Indian Students, Teachers, and Stream of Studies in Upper Secondary (part 1)

Albert Einstein credited India for her contribution to Mathematics. Arya Batta, an Indian mathematician, was one of those invented 'pi'. Indians were first to discover steel, to solidify sugarcane juice many others.

The first Asian to win a noble prize for physics was an Indian from Tamil Nadu.

While our ancestors had contributed extensively to Science and Mathematics the situation is diffrent in Malaysia.

Many Indian students have negative attitude towards Mathematics. Many have impression that mathematics is a difficult subject, then worst still when comes to additional mathematics at form four and five and mathematics at form six. The situation is worsen by many Indian teachers in the secondary schools. They enhance the phobia towards mathematics telling the students not to go to science stream as it is difficult. Many of the secondary school Indian teachers are arts graduates whom I believe they themselves were not good in mathematics while they were in schools. They pass on the phobia to this present generation.

Many average students think mathematics is a reading subject, where memory is tested but mathematics not only test ones memory but also intelligence. Many Indian students do not practise mathematics at home at all. They do not do home work more then what the teachers had given them.

Practice of Mathematics increases thinking skills, which not only increases a students problem solving ability later in his or her live but also builds higher order thinking skill and patience.

In my observation, I found out that many successful Indians who were with lower level of formal education but were good at mathematics at at least in addition, substraction , multiplication and division. They do not use calculators.

Employment Creation

Indian students upon passing out from schools or upon graduation from colleges or universities they seek employment either in public or in private sector. There are very few or almost no Indian companies can employ Indian graduates. The problems like promotion, dinial of information etc crops up.

Not only in public sector, even in private sector we meet lots of discrimination based on race. How we have to over come this?

We have to change our mind set to seek marketable knowledge like various technical skills, and business skills rather then literary knowledge.

There are some Indians who are doing business based on technical skill but these Indians most of them they learnt their skills by working with Chinese bosses on informal basis before, then later they opened up their own, this is a good news however, people of this mind set if they have some formal education at least a diploma they can enhance in their business and create more employment.


Rather then seeking employment, with the right knowledge and skill the future Indian generations must become employment creators, so that in future Indians students once passed out they are able to work in Indian owned firms. Our dependency on public sector and non Indian owned companies can be reduced.

We may think we are minorities here and that limites our market but Gujaratis and Punjabis are far less then South Indians but they are doing well.

We need to change to change our future generation.

Business venturing at early age.

Please read the article below which appeared in the Ngee Ann Polythechnic web page.

I appreciate the boldness of Rakesh. His difference in thinking with his fellow friends of his age.

This is what I like to see among our Indian Students. Seek information and venture early.



The rise & rise of Rakesh Gupta

Not many people can say they’ve watched their business rise and fall before they were out of university. Even less would be able to say that they went on to build a bigger success afterwards. CEO Rakesh Gupta tells us how he managed that (and a whole lot more) – all before hitting the age of 30.
Graduating from Ngee Ann Polytechnic (NP) with a Diploma in Computer Studies in 1997, Rakesh Gupta has his eyes set on one thing – owning his own software company. Tapping the dotcom boom of the late ’90s, Rakesh and fellow NP graduate, Lim Soon Jinn, founded their first company. Working part-time while completing their undergraduate degrees at the National University of Singapore (NUS), they found some measure of success.
Within three years, however, the dream was over. The dotcom bubble burst and Rakesh found himself at a crossroads. He had to choose between a secure future as an MNC employee, or to carry on pursuing his dream.
He didn’t hesitate to choose the latter. “I wasn’t demoralised at all. In fact, we felt encouraged by the fact that we had come so far and learnt so much, in such a short time,” Rakesh recounted.
With plenty of passion, Rakesh and Soon Jinn approached the Economic Development Board (EDB) with a business plan. Under the Startup Enterprise Development Scheme (SEEDS), the duo got funding to start their company, Heulab.
“To be honest, we had absolutely no business experience,” says Rakesh. “So we were quite surprised when we got funding. And sure enough, a few years later, when we’d become closer to the folks at EDB…, they told us that it was our passion which won them over.”
With the funding from EDB and the $250,000 they’d raised themselves, their company, which specialises in learning software development, was born in 2002. Despite frequent pitfalls, the fledgling company soon developed a reputation for their speed of execution and well-developed products.
The year 2004 proved to be a watershed one for them, with the first of their major successes. They were approached to develop an application that together with tablet PCs, will replace pen-and-paper classroom learning at Crescent Girls’ School.
The project was part of an initiative by the Infocomm Development Authority and Microsoft Singapore. It proved so successful that, within a year, Microsoft had named Heulab its “Best Independent Software Vendor” and recognised it as a certified partner. Hardly one to sit on his laurels, Rakesh set out to further develop Heulab’s global presence. The company, a Small-to-Medium Enterprise (SME), now counts over 100 educational institutions among its clients in Singapore, in addition to boasting overseas offices in the US and Australia. Heulab also receives tenders for its products from countries ranging from Brunei to Japan.
With major industry players like Microsoft and Fijitsu helping it to market products to new regions, Heulab now enjoys an annual revenue of over $2 million.
The success of Heulab has not gone unnoticed. In 2007, within the short space of a week, they were selected as a launch partner of Microsoft’s Windows Vista Programme as well as mentioned in the Singapore Budget Speech 2007.
The then Second Minister of Finance, Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, described Heulab as, “part of a new generation of local firms, fleet-footed, unafraid to venture out to the world early, and at the leading edge of technology.”
Rakesh Gupta was also awarded the Singapore Indian Young Entrepreneur Award last year by the Singapore Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and DBS Bank. Presented by President S R Nathan, the award took Rakesh by surprise.
“I had looked at the list of nominees before the dinner and all of them, without a doubt, were larger than Heulab. So I had just gone along for a nice dinner and was quite taken aback when I was called up!” Rakesh said with a laugh.
CEO. Young entrepreneur. When asked about being a role model for the Indian community as well as for budding entrepreneurs, Rakesh grimaced. “I hate that label,” he said. “I’m always worried that I might fail and let people down.”
Yet, his never-say-die attitude serves as an inspiration to anyone who has ever dreamed of setting out on his or her own.
Rakesh also encourages young entrepreneurs to go out and seek funding for their ideas – whether it’s from their schools, government agencies and bodies, or private investors. “Explore your potential and the potential of your business idea by seeking funding yourself,” he said. “The hands-on experience you get pitching your products to investors is incalculable.”

