Tuesday, October 7, 2008

More discrimination and lies about Sabah Teachers

Now they say they want to recruit Sabahan teachers but they had
forcefully transfer Sabahan to West Malaysia suffering from
discrimination and underutilisation there.

While Sabah suffers from lack of teachers and high cost of paying West
Malaysian teachers that are given allowances that double their
salaries. Sabahan who are transfered to West Malaysia suffer from a
reduction of income.

No wonder the previous budget allocation for Sabah is 16% of national
budget. Most probably due to the high cost of paying West Malaysian
teachers in Sabah, because many schools are still without any table
and chairs as exemplified by one Kalabakan school. By now, they should
have chairs but we never know how many schools still suffer from the
same fate.

As for responses from Sabahans in joining the teaching profession,
many professionals already applied and got these jobs. Not only
engineers, but also surveyors.

Rewards for Sabah Sarawak, teachers

Email to friend Email to Friend Print article Print Article


SEREMBAN: Teachers willing to be transferred to rural areas,
especially in Sabah and Sarawak, will soon enjoy monetary rewards,
said Deputy Education Minister Datuk Razali Ismail.
"The ministry is aware of the sacrifices these teachers are making and
has come up with a special allowance, ranging from RM500 to RM1,500
for them."

He said the ministry also wanted Sabah and Sawarak residents to join
the profession.

The ministry had to turn to teachers from peninsular Malaysia to
volunteer to teach in rural areas, Razali added.

"We need more Sabah and Sarawak people to teach in their states as
they would be more suited and knowledgeable of local customs and
traditions," he said after opening the Teachers Resource Centre (PKG)
Convention 2008 at Sekolah Menengah Kebang-saan King George here.
He aslo said the ministry had organised walk-in interviews to attract
non-Malays to become teachers to boost racial integration in national
schools.

Price of Dictatorship: Zimbabwe

How would anyone tolerate Mugabe?

And yet he continues to win elections.

It reminds of Sabah that is already the poorest and yet stll vote the
government that makes it this poor.

Even the amount of Telecom Subisidies is already the lowest with only
3 sites, while hundreds of sites in the already rich Malaya, and yet
nobody seems to be making a noise at all.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article4902920.ece

O-level pass rates in Zimbabwe, once the envy of Africa, have fallen
from 72 per cent in the mid-1990s to 11 per cent. Now the government
has been forced to cancel the academic year

Jan Raath in Harare

The class of 2008 will not receive an education. Since the school year
began in January, Zimbabwe's 4.5 million pupils have had a total of 23
days uninterrupted in the classroom, teaching unions say - a sorry
state for a country that once had the highest standard of education in
Africa.

President Mugabe became an African hero of rare distinction when he
carried out a big expansion of the education system in the early years
of his rule. As with most of the country's infrastructure, that system
is now in the process of total collapse.

In the mid-1990s there was a national O-level pass rate of 72 per
cent. Last year it crashed to 11 per cent. Many schools recorded zero
passes.

To avoid the humiliation of total failure in 2008 the Government has
cancelled the academic year. "It would be criminal if the Government
allows examinations to go ahead," Raymond Majongwe, the secretary-
general of the Progressive Teachers' Union of Zimbabwe, said.
Related Links

* Mugabe's men seize chance to take white farms

* Zimbabwe deal faces collapse

* Zimbabwe's children and the lost generation

In January teachers went on a prolonged strike over their salaries. In
April, Mr Mugabe's Zanu (PF) party accused them of supporting the
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) during the March elections and
blamed them for the President's first-round defeat.

Six teachers were murdered and thousands assaulted by Zanu (PF)
militia in the violence that marred the second-round presidential
election on June 27.

Schools were looted and turned into torture centres. Teachers
disappeared. Many are still unable to return for fear of being
disciplined.

Now the coup de grace to the education system is being delivered by
hyperinflation. Teachers had their salaries doubled last week to the
equivalent of £5.70 a month — barely enough for bus fares and bread
for four days.

The handful of private and state schools where parents can pay large
supplements to teachers' salaries are the only ones operating. In most
schools where teachers do turn up pupil attendance is dwindling.

"We come to school and we entertain the kids until 10am, then we send
them home," Amos Musoni, from Sengwe primary school in the south of
the country, said. "There were ten teachers last week, out of 32. They
are there because they have no money to leave. We don't even have
chalk, or red pens, never mind books."

At one of Harare's government boys' high schools, benches are being
sawn up to provide wood for O-level woodwork examinations - not that
anyone knows when they will happen.

"O and A-level pupils go home next week to study for their finals,"
the headmaster said. "But there is no timetable. Nor do we have their
June mid-year results."

Urban schools have been overwhelmed by water and power cuts. One
primary school in Mabvuku township, Harare, has not had water for five
years. A Harare girls' school has been seeking an axe to chop down
trees for firewood to cook food.

Providing school food at a time of comprehensive agricultural failure
is a struggle. Mr Majongwe said hundreds of rural schools had sent
their boarders home because they could no longer feed them.

