YOURSAY ‘At least there is one area where Malaysia is slightly better than Singapore.’

Malaysia hits record low in press freedom index

Mohgui: Not surprising at all - press freedom, human rights, education, currency... all these are in a downward spiral.

The only things going up are cost of living and the price of essential goods. Umno has done well in increasing their wealth to the neglect of the rakyat.

FairMind: Much of the blame of the lack of the press freedom has to be attributed to the mainstream media themselves.

They allowed themselves to be muffled and censored without much resistance and objection, and they allowed themselves to be used as tools of this corrupt regime.

The pen is mightier than the sword. If thousands of pens could be wielded in search of the truth, this repressive regime would have been brought down to its knees a long time ago

Anonymous #02382443: Malaysia is on par with Singapore for the wrong reason. If only it is with regards to the currencies of both nations, then only will we have something to cheer about.

Haveagreatday: We will hear the Umnoputras saying that this index has no relevance, nor integrity. But the right-thinking rakyat know better, and it is indeed a sad verdict on press freedom in this country ever since Najib Abdul Razak became prime minister.

Swipenter: That report is not accurate. We all know the New Straits Times and Utusan Malaysia papers can print what they like. They have almost complete freedom to print misleading reports, misinformation, fabricated stories, slander...

If they are dragged to court for adjudication and found guilty, they would just have to pay the fine, print an apology to the aggrieved party, and the cycle repeats itself.

Pemerhati: At least, there is one area where Malaysia is slightly better than Singapore. On the press freedom index, we are ranked at 145, while Singapore is at 149.

In most other areas, Malaysia trails very badly - mainly because of its racist, supremacist, and apartheid-like policies.

Apart from its dictatorial or authoritarian rule, Singapore has done extremely well in other areas and is described by a lot of foreign observers as the Switzerland of the East.

Dizzer: Not all is lost. Our media are still slightly better than our football team - 154, one place behind Laos in the Fifa World rankings!

Teachers to protest despite minister's 'pacification'

SpongeBob: The pilot study on the Pentaksiran Berasaskan Sekolah (PBS, School-based Assessment) should have shown all these defects and foreseeable problems in the system’s software.

Did the ministry carry out a pilot study on this system? Why are all these problems brewing now?

It looks like the teaching profession is incapable of implementing this system. Perhaps the ministry has been taken for a ride by the software provider - a trademark of the Umno-led government.

Changenow: There are 51,000 unemployed Malay graduates. If they were only proficient in English and were worth their degrees, they shouldn't have a problem in getting jobs both in Malaysia or serving foreign companies.

Politicians should deny their children an English education and experience for themselves the fate of their children. Not mastering the English language is ‘hara kiri’ (suicide) for Malaysia economically.

Amused Malaysian: BN has introduced statistics to prove every point.

I have interviewed job