INDIAN STUDENTS AND AMBIITON

A survey was done with 112 Indian students from form 4 and 5. The results of the survey shows there is a strong co-relation with the parents academic level and parents income with students ambition.

Students who come from families with family income of RM800 to RM 1500 has ambition to be in middle level skill or similar level management with desire to earn between RM1500and 2000 a figure of only 20 to 30 per cent premium to what their parents earn. Of the total, 91.07% of them do not know the earning power of certain skills if they successfully accomplish their ambition.

Of the total respondent, 91.07% do not have clear information toward accomplish their ambition, like basic requirement needed to acquire the skill and institutions offering the knowledge of the skill.


Most of them show little interest on self employment. Surprisingly 47% believe if self employed with skills like welding and wiring their earnings actually drops. This believes off sets the tendency to be self employed.

It was noted from the survey that most respondents have ambitions, which need high level of academic performance which is beyond their current achievement. Like failing almost all subjects but wanted to be a medical doctor. However it was also noted students of higher ability having lower level of ambition like 6A 1B achiever wanted to be a technician.

It was noted there was a strong correlation between performance of student in Bahasa Malaysia and with other subjects. If one is poor in Bahasa Malaysia he/she is also poor in other subjects.

The survey also indicated 96.32% students surveyed spend 2hours a day for studies at home. This time allocation had been the same ever since they were in primary schools and this time allocation did not increase while they were in secondary schools. This can be a contributing factor for their poor performance in examinations in secondary schools.

Here a mental climate had to be created among these students that higher level of time investment is necessary to remain excellent in secondary school as they were in primary school.

Indians and Capital Market

Malaysian Indians with 8% population, have only 1.2% ownership on the overall equity market but Hong Kong 1% Indians have 8% equity ownership .

There were much talk to increse the same in Malaysia but no favourable results were seen till todate. No affirmative action were taken by government despite many times concern was high lighted in the media.

Indians majority are wage earners and their earning is pretty low. Many could not even able to support their children in institute of higher learnings. They do not have extra savings to invest other then buying a house to stay and a car to travel.

The children of these labour class Indians who have tertiary education and now earning enough to save but sad to say they too do not invest their savings in the capital market. Even graduates in Economics and business management too do not seek knowlegde on capital market voluntarily but they talk about increasing the Indian equity.

This is because these children of labour class Indians still have the same mind set like their parent, even with their high level of exposition and education.

The trend is different among the Chinese. Even an illiterate Chinese knows about investment and to invest and control companies. Their mass media inform them well and their coffee shop talks mostly pertaining to capital markat.

Indians to catch up with others in Malaysia and to compete internationally have to work in the right direction several times more then others.

SELF EMLOYMENT 2

Self employment 2

In Malaysia there are many Chinese independent schools in which high fees are collected montly. These schools are not found in every town and most of these schools have their own hostels.However there are students pay exorbitant bus fare to travel to these schools almost on all school days.

The government rule says the examination results of these schools does qualifies these students to enroll in public unversities or for government employment. However tens of thousands of students enroll annually. For tertiary education the go to Taiwan or China. They learn and acquire technical knowledge.

These students, the very first day the enroll to these schools they do not think to work for government. The build the self confidence to be self employed or work for a Chinese bosses.

For Indians the situation is diffrent. You ask any Indian parents who send their children to non vanacular schools, their immediate reason is 'employmen prospect" is better there. A natural self imposed modern slavery thinking. These parents who able to speak good English and very proud of their command of English is no better than early tamil coolies. These early tamil coolies are illeterate but the English speaking tamils are literate coolies.

To change the scenario more tamils should acquire technical knowledge and self employed and widen our knowledge.Technical skills like knowledge on wiring, agriculture etc. can be acquired in any language and anywhere. After all it is the know how of doing is important.

If more Tamils become self employed, and successful entrepreneur a new status for our mother tongue and race can be achieved.

Self employment

The British first brought the Tamils to work in Penang by Francis Light. Later to the Malay peninsular to work in pepper and coffee plantations. In 1874 the British brought the Tamils to work in rubber plantations.

They were illiterate. They were managed by non Tamil Indians in the middle management. The tamils were known as "coolies", a term used for daily paid workers, however the term non commonly used for non Tamil workers daily paid workers.

The present Tamils who form 80% of Malaysian Indians are still with the same level of thinking even though times have changed from the early migrant. Many of present Tamils are with tertiary education but unwilling to move from salaried job toward self employment.

The mind set to work for somebody is planted while they are in primary school. This goes on until they are out from university. Upon graduation then look for an employment.

These tamils should change their mind set. Aquire active and marketable knowledge after completion of secondary education. Level ofa ctive and marketable knowldge to be aquired must be as per their ability. Then upon graduation work for an experienced person or company then they should start a business of their own.

The tamil youths are very energetic but their energy and intelligence must be guided towards acheiving excellence.