Victoria Sapientes Elegit the minimalist blog by syarif

Theres an age old question in choosing one of those. Should a leader protect the nation's economy or improve the national education? Of course choosing both is the ultimate option. However, in reality, there are things that we need to sacrifice.
 
Imagine that you're in the position of power, where assuming that you can only choose ONE, which will it be?
 
I myself am struggling with the answer. Well, it's not that I'm running the country (yet), but I am in the position in providing about the same option to my own boss and/or my clients (and potential clients).
 
I'm a training manager. Education is the key to my work. And like many other company directors, keeping the company alive is the key task.
 
Now, back to the question.
 
Education is; for lack of better words; pain in the ass. Seriously, it takes time to plan, it takes time to execute and it takes really really really long for us to see the results. Take language for example, Malaysian students will learn Bahasa Malaysia (or Bahasa Melayu to a certain expert) for AT LEAST 10 years. Since Standard One where pupils learn the basics until Form Five where they learn the intermediate level. Those who opt for Kesusasteraan Bahasa Melayu in varsities will explore the advanced level. But with that, what is the result? Some of us can't differentiate between "degil" and "nakal", and some really thought that "motorsikal" is the correct spelling.
 
Some would say that language is something that changes all the time. We have seen the revolution of spellings (from "habes" to "habis") also the revolution of language rules; i.e. "Perdana Menteri" and "Arus Perdana" is using the same "Hukum DM" – BUT the "Perdana Menteri" is given an exception.
 
 However it's the same with almost every other subject in the world. We take Marketing for instance. From it was started, the concept of marketing is only 'location, location, location'. Then it began to evolve to 4P – product, price, place, promotion. Then more revolutions came in with to become 7P – and eventually, 11P and the latest one it has become 14P; where things like people, processes, packaging and 'purple cow' were added.
 
All that marks that everything in the world is evolving from the things we take for granted like language to something that we use to drive our business like marketing. Education or learning is a lifetime process.
 
Taking for that cue, it strengthens the fact that education is something that takes time to execute and more often than not, it's ages till we see the results.
 
But, education is not cheap. A simple public seminar on how to bake an orange sponge cake will cost you at least RM100. That's for ONE person, for ONE type of cookie – where you can find the recipes all over internet for free. Imagine that you want to learn something a bit complex. Like baking a triple layered moist chocolate cake a la soufflé (no, I'm not making it up) – the cost to learn can shoot up to RM 1,200 – 12 times from the basic sponge cake.
 
What I'm trying to say is that to learn something 'complex' or perhaps 'un-orthodox' or maybe 'new' can be really expensive. For a company to send 30 of their staff for a computer class can expect a 5-figure amount of expenses. And it may be not enough.
 
Thus, a company director will usually either:
1- take the cheapest bidder in the market (where in training industry would mean a free-lance computer geek who most probably not a certified trainer, who knows how to use PowerPoint but not in a way to "present to people" and copy all his notes from internet). This is just to show that he IS doing something for the company.
 
2- send 3 staff to go and assign them to teach the other 9 (which will translate to lack of enthusiasm, do for the sake of doing it, and most importantly incomplete transfer of knowledge). This is based on facts that usually a worker will only carry back 30% (max) of the things that have been presented during training.
 
3- just don't bother.
 
If you have noticed, each of the choices above will translate into 1 thing. Money. Which is pretty much related to the economic conditions of the company.
 
Tell me lads, if the company only have enough capability to sustain the staff and other overheads, where the hell are they going to fork out money to pay for training (or staff development)?
 
But we know that if somehow they do have the capability to improve staff, then there are greater chance the company would do better in the long run. But the subsequent question would be: When?
 
Now we can see how hard it is to make that decision is to be made. One cannot sacrifice the other without losing some. If they opt to do the learning, the economy might suffer, and vice versa.
 
Going back to the earlier context, if you're running the company, which one will you choose?
 
Personally, I would go for education. Not just to uphold my position now, but also that we're in deep economic turmoil – thank god it's not a breakdown yet. Since a lot of people are so goddamn stupid – not just academically but also in terms of common sense. Mass public education (or propaganda some might call it) as well as school education (perhaps to a certain extend I will hand-pick the teachers, and ultimately revamp the whole teaching profession). I will import teachers where necessary as theres no point a bunch of stupid buggers teaching the children.
 
Malaysian teachers ESPECIALLY the young ones, please be offended. I am reflecting much about you. Do not say anything to counter my thoughts, as if you do not notice until now, I'm that dude who did the RSE training. One thing I found after training almost 21,000 of you is that 20,000 always have excuses to TEACH LESS. An educator should not have that kind of thinking.
 
A bit sidetracked, I know. But heck. Ja!

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device via Vodafone-Celcom Mobile.