Indeed, singapore tax is even lower than malaysia but they are more efficient... Malaysia, to be honest, is one of the best country in the world. What is natural disaster? earthquake? typhon? what is that? We are full of natural resources, tin, gold, timber, oil and gas. We are the central heart of asia and position excellent. But why we are still failing behind? Why singapore can be achieve what KL can't? Some shortsighted people always say singapore is smaller and eaiser to manage but they ignore the fact how come a countrywithout natural resources and human resouces can be top in the world to attract human capital to work there. In my opinion, if malaysia is run as efficient as singapore in 40 years, I bet our GDP is at least in the stage of france at the moment.

By the way, people dont' know what is easter and good friday shouldn't be classified as stupid. People won't know anything. Ask westerner about the history of "Chung Yang or mid autumn festival" or harvest festival in sabah/sarawak, they know peenuts about it. Does this mean they are stupid? By saying this, it show "short-mind-ness" and think everyone should knows what American are thinking and living, if we don't, we are living in 3rd world people.... you won't know how many times my American principal was suprised by our talented engineer in Malaysia.

We have the talent here but I really don't like the education system here. Instead, I am east malaysian christian bumiputra but I forsee my kids will have a better future in NZ. They can work in NZ/OZ/UK/US/CND when they grow up if they are NZ citizen. Yes, I intend to convert them to be NZ citizen when they get qualification to convert from PR to CTZ. Come back to Malaysia? Well, if they have 5 choices to go, how hard for them to get an expat visa in Malaysia?

dunno about our education system, but I do like their confidence. Some may say that I am exaggerating but usually, Asians keep their mouth shut whereas locals prefer to answer questions or voice out opinions. One Kiwi girl actually told me that they started schooling at the age of 5? If I am not mistaken, and when she knows that we start school at the age of 7, she was shocked. The UK starts at the age of 3 or 4 I think. She used to live in Scotland.

Moreover, there's one thing that I can't stand Malaysian students, be it Malays or Chinese, they usually stick to their own kind. Screw the stereotypical mindset about only Malays tend to mix with their own kind, I see quite a number of Malaysian Chinese doing that too. Some of my friends whom I met here, had totally no respect towards the kiwis here and expect them to treat them nicely.

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Added on March 22, 2008, 6:01 pm

I'd say more on the way we were brought up that affects our lifestyle. I can't say that they are inferior to us when it comes to education, in fact, I find them much more mature than us Malaysians at times.

Not that Malaysian education is bad. Instead, my primary school and secondary school education are done in Malaysia and I don't feel any standard difference when I was in USA for the 3rd education. Instead, our mathematic standard pwn. However, like Meng said, we ignore other talents such as leadership, music and others, which I feel it is quite crucial to find out the talents as well. Our 3rd drgree need to be re-looked at to be honest and I dont' want to raise my kid and gotta fork out 300k for their education in future (well, good STPM result doesn't guarantee what is your first choice in University...)

Fantegero, I'm sorry if I was a bit harsh. I'm glad that you're willing to learn and I hope you'll take this chance you have in NZ to broaden you mind. Go out of your comfort zone and you'll be richly rewarded.
I have also experienced the school systems in both Malaysia and NZ. While we are superior in maths and science, we fall far behind in arts and social sciences. The problem with our system (whatever the subject) is that it teaches us to learn by rote and to regurgitate for exams. It doesn't encourage independent thought and questioning among the students.

I once tried to give my own opinion in BM literature analysis and got completely shot down by the teacher. Another time, I tried to question our history textbooks and the 'official' interpretation of events. At least the teacher was nice about it but it was made very clear that anything but the 'official' answer will get no marks in exams. I see these questions about how to score for BM, sejarah, whatever in this forum? The answer is really simple. Just get the textbook/reference book and memorise.

In science and maths, that's not so bad. At the basic school level, there's less room for independent thought, analysis and application. The best way to score in maths is to practice and do exercise after exercise - a good thing IMO cos the basics are really mastered. It is only at the higher levels that your own input become crucial. But for arts and social sciences, memorisation and 'accepted' answers are not the way to go. So we fall far behind. But I suppose it "doesn't matter" since only the dumb kids go the arts stream.

I did law and economics at uni (with some psychology and philosophy papers thrown in). Especially for law and philosophy - guess what my problem was? I had real difficulty scoring in exams and assignments cos my mind was constrained - a general inability to think outside the box. Ask me to tell you the law is, and I'd get it perfect. Ask me to apply it to a situation and I could do it with some adjustment. Ask me to give you a novel solution or to critique another person's analysis (necessary for an A) and I fell apart. It took me quite a while to learn to do something that came naturally to many Kiwis.
There's nothing wrong with making mistakes... that's how we learn. The key is to recognise it and move on. But people who are afraid to make mistakes will never progress. This is one of the greatest weakness of Asians, the fear of making mistakes and looking stupid/losing face.

"I am not discouraged , because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward" - Thomas Edison

As for their confidence, that was cultivated at school right from primary school level. They are encouraged to speak out and to explore, rather than being shot down and called kurang ajar. Natural curiosity is encouraged rather than suppressed. I see it in my young cousins now and compare it to what we have.

