With the rising numbers of young inspiring employees becoming the Chief Executives Officers (“CEO”) at various government link and private companies, I am therefore more than determined to be one of those young excellent CEO’s in these coming years.

At the age of 29, I plan to enroll myself into the Master’s of Business Administration (“MBA”) course in Universiti Teknologi Mara (“UiTM”) and I see myself holding a respectable position in various companies by the age of 33 and above.

By having a clear goal in my head, I believe MBA is one of the things which is needed for me to accomplish my career goal.

I graduated in Bachelor of Business Management (Transport) from UiTM in 2006. I completed my tertiary education at a Methodist school in Klang. My parents asked me to further my studies on MBA after my degree program but I insisted to work. Reason for opting career is because I need to have the industry knowledge and I myself wants to study instead of being pushed by someone else. Up to now, I have been working for more than 6 years since the day I left UiTM.

I started my career by joining Maersk Logistics (M) Sdn Bhd. They are a well-known Multinational Company focusing in the shipping and logistics industry. I stayed there for 2 years before I joined Sapura Crest Petroleum Bhd (“Sapura”) which is known as Sapura Kencana Petroleum Berhad due to the new joint venture between Sapura and Kencana Petroleum Bhd.

Their company is listed in Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange (“KLSE”) main board. Having work there for 4 years, it has opened up my mind of becoming the CEO one day. A dream is nothing without dedication and perseverance and thus it has ignited a burning desire for me to study and improve my skills.

Based on my research, I found that most senior managers and board of directors, they need to have a strong background in accounting, finance and have masters certificate. All these are necessities for company’s growth.

Working at the executive level deals more with internal issues but management level will need to think outside the box as they will deal with clients, markets, public expectations, government and competitors. Having mentioned all this, I strongly see the importance of having MBA. In short, I plan to pursue my masters based on followings: -

For personal gain which is beneficial for career;

Enhance the leadership skills with the in-house training (classes, assignments, group discussions and report writings);

Improve the decision making skills as this is a skill which needs to be learned theoretically and daily at work;

To serve better to the company that I am working for.

It takes a lot of time, dedication, commitment and discipline to complete part time master’s program. This world is a cruel world. Nobody will wait and hold your hands in the corporate world. To survive and to be better, you need to get ready for all the challenges which can sometimes makes your life go haywire.

Therefore, I am taking this opportunity to prove to myself that I can give my commitment to work and also pursue my MBA at the same time. One of my referees is my Department General Manager. She herself knows that study part time is not easy especially in the industry I am working with. However, she mentioned that the desire to study is good and to complete the program is the reward.

In working environment, there are employees who shines from the early stage of their career and managed to climb the ladder fast and there are employees who take their own sweet time to climb the ladder. If we don’t take the challenge now, it will be hard for employers to notice us.

Lastly, MBA is one of my dreams when I was a little boy as I still remembers reading my dad’s MBA pocket book. So now is my time to have my own MBA certificate which will be something I can be proud of one day.

There are a lot of scholarships given from the government and the non-governmental (private) to our Malaysian students. Scholarship issues has always been a hot topic as it involve a lot of dissatisfaction from various parties especially the non-bumis. Bumiputra’s students has been given 90:10 percentage from Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam (JPA) which is also known as Public Service Department (PSD).

Due to the dissatisfaction which arises from many parties, government has changed the policy to 55:45 in 2009. Although the public can still complain regarding the quota which the bumis is still enjoying, they must take note that this privilege falls under Article 153 in the constitution in which the bumiputra is entitled to receive scholarship.

Without any dispute, bumiputra students will have their rights for scholarship. Is this inequality of rights good in the eyes of Malaysians? It is definitely debatable but Article 153 is created to ensure that bumis are given their chance to improve the education which can lead to a better living and avoid economic gap between other races.

Bumis are considered as the native of the nation as they have been here longer than the non-bumis which was actually brought in the 18 centuries by the British. Although they were brough in much later, they are the ones that hold the economics in Malaysia. Prior to independence, the non-bumis are given the chance to be the citizen of Malaysia provided they fight and consider themselves as Malaysian.

In the 70’s and 80’s, the economic gap is so huge and governement has therefore developed strategies to improve the economics of the bumis. One way to improve on the economics is by giving scholarship to the bumis to study abroad. This strategy has worked well as many of the graduates has returned back to Malaysia and be part of the economic transformation. Once their life improved, they will also ensure their following generation also improved in terms of education and social needs.

Anyhow, those were the days in which the first generation of the scholars. The non bumis has started to complain from those time as they find this as disadvantaged them. They on the other side must work hard to ensure they are able to send their kids to overseas to pursue their studies as we were not having enough of universities in the 70’s, 80’s and early 90’s. They keep on pressuring the government to abolish the Malay quota for scholarship as they believed education is for all which falls under the Malaysian citizenship.

Finally, our government has reduced the quota for bumis to only 55 percent instead of 90 percent for JPA scholar. Although government has reduced the quota, non-bumis are still making noise. I truly believe they will stop making such noises only when bumis are not getting any scholarship privileges.

Due to this never ending issues, I am writing this term paper to highlight why government should re-consider giving scholarship to overseas universities.

Why was Bumi’s students sent abroad in 70’s, 80’s and 90’s

a. To improve the standard of living among the bumis

The bumis which were given the scholarship mostly come from the underprivileged areas and thus one way to improve the living standard is by giving a good education to them. In those period, our local universities were not able to provide courses which are technical based as we were a developing country and thus lacking behind in the education field.

By giving them an opportunity to further their education in the field of engineering, medicine, architecture, law, they are expected to bring in the wealth of talent to spur the country’s economic transformation. Looking at our current progress, we can see there’s a massive change in the economics among the bumis.

Although many claims the New Economic Program as failure, in reality it does improved the standard of living among the bumis in general. Definitely not entire bumis benefitted from this but without this opportunity given at the first place, the bumis will be so much behind in this century.

b. Bring talent which has been altered with the experience of integration with foreigners

By studying abroad, the students’ needs to adjust to a more challenging situation instead of just being under the nutshell. Some of them work to gain experience as this will enable them to integrate with the locals and some work to save money as they gain from the foreign exchange rate.

By working part time, this will expose them instead of just studying in the university. So apart from studying for degrees, students have the chance to work part time as foreign universities time table is different as compared to our local universities.

Our local universities time table are quite pack and thus it makes it hard for the local students to have part time job in Malaysia. There are reported cases where employers prefer to hire overseas graduates as they believe in the exposure and competitiveness in them which can bring great benefits to the employers. In return, their exposure will also lead to improvement in our country as well. With the increase in the living standard, there will be greater demand for normal goods and also the luxury goods.

c. The quality of the education system in provided by the top univiersities are unchallenged

The quality of the education in terms of the facilities, methods of teachings, the lecturers, the involvement with the local or international firms and the number of international students has make the education more interactive and highly in demand.

We take Oxford, Cambridge, Ivy leagues for US universities, National University of Singapore (NSU) and some others as example and compare with our local universities such as University Malaya, Universiti Putra Malaysia, UiTM and I strongly believe the gap is insurmountable and by looking at universities ranking,

Our local universities are not in even in the top 100 universities in the world. Looking at this, definitely anyone who obtain good grades, will definitely want to continue their studies in the top universities. They do not have faith in the local universities as we often hear the changes of education policies every year. If our local universities are as good as our neighbor country, Singapore, I believed more will fight to study in our local university.

Lately, the scholarship has also been a form of brilliance and prestige instead of financial aid. There are reported cases in which JPA students who received scholarship comes from well to do family and reason for their application is for self-satisfaction whereby their parents and them would like to know their kids are smart enough and deserve the scholarship. Well, JPA’s scholarship is meant for anybody with the priority is for the under privilege applicants although they did ask the applicants to state the salary of their parents.

Out of so many scholarship being awarded in Malaysia, why is JPA’s scholarship a sought after scholarship? One of the reason is there is no bond being tied to the applicants. The successful JPA’s scholar are not forced to work with JPA but they should serve for JPA if they are called within the first 12 months after graduating. If they are not called by JPA within that stipulated period, they are bond free. Most of other scholarship are not bond free. Students are required to serve 5 -10 years after returning home.

In this case, JPA scholarship can be considered as a mean of government social responsibility to award free and good education to those who scored in their SPM without any force to retain them in the workforce. Some of the students under JPA scholarship choose to work abroad after their studies and although this is good for the students, it is actually a waste of local talent. We are currently shortage of skilled manpower and some of these overseas graduates tend to pursue their dreams by not returning home.

Our Malaysian government is at lost if this is the practice by some of our scholars. Logically, if every year 1500 – 2000 students are being granted scholarship from JPA, surely there will be lack of placing for them to serve JPA once they returned home. Being a government body that awards scholarship, they should re-look when giving our scholarship to overseas as it involves tax payer’s money and due to this, public has the right to question this issue.

