s the universities that have the best qualified persons in the country whereas in politics we have some of the least impressive ones.
And it is also ironic how some of those who are in the cabinet and politics who are trying to get some others to study hard and get their doctorates, when they have not taken any trouble to further their education beyond the first degree that they have from a local university.
There are so few doctoral theses which have been published, and fewer still, or none of what their authors had discovered in their research has been known to have become state policies.
So in the end many of the doctorate holders in Malaysia including those who had studied at some of the prestigious Ivy League and Oxbrige universities had acquired stale knowledge from them.
They have not said or written anything new. They have only rewritten and repeated what had been researched by earlier scholars. They are no more arm-chair experts.
The many Malaysians who have their doctorates were only working on their theses purely for the purpose of allowing them to get better employment with a better pay.
None has gone to become renowned in their own field of specialization.
Worse, there are even some whose theses have been denounced by themselves. They have the cheek to say what they had done was purely as an ‘academic exercise’.
How could this be so? One works on a doctoral thesis as a personal conviction and not just to get a doctorate degree. This one can do at an earlier time when one is not sure of understanding anything.
It is too bad that many Malaysians had gone abroad to study at some of the most prestigious universities in America and elsewhere but who did not bring any real benefit to the country that might have sponsored their studies over the few years at huge expense.
Of course, they are now able to stand up and be counted. But they are not benefiting the country in ways that no one could imagine.
No wonder the economy of the country could not expand and grow at a faster space, to include and capitalize whatever potentials Malaysians have in whatever fields of endeavor they are interested in.
The economy of the country is still centered on the major interests of the economists and the politicians and not because the country has talents that can be exploited for the good of the country.
That the economists in Malaysia are dull is a fact. They are also narrow-minded. They do not know what moves the economy of the most developed countries in the world and how they use economic planning and development to create social, cultural and political stability.
They only know how to think that by improving the quality of life and the personal incomes of the people, they will be happy and contented.
By Mansor Puteh
HOW MANY OF THE DOCTORAL THESES WHICH MALAYSIAN SCHOLARS HAVE WORKED ON HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED?
ARE THEY NOT PROUD TO HAVE THEM PUBLISHED TO ALLOW THE MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC AND ACADEMIC COMMUNITY TO PERUSE THEM TO SEE IF THEY ARE OF ANY SUBSTANCE?
AND HOW MUCH OF WHAT THEY HAD DISCOVERED IN THE COURSE OF THEIR RESEARCH ON THEIR THESES COULD BE SAID TO HAVE BECOME USEFUL AND WERE IMPLEMENTED AS STATE POLICIES?
Do they know what are doctoral theses for in the first place?
These are interesting questions that have to be asked.
Because the government wants to encourage Malaysians to work on their doctorates, but what they have not said is why should they all want to do that if all that they can ever do is to write a lengthy essay on anything that does not bring any benefit to the respective industries and society?
What’s the point of getting many Malaysians with doctorates, when they can never be trusted with anything?
What’s the point too for Malaysians to go to some of the prestigious universities abroad when they can just go to anyone if the only reason for them to pursue their degrees or doctorates is to get them but without using what they had spent a lot of time to research on?
They can just add the ‘Dr.’ prefix before their name and get everybody to refer to them as Doctors. There are also some who call themselves Doctors in the first person instead of using their own names.
These people will feel naked and even stupid if they do not have such a prefix before their names or if they are not called Doctors by the others.
This is a Forties mentality. It is also a Third World mentality.
It is therefore very embarrassing that we can have such people who like to be called Doctors or Professors when they hardly behave like academicians or scholars and who have not been known to have said or written anything original, interesting and intelligent at all.
A country can still be said to be less developed even if every other person has a doctorate. Because it is not a way for any country to be gauged on its development. It is seen from other perspectives.
It is also therefore strange that the government does not require its senior officials to have doctorates. Many of them do not even have a master’s degree despite them being in the government for so long.
In fact, most of those who are in politics and are elected members of parliament and the state assemblies do not have impressive academic backgrounds.
Most of those who are in the cabinet are also of the same stripe.
Maybe it’s because they knew they could not excel in education that they forced themselves to enter politics where the requirements are not as stringent as for someone who wishes to teach at the university.
In the end, it’s the universities that have the best qualified persons in the country whereas in politics we have some of the least impressive ones.
And it is also ironic how some of those who are in the cabinet and politics who are trying to get some others to study hard and get their doctorates, when they have not taken any trouble to further their education beyond the first degree that they have from a local university.
There are so few doctoral theses which have been published, and fewer still, or none of what their authors had discovered in their research has been known to have become state policies.
So in the end many of the doctorate holders in Malaysia including those who had studied at some of the prestigious Ivy League and Oxbrige universities had acquired stale knowledge from them.
They have not said or written anything new. They have only rewritten and repeated what had been researched by earlier scholars. They are no more arm-chair experts.
The many Malaysians who have their doctorates were only working on their theses purely for the purpose of allowing them to get better employment with a better pay.
None has gone to become renowned in their own field of specialization.
Worse, there are even some whose theses have been denounced by themselves. They have the cheek to say what they had done was purely as an ‘academic exercise’.
How could this be so? One works on a doctoral thesis as a personal conviction and not just to get a doctorate degree. This one can do at an earlier time when one is not sure of understanding anything.
It is too bad that many Malaysians had gone abroad to study at some of the most prestigious universities in America and elsewhere but who did not bring any real benefit to the country that might have sponsored their studies over the few years at huge expense.
Of course, they are now able to stand up and be counted. But they are not benefiting the country in ways that no one could imagine.
No wonder the economy of the country could not expand and grow at a faster space, to include and capitalize whatever potentials Malaysians have in whatever fields of endeavor they are interested in.
The economy of the country is still centered on the major interests of the economists and the politicians and not because the country has talents that can be exploited for the good of the country.
That the economists in Malaysia are dull is a fact. They are also narrow-minded. They do not know what moves the economy of the most developed countries in the world and how they use economic planning and development to create social, cultural and political stability.
They only know how to think that by improving the quality of life and the personal incomes of the people, they will be happy and contented.
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