THE British Malaysian Society (BMS) recently donated 3,000 (RM1S,800) to three charity homes in Selarigor.
The donation was raised at a charity drive during the society ’s 25th annual dinner in London two months ago.
The three homes Selangor Cheshire Homes, The Little Sisters of the Poor and Montfort Boys Town each received a cheque for 1000 (about RM5,300).
Present to receive the donations were Selangor Cheshire Homes president Khatijah Sulieman, The Little Sisters of the Poor voluntary doctor Dr Loh Tak Seng and Montfort Boys Town administrative officer S. Arulanandam.
"We are very keen on developing the society ’s work not Only in the United Kingdom but also in Malaysia," said British High Commissioner Boyd McClear who presented the cheques on behalf of the BMS.
"The fund raising was a decision taken by the society to make contributions through charities because it is important to help the less unfortunate.
"BMS has demonstrated Its desire to reach back into Malaysia and this is an excellent way to channel BMS ’s intentions." Khatijah, who thanked BMS on behalf of the three homes for the donations, said the money would be very helpful to them.
The society is represented by the Kuata Lumpur Panel in Malaysia which provides information, advice and assistance to society members on an "on-call" basis.
"This event marks the society ’s appreciation of looking after the less fortunate and I would like the society in Malaysia to start raising funds for various charities," said BMS Kuala Lumpur panel chairman Tunku Abdul Aziz Ibrahim said.
BMS was set up to enhance relations between Malaysia and Britain in the fields of education, culture and commerce.
The Sun
Malaysia
British Malaysian Society donates RMI5,800 to charity homes
Far Behind Quality Control
A BRITISH parliamentary cornmittee of inquiry recently asked Oxford University vicechancellor John Hood and Oxford Brookes University vicechancellor Janet Beer, who were sifting next to each other: Is an honours degree in history from Oxford University worth the same as an honours degree in history from Oxford Brookes? The MPs marked the vicechancellors ’ replies, which were probably pretty standard for British universities, as not up to the standard of a year 12 essay.
Dr Hood responded: "At Oxford, we apply a consistent standard in awarding degree classifications. We use external examiners and we take their assessments very, very seriously." Professor Beer said: "It depends what you mean by equivalent and worth", adding that her university knew its honours degree was "of a national standard".
The committee wasn ’t satisfied with the responses. Its chairman, Phil Willis, said: "I ’m treating this conversation with incredulity. It costs twice as much to educate a student at Oxford University than at Oxford Brookes, and you invest significantly more time, and you are creaming the world ’s best students, yet you say the outcomes are the same." Notwithstanding the criticism, British universities have a better system for maintaining standards than their Australian and US counterparts. Each British university appoints an external examiner for each of its coursework programs, to report annually on its academic standards, the rigour of its assessment processes and the performance of its students, and to compare these indicators with those of other universities.
External examiners are normally expected to attend assessment board meetings and to endorse assessment outcomes before final results are confirmed.
Britain ’s Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education also has a procedure for investigating reports of "causes for concern" about an institution ’s academic standards. The procedure provides for a brief preliminary inquiry, to be followed, if necessary, by a full investigation.
The QAA publishes investigation reports and, if a cause for concern is substantiated, the institution is required to adopt a plan for rectifying shortcomings.
The QAA has also developed an academic infrastructure to give institutions a shared starting point for setting, describing and assuring the quality of their programs. This comprises a qualifications framework similar to the one in Australia, program specifications and a code of practice for assuring academic standards.
The code has 10 parts covering things such as student admission, program approval, assessment and providing for students with disabilities. The infrastructure includes benchmark statements for 57 disciplines that specify with reasonable clarity the knowledge and skills that students are expected to possess.
The European Bologna process is developing somewhat similar subject statements as part of its so-called Tuning process. So far Tuning has developed statements of the knowledge, understanding, skills and abilities that students are expected to display in nine disciplines at three levels: bachelor, masters and doctorate. It has also developed fuller "reference points for the design and delivery of programs" in chemistry, European studies and physics.
The Tuning project covers 47 countries, many very different from each other, so its statements are more general and descriptive and thus less useful than Britain ’s subject benchmark statements.
At its present rate of progress Australia is years away from establishing even the standards framework that British MPs criticised so vigorously. The Australian Universities Quality Agency established a reference group in 2007 that produced a broad standards framework that the agency says guided its audits in 2008. It has now established an advisory group to develop a generalisable national structure for academic standards for Australian higher education.
AUQA says its advisory group has explored contemporary contexts and considered various options for assuring academic standards, but it has published no more detail. While it may suit some universities for the agency to have such a leisurely and permissive approach to maintaining standards, it is not in the interests of the sector, let alone the community it serves.
Gavin Moodie is a higher education poLicy anaLyst at Griffith University who writes reguLarLy for the HES.
Australian
UK Teacher To Find A Niche
MAKING a sea change or "desert change" doesn ’t get more drastic than moving from rainy Britain to the rustred dirt of outback Australia and the Central Desert community of Warburton.
But one holiday to Australia was all it took and British school principal Steven Soames was hooked.
"I was in the UK where I was working as a deputy principal," he said "I was looking for a bit of a sea change and I came over here on holiday.
"I really enjoyed it and went to the Education Department and found out what the position was on teachers and at the time there was a massive teacher shortage so I was ahnost nailed to the seat.
"I filled in the form and when I got back to the UK, I got a phone call at 5.30 one morning telling me I ’d been accepted to the remote teaching service." only having been in Western Australia for three and a half years, Mr Soames has spent his entire Australian teaching career working in regional WA.
Before relocating to Warburton to work as the school principal at the Warburton Ranges Remote Community School, he worked in Laverton where he spent one year as a teacher and two years as a deputy principal.
"I really got taken with the idea of teaching in the remote areas," he said.
"I feel that some of the remote schools, very often, are at a disadvantage and I ’ve always enjoyed working alongside communities that experience disadvantage and try and make a difference." "I came out to Warburton last year and I really enjoyed it I think it ’s a lovely place." While he may be a long way from home and his background teaching in inner-city schools in England, Mr Soames said the disparity in education between the UK and remote Western Australia is not that huge despite the massive differences in culture and geography.
"There are a lot of similarities but there are also a lot of differences," he said.
"Culturally there are a lot of differences because the UK culture is relatively homogenous whereas here, some of the teaching strategies we try to adapt to meet the needs of the students.
"But having said that, teaching is teaching wherever you are and I am a big believer that good teaching is good teaching wherever you find yourself - "What I have noticed in terms of similarities is that poverty is still poverty the issues that it generates are still the same."
Kalgorlie Miner
Australia