As of today, there are total of 18 fields which JPA allows their applicants to choose. Currently JPA is awarding scholarship in the field of:

· Medicine

· Dentistry

· Pharmacy

· Optometry

· Biotechnology

· Engineering (Electrical, Mechanical, Chemical)

· Actuarial Science

· Accounting

· Information Technology/ Computer Science/ ICT

· Pure Sciences (Biology, Chemistry, Physics)

· Architecture

· Law

· Tourism

· Economics, Business Administration, Finance

· Islamic Economics, Islamic Business Administration, Islamic Finance

· Science

· Arts

· Education

For the purpose of this term paper, I am reviewing the year 2007 as an example. In that year, 1800 students were given a chance to further their studies abroad. Each student was allocated RM 500, 000 for their studies and that means government is spending a staggering RM 900,000,000 (900 million) close to RM 1 billion every year. RM 1 billion for only 1800 to 2000 students each year is a lot of money.

If we allocate this money for 5 years education revamps in Malaysia, we are looking at approximately RM 5billion. Based on this figures, I would like to oppose government of sending students to overseas and re-look their scholarship award.

First Arguments: Government must be selective in terms of course given for selection

I do not see the point of sending our students to overseas for them to learn law, tourism, business administration, finance, science and arts? Our local universities can definitely offer these courses in Malaysia as these courses are not that technical as compared to other courses which are being offered by JPA.

During the 70’s, 80’s and early 90’, we do not have expertise to teach these courses especially in the field of law, administration and finance. However, looking at this year, 2013, to send our students to overseas universities to study these courses seems absurd and irrelevant. It is as if JPA is just throwing money for education.

Government should make a study and send abroad for courses which are not available in Malaysia or courses that can bring greater impact to our economy. Field such as oil and gas, maritime, multimedia, aerospace, nuclear and medic just to name a few should have a clear green light as these are crucial in the process of achieving a develop nation status by 2020.

Since scholarship is being awarded under their jurisdiction, they have the right for being selective in the field selection for overseas scholarship.

If government can proceed with this, only a handful will be sent abroad as there not all students are interested to pursue in this field. Government must also consider their needs when sending students.

They should ask themselves if the scholarship given under JPA is to ensure the students work for them or they are free to work anywhere. Since government is spending approximately RM 500,000 for each student, we must ensure that they will bring back something by practicing what they learned into the industry.

It will be a waste of talent if for example we sent abroad students for the nuclear field but in reality we do not have any space for them. End up this student might work in a different skill which does not require their talent at all. In reality, anyone who has a degree can work and the arguments are not all who studied in a particular field work in the same field as well.

I personally have a friend in my office under JPA scholarship who was sent to France to study electrical engineering. End up is a marine coordinator which does not require his engineering knowledge at all. The issue is why does government sent our student to study electrical engineering in France? What is the relevant here? Someone who studied in France must learn the language as the medium of learning in France is French.

Isn’t this a waste of tax payers’ money, talent and time? No doubt he learned different cultures and exposures but government should consider all factors before sending a student abroad.

Second Arguments: Government must be look at the costs of each students and perhaps open more opportunities by spreading the money or fund to local universities

Cost for one student to be sent to overseas for studying is approximately RM 500,000. If 1800 students are sent to overseas as in 2007, then we are talking about RM 900,000,000. With that huge sum of money which JPA keeps spending yearly, they should consider scrapping the idea of sending the normal courses to overseas.

Those courses which I am referring to are law, tourism, business administration, finance, science and arts. Law for example, JPA’s are sending the scholars to UK for studies and for me, gone are the days where law students should be sent abroad as we have the capabilities in our local universities to produce good and reputable law graduates.

Let us consider one example. If JPA send only 5 students for each of the mentioned field such above, we are looking at 30 students (5 for each course). This numbers are merely an example as it might be more or less for each field. If 30 students are send abroad under these fields, it means JPA is spending RM 15 million for these 30 students. Let us take this RM 15 million and consider local universities which have six semesters:-

1. International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM)

The fee ranges from RM 3000 – RM 4000 per semester and total for 6 semesters will be RM 18,000 to RM 24,000. If RM 15,000,000 is divided with RM 24,000, a total number of 625 students can be given a chance to get full scholarship.

2. University Teknology of Malaysia (UiTM)

The fee ranges from RM 350 – RM 400 per semester. For six semesters, total fees will be ranging from RM 2100 to RM 2400. In this case, we can send a total numbers of 6250 students can benefit from this arrangement.

In this example, we are only looking at those two public universities. The trade-off for sending 30 students abroad is we can send 625 students to IIUM or total 6250 if JPA send to UiTM. In percentage we can provide 20 – 208% more opportunities to other top students who wishes to further their studies.

