This blog post has been sitting in my drafts folder for some time now, since ‘decolonisation’ became a “new” buzzword for the occupational therapy profession via The 2018 WFOT (World Federation of Occupational Therapy) Congress in Africa which catapulted the concept into the spotlight, causing murmurs of controversy in the international occupational therapy community. The long delay from idea to…
Category: Higher Education Commentary
How to Choose a College? (The best, most general piece of advice I can give)
So on the back of people asking excessively generic questions which were hard to answer without context, today someone asked me: How to choose a college? That was all. The person was asking on behalf of someone else. I didn’t even know who the someone else was. But you know what? It’s not a bad question. I think more people…
Underemployment among B40 graduates in Malaysia
Underemployment among Malaysian graduates has been an issue for some time now, yet we don’t seem anywhere close to resolving the issue. I used to teach B40 students, some who were ineligible to study in government higher education institutions. I also used to hire staff who are from this population. There are several young people from this population I continue…
B40 afraid of starting businesses? Only want money?
I personally think it is much harder for people from the B40 communities to start businesses due to having less insulation from risk. They would also typically lack the means to acquire the social capital needed to make a business succeed. So when our Entrepreneurship Development Minister made comments about the B40 community as per the headline, I decided to…
Fitness to Practice Issues in Malaysia
I have been reflecting on the Case of the Misogynistic Medical Student as fitness to practice issues have been a long time concern of mine due to my work in the health professions. What would I have done if I were his educators or the administration at his university? Is it right for the Malaysian public to circulate petitions calling…
Pre-sessional English Courses: a win-win?
When I first got to the UK, I was shocked to meet international students who were hardly able to express themselves in English. I am used to working with people who use English as a foreign or second or third language, but I was rather confused when I saw fellow grad students struggle to keep up with a group activity / discussion. I suppose…