I'm not saying everything about our system is bad in comparison. In general, our syllabus are excellent (as you said). I just think it has been abused and twisted into what it is now. The focus is on As, As, and more As. Who cares if you know what the capital of Germany is or what is going on in Tibet now? How many students even read the newspapers? Gossip and sports pages don't count. How many read non-school books? As long as you get 21 As, nothing else matters. Don't even get me started on the grade inflation syndrome...

We have created a generation of students who know nothing beyond their textbooks, tuition, exam techniques and whatever movies/pop stars that happen to interest them. In short, we created a shallow generation.

Btw I won't say the quality of teachers in Malaysia is higher. Maybe you went to one of the better schools and never had English teachers who couldn't speak English, PE teachers who didn't know the difference between netball and basketball or simply teachers who never bothered to show up for class did you? I taught myself physics and and Form 4 biology. If you count that as learning experience, it did a world of good for me since it taught me to be independent. Then again, I won't take anything away from certain excellent teachers I had in Malaysia. I have utmost respect for them.

To summarise, my problem with the Malaysian system is:
1) next to no emphasis on arts and social sciences;
2) suppressing natural curiosity and independent thought; and
3) exams, exams and exams and grade inflation.
Note that I didn't complain about the syllabus.

If one had to sum up Malaysian students on one paragraph, this would be it.

Not to mention being seperated by language; imcompetent in English, racist in Malay and narowminded in mandarin.

Some of my Malaysian friends call me wikipedia simply because I know what the capital of Kyrgyzstan is. They don't know who Lim Guan Eng is. Never heard of Lingam. Only Dayak's live in Sarawak, and because they're "bumiputera's" they're all Muslim. The "prime minister" of Sarawak is a Malay. But hell, ask them to write an essay on the Privy council, up comes wikipedia, textbooks and recommended reading, and they get a 5 for it.

I'm seriously not making any of these up. This is my real life.

but what usually happen, intelligent student that went OC, they return to the country, and they tend to do their own business. make money. i mean, not many of em interested to join the authority (politic). or even worst, they stay outside the country. this more to the scholarship student. G sent them to study abroad with scholarship so thay they can return to make change. but sadly, they just stay outside watching their country ruining day by day and at the same time, they say that this country is bad in all term (education, economy etc) without them (who are suppose to return and change the bad to good) return and try to change it.

then??

2) Having things like KBKK doesn't mean anything when it's not being properly implemented. Berfikir secara kritis dan kreatif, my foot! It's just a stupid policy to point to to 'prove' that things are ok. Just like how the govt loves to point to the non-independent ACA to 'prove' that they're doing something about corruption. It means NOTHING!

3) Exams are not intrinsically bad. The problem is that in Malaysia, exams are the be-all and end-all of everything. Let's not even talk about school. Look at all the middle-class kids being forced to take piano lessons and pass Grade 8. How many of them are real musicians? How many of them love music? Most just do it to get their Grade 8 cert and that's it. Never have to touch the piano again in their lives. Their parents are happy cos they can brag about how their kids have Grade 8. How was that Grade 8 achieved? Just practice the exam pieces until they're perfected. That's not education. That's just perfecting exam techniques. 

And like I said earlier, what does 21 A's actually prove? We need to recognise that there's more to education than scoring A's in exams.

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Added on March 24, 2008, 1:10 am
>> is that bad miss an orientation?

Do you drink beer? If not, you are not going to miss much. 

2)Getting into NZ uni's may be easy, but staying in there is another thing. Undergrads for law, while everyone is accepted in at 1st year, they trim you down by second year. For some numbers, Auckland U takes in close to 1000 students for Law every year, but about only 300-400 will only progress to second year. And this is a trend repeated over all NZ uni's. I admit, this is partially in responce to the weaknesses of NCEA however.

And even in "we don't filter you after 1st year" Computer Science, people are dropping like flies. In Canterbury University, about 500 CS students were admitted in 2006. Here in 2008, only 110 brave souls survive from that cohort.

Easy to get in, hard to stay put. The merits and disadvantages are another topic for another day.

Whereas with Muslims, those who don't believe can't just leave. So they're forced to comply and act Islamic while in Saudi etc but the first chance they get, they're off doing whatever they want. So they're not Muslims at heart, but in name only (cos they have no choice about it).

why u always wrote word eyh? what does that mean?? 

all the 'mat salleh' like wearing t-shirt, singlet..
so i was thinking, people in NZ will be so relax with their weather and all..while im wearing a windbreaker like a

actually the shoes here are not bad ay. i got my basketball shoe for quite a good deal. Well, if you are talking about sandals, its quite pricey here but other than that, shoes price are generally ok in auckland. OK as in only valid for factory outlets...

That probably applies to the whole of NZ. Doesn't leave much for people who simply don't enjoy clubbing.

As the story goes, the ice cream contains chicken fats/oils - who knows if there's any truth in that?. Anyway, it's not very nice. Not like the ones in Malaysia.

You can get Milo in NZ. Some say it does not taste the same as the M'sian one, but personally i cant tell.

budget milk??
or pam's ??? hehehe
or meadow fresh ?

i like the internet connection here.. hehhee

idk bout u.. but huuhuh at least for me... waaaaaaaaaay better than msia

wad are u doing now emperor meng? wic uni are u in? did they ask u to sit for ielts as a requirement?

Employment prospects - little or no difference.
Student life - Otago by a mile. But that's just my opinion.

But if I were international, I wouldn't have come to NZ.