However, I have no objection for some of the field selection by JPA. To be a developed nation by 2020, Malaysia still needs expertise and to be given a chance to study abroad in those field, these students are the nation hope to inject new blood in the economic progression into one of the develop nation.

Third Arguments: Be selective in the universities

In order for government to control the scholarship, one way is to be selective with the universities. Only the top universities in the world such as Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and any Ivy Leagues universities in US or some Australian and Asian universities can be considered. Reason being is those university has a very high qualifying requirement and those who made it can be considered as cream of the crop. In this instance, our local scholars who made into those top universities will gain a lot of additional benefits apart from the good education.

Other additional advantage is networking among the future countries top prospects, good future employment opportunities locally and globally as graduates from top universities in the world will always be highly sought after among the employers. E.g. University of Oxford graduates against University Malaya graduates. If the selection is made solely on the resume, 90% the employers will choose the candidate from University of Oxford and put aside the other candidate.

Sending students for overseas universities outside the top 30 universities is actually the same as giving a free holiday to the students. The passing grades are not as stiff as the top 30 universities although one can argue that those universities are tougher than Malaysian university standards. JPA is sending their scholars to countries such as US, UK, France, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, Japan and many more. Looking at the limited number of scholarship against the number of qualified applicants, JPA should re-look the universities they are sending the students.

If government is not selective in the universities, some of the students might just hang around with the same batch of Malaysian students and not really gaining much from the overseas stint.

Due to this issue, we have reported cases in which students who came back from overseas does not master the English language. The argument is easy as the students only speak English in their classes and most of the time; they speak their mother tongue language which is Bahasa Melayu.

Conclusion:

Scholarship issue is open for debate in Malaysia as it is not right for us to question those rights for those who deserve to be awarded with overseas scholarship. But, the question is how fair can the government be in the distribution of the scholarship? With the rising noise from the non-bumis in regards to the bumis who are entitled at least 55 percent in government scholarship, government will definitely listen to them complain as we are heading towards a develop nation.

Although Article 153 has clearly mentioned that bumis are entitled for scholarship, this protection did not mention the percentage allocated. Due to this, the number might fall further and thus perhaps one day bumis are no longer eligible for scholarship provided they meet the full criteria. Based on the points discussed above, I strongly believe that government should re-consider spending more of the funds for overseas scholarship and distribute it to more students in local universities.

Perhaps government can make it more attractive by having collaboration within overseas reputable universities by having student exchange program, link up with the industries and having these bright students to participate in our government agencies by giving them assignments as well. This perhaps can be a truly winning strategy as all parties can benefitted from this arrangement. Moreover, many bright students can get scholarship locally. Perhaps government can consider giving overseas scholarship for courses which is not available locally or send the students for masters or doctorate program. This is better than sending the students immediately after their SPM.

Uncle Adnan - Sebelah kanan.

Throwback masa pi umrah in 2016

Trip saya ke Umrah bermula dengan penerbangan dari KLIA ke Riyadh dan Riyadh ke Madinah. Ketika di Riyadh, saya ada masa dalam 6 jam sebelum penerbangan sambungan ke Madinah. Ketika menunggu flight sambungan, saya sempat berkenalan dengan satu Uncle dari Malaysia.

Umur uncle ni dalam lingkungan 68 tahun dan dia pernah bekerja di Petronas, Dialog etc. Wife dia masih lagi bekerja dan adalah Chairman to Ekuinas and a few other big GLC's.

Uncle ni boleh tahan jugak peramahnya. Banyak benda dia bualkan tapi saya kurang ambik perhatian kerana otak saya time tu asyik piker pasal wife dan anak yang berada di Malaysia. Besides that, saya memang nak focus lebih kepada umrah justeru perbualan tentang keduniaan tidak berapa mendapat minat saya.

Masa di Airport Riyadh sementara tunggu nak ke Madinah, saya dan uncle solat Maghrib dan Isya.

Lepas solat, saya kata kat uncle yang saya nak rehat kat surau je. So dia pun tinggalkan saya sorang-sorang.Masa nak naik flight ke Madinah, sekali lagi dia nak borak but this time, topik dah bertukar 180 degrees!

Cuba teka apa pulak topik yang dibincangkan?

1. Bagaimana untuk fahami Bahasa Arab dalam beberapa jam

2. Bagaimana untuk hafal Quran

Selain tu, Uncle juga menyuruh saya menggunakan ilmu ‘Oil & gas’ untuk menghafal Quran.

1. Project scheduling

2. Parameters

3. Progress report

4. Familiarize with the 114 surah name

5. Buat breakdown surah. So contoh juz amma ada dalam 30 surah, kita kena buat grouping. (7,5,5,7,7 and 7). Setiap group buat satu leader.

6. Use tahajud as exam. Meaning after hafal surah, baca laa masa tahajud.

7. All those Quls are meant for tadika. Takkan dah adults takda improvement.

Uncle ni tak religious but very technical.

“I am an engineer. Senang je. I use logic to memorize Quran” Uncle.

Kesimpulan dari cerita saya, dibumi Makkah, mintak laa benda yang best. Allah akan bagi. Macam saya, Allah bagi saya someone with experience to teach me something valuable.

Ramai yang bertanya macam mana nak jadi writer yang bagus kan? Well, saya sendiri pun kalau boleh nak jadi writer yang bagus. So, apa yang saya buat untuk dapatkan jawapan kepada soalan ni?

1. Saya tanya kawan-kawan yang ada blog

Jawapan yang diberikan oleh blogger adalah simple – Ko kena istiqomah. Buat je hari-hari sampai bila ko tak menulis, ko akan rasa janggal. Betul jugak kan? Tengok VivyYusof, dia dah blog sejak 10 tahun sudah. Tu pasal dia boleh meletop sekarang nie. So, apa lagi? Isqiqomah and consistency is the key.

2. Saya tanya pemilik online portal

Syukur sebab saya ada kawan yang mempunyai online portal femes iaitu siraplimau.com. Tips yang beliau berikan adalah belajar untuk menulis header yang bagus, catchy, negative dan sebagainya. Dia suruh saya belajar dari ohbulan dan vocket. Apa yang saya buat? Saya buat excel file dan sediakan keywords berdasarkan info dari google. Dari situ, saya perahkan otak saya untuk mendapatkan headline yang menggila. Headline adalah asas penting yang akan menyebabkan pembaca sangkut dengan penulisan kita. Jika kita ambil sambal lewa saja, berkemungkinan kita akan kerugian dari segi pembaca.

3. Belajar from the #MrKnowsEverything iaitu #MrGoogle

Mr Google adalah tempat terbaik untuk menyelesaikan masalah yang terdapat dalam kepala otak. Taip je sesuatu contohnya “macam mana nak jadi penulis” atau “how to write”, macam-macam laa info yang akan keluar.

So, like a lot of advice yang saya terima, writing takes time. We all need practice, patience and commitment. Takleh acah-acah taik ayam. Macam saya yang sememangnya online entrepreneur, saya kena commit to writing. Why? Reason is to improve the traffic and also to improve visibility.

Anda tau tak salah satu cara untuk generate a lot of traffic ke dalam website adalah dengan mempunya a good blog linked to the website? Haaa…Kalau tak tau, pi study. Kalau dah tahu, perhaps you can share your experience on this matter.

Till we meet again.

Terdapat 2 jenis kain yang dijadikan telekung travel. Bawah ni adalah contoh favourite masa kini:

Kain parasut

Pernah dengar telekung travel berharga RM 20 -35? Haa, kalau nak tau, telekung travel yang berharga semurah tu sebenarnya tergolong dalam golongan yang kainnya ialah kain parasut. Kain telekung yang diperbuat dari parasut kebiasaanya ringan dan mudah terbang. Ianya boleh dilipat kecik kerana jenis kainnya yang lembut. Walaupun mudah terbang dan nipis, sebenarya ramai jugak wanita yang sukakan telekung travel kain parasut kerana ringan dan menyusahkan nak bawak ke hulu ke hilir

Telekung cotton

Kain kedua pula adalah terdiri dari jenis cotton. Ini pun merupakan kesukaan wanita sekarang terutamanya wanita urban di Malaysia. Dapat pula cuaca di Malaysia yang panas dan lembab sepanjang tahun, telekung travel jenis cotton sememangnya pilihan paling bagus. Ianya berat sedikit dari kain parasut tetapi sekurang-kurangnya tiada masalah kain telekung terbang bila ditiup angin. Selain tu, kain telekung ni juga tak jarang dan boleh tahan lagi lama.

Telekung Travel kain cotton dari The Zaahara Telekung

Harganya sekitar RM 50 – RM 120. Ada jugak yang cecah sehingga RM 150. Tetapi, yang berharga sekitar RM 150 biasanya adalah sebab sulaman yang terdapat di kain telekung travel tersebut.

Tepuk dada, tanyalah selera nak pakai jenis parasut atau jenis cotton. Murah atau mahal, bergantung kepada kemampuan diri sendiri.

Admin lebih menyarankan agar korang buat pembelian berdasarkan survey dan jugak testi yang dikumpulkan. Bukan apa, takut bila dah beli, tak happy nanti.