Mr Musoni, from Sengwe, is pathetically thin. "There is no food," he
said. "People are starving." Students at Harare Polytechnic rioted
last week after they were served sadza, the stiff maize porridge that
is the national staple, without salt or cabbage.

The country's four leading universities have failed to open since the
start of their first term in mid-August. At the University of
Zimbabwe, the country's leading tertiary institute, a notice with last
Friday's date on a faculty building tells students that lectures will
begin "on a date to be advised".

Levy Nyagura, the Vice-Chancellor, said that the university had "no
water, no electricity and no funds".

Ellen Murogodo, a would-be first-year social work student, keeps
returning to the campus to register only to be told to try again a
week later. To pay for her journey she sets up a stand outside the
university's Great Hall where she sells popcorn and cigarettes.

"Mugabe was a teacher himself [in the 1950s]," Mr Majongwe said. "He
knows the potential of teachers as agents for change. That is why he
has deliberately destroyed education."

New talks on a power-sharing government in Zimbabwe failed yesterday
to end a stalemate over Cabinet posts, the opposition MDC said.

Friday, October 3, 2008

There is no clean COAL POWER FOR SABAH

It is clear from the Palin-Bidden debate that clean-coal is still far
away in the future with China building lots of dirty coal power plants.

The coal power plant in Sabah will be similarly dirty, destroying the
enviroment in Sabah even more. It is already bad, but it will make it
even worse.

The worst part is that, we already have excess power capacity in Bakun,
that had already destroyed thousands of acres of environment, but it is
never to be transmitted to Sabah and the nearby areas.

Instead, another 8 billion RM were to be invested, above the 4 billion
RM used to build it, in order to transmit power to Malaya thousands of
km under the sea. And Malaya already have excess electricity generating
capacity.

What is the rationale of all this?

Economically it will be devastating to Sabah that relies on tourism for
its only economic activity. Industry will never be economical without
any support on the infrastructures, such as roads.

Transport companies are going bankrupt because of the limitations of
35000 kgs loading capacities instead of the 55,000 for Malaya.

Material costs are already high because everything had to be imported
via Malaya, causing more than 20% overheads in cost of materials and
transportations of finished goods.

Sabah will remain the poorest in Malaysia and the whole world.


http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/02/debate.transcript/

BIDEN:

...

The way in which we can stop the greenhouse gases from emitting. We
believe -- Barack Obama believes by investing in clean coal and safe
nuclear, we can not only create jobs in wind and solar here in the
United States, we can export it.

China is building one to three new coal-fired plants burning dirty coal
per week. It's polluting not only the atmosphere but the West Coast of
the United States. We should export the technology by investing in clean
coal technology.


...


http://www.dailyexpress.com.my/news.cfm?NewsID=60177
DAILY EXPRESS NEWS Zakaria: Don't blame Govt for power woes if

Kota Kinabalu: The public, especially those living in the State's east
coast, should not blame the Government if the proposed coal-fired power
plant in Sandakan failed to materialise, thus creating a severe power
shortage in the region.

Gum-Gum Assemblyman Datuk Zakaria Edris said the public as well as
non-governmental organisations (NGOs) who opposed the setting up of the
plant should realise the importance of the facility not only for
Sandakan but the entire east coast.

"Areas in the east coast such as Sandakan, Lahad Datu and Tawau are
desperate for electricity due to the growth in population as well as
economic activities. Should the power shortage persist, economic growth
in these areas will be affected," he said when met during the Chief
Minister's Hari Raya Open House here on Wednesday.

Zakaria said he and 43 other representatives of the Government as well
as NGOs had visited several coal-powered power plants in Kuching, Johor
Baru, Perak and Selangor.

"From the visit we found out that the plant in Johor Baru, which has a
capacity of 2,000 megawatts, did not affect the environment. Even
Singapore, which is so near and conscious about the environment, made no
objections regarding the plant," he said.

"So what is wrong with having a coal-fired power plant in Sandakan which
has a capacity of only 300 megawatts, knowing that Sabah will face
severe power shortage by 2010," he added.

Zakaria also said the so-called petition signed by some 50,000 people
who were against the project did not reflect the views of the people as
a whole.

He said those collecting the signatures were not giving out the correct
information by claiming, among others, that the plant would cause cancer.

"If this is true, we want evidence. In Johor, Selangor, Kuching and
Perak (where the plants already exist), there has been no reports about
any deaths related to the plant," he said, adding that there were
certain parties who were misleading the public.

"I appeal to the people to see the positives for the benefit of all.
Sandakan is poised for rapid growth and is aiming to be an education hub
and this in turn needs power."

He also said that should the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for
the plant pass, it would be set up somewhere in Gum-Gum or Sekong.
--
Sabah is heaven. Beautiful shark-free beaches and mountains next to
civilisation with no natural and man-made disasters except Malaysia.
My homepage:
http://othman.000webhost.info/
http://othmana.tripod.com/

Introduction

This blogspot is filled with Adsense links. These google advertising links can be useful but their uses are strictly governed. I earn cash if any of you click these links but if I or my close acquaintances click them, google is very harsh in permanently banning me. Please do not click these adverts unnecessarily.

Learn how to earn money by clicking the button below: