4 May 2001

Divine economics

Posted by DAVID BC TAN under: Uncategorized.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Mahathir recently unveiled the 8th Malaysia Plan: 2001 - 2000, which incidentally addresses targets set out in the Third Outline Perspective Plan or OPP3 (2001-2010). It’s a broad template spelling out macroeconomic strategies with all the requisite catchphrases and statistics to assure Malaysians that the ship’s afloat, the captain’s on board, that we know where we’re going. Looking at the development thrusts, one can’t help but detect an indignant clatter not unlike that of an engine revved alive on a cold day. It’s an unenviable task; someone’s got to do the job, but enough about my old car…

My attention was particularly drawn to the part about education, which in the New Straits Times was ominously headlined “More Jobs Will Be Created: Education system to be responsive to needs of industries.”“to unite the people” and that a total revamp was pretty much due. Now I get goose bumps when I hear announcements like this, but it’s probably just me. That’s not unusual as governments the world over are known to view education as some kind of utilitarian apparatus plugging human resource needs. Earlier in the same month, newspapers front-paged the PM’s lament that the education system had failed

Meanwhile, as if to drive the message home, newspapers highlighted two shocking acts of violence in our schools on the heels of that report: In the first case, a teen was stabbed during a school assembly, in front of teachers and students who were too stunned to react. In the second, another teen who was literally hammered on the head, landed in hospital with a broken skull.

Clearly the state of education in the country is way beyond “I-told-you-so,” the service and sacrifice of dedicated school teachers notwithstanding. Who’s to blame? Is the pit it has descended one we dug for ourselves? A revamp is undoubtedly urgent, but schools can only do so much. That’s why I believe homeschool makes more sense.

Nevertheless, if school reform is all about shuffling human resource more efficiently into the marketplace, I’m afraid that’s selling our children short. It seems to me when cultivation of virtue is sacrificed at the altar of economic or political expedience, there is hell to pay. So, why do parents still insist on measuring their children’s worth (and their own) according to the nuts and bolts of our materialistic culture?

I remember in a conversation not long ago when Sook Ching mentioned in jest that our son Elliot’s interest in insects could well lead to a career in entomology. Better to be a geneticist, a leader helpfully advised; entomologists don’t make money. The world we live in may increasingly resemble an impersonal technopolis or a gigantic machine, but it does not follow that we should become cogs in the wheel. Sure, competition is tough and society scoffs at losers.

Thankfully people count for more in God’s divine economy, and I’m glad He’s the one keeping score.

“But each one should be careful how he builds. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work.” 1 Corinthians 3:10~13

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