Science as a unifying factor !

So much emphasis is placed on the teaching of Mathematics and Sciences in English but many fail to realise that many activities can be more effectively carried out to encourage and further fostering the closeness and real integration of all students across board.The call for RIMUP (Rancangan Integrasi Murid Untuk Perpaduan) should blend in many Science activities to meet its objectives.

The recent international competitions such as the 39^th International Chemistry Olympiad held in Moscow in July 2007 and the 40^th IChO held in Budapest, Hungary this year are very good examples of the effectiveness of such activities. Students from all over the world who gathered from 68 countries could actively participate in a friendly and enjoyable manner to interact academically through 5 hours of Theoretical Chemistry and 5 hours of Practical Chemistry. Though there is a language difference, they could communicate through the common Science language when the problems were explained. The hosts could arbitrate over the scores of the individual students without having to know everyone’s language! So marvelous is the Science language and it is indeed a good unifying tool!

Besides this,there are so much happenings about Science in our beloved country who had newly celebrated her 50^th Aniversary of her independence.More than 1500 participants from all over the world had gathered in PWTC Kuala Lumpur last year to participate in the 12^th Asian Chemical Congress and this included a number of prominent scientists in the World. We were the host for the 27 Asian Chemical Societies who attended this biennial activity. Among them, we had a Nobel Laureate Professor F Sherwood Rowland from the United States Of America and a number of other prominent professors in various fields of Chemistry. There is not a single mention in our papers and the general public hardly knows the current development of Sciences.So, how is Malaysia going to produce a Nobel Laureate in the near future? On the contrary, when Mawi or Datuk Siti Nurhaliza is in town, there is so much publicities. So, Malaysia, where are our priorities? Do we really need the correct networking to publish these news in the papers ?

Furthermore, our students’ achievements in the international arena too are not highlighted . Nobody knows that they have gone that far and when they are back, their achievements are not made known. Malaysian students should know the benchmark for achievement before they go on achieving more excellence. How many would know that we had obtained three bronzes for each of the two successive years when we had participated in the International Chemistry Olympiads in Korea and Moscow.These attempts are our first and second attempts only.Nobody too knows the silent heroes who had trained these students and without their involvement how could our less than 20 years old students answer questions of Third Year University standards?

I sincerely hope that the various authorities concerned would seriously look into these areas to ensure that all the objectives of Wawasan 2020 are met with and the bottom line is Malaysia excel in the various international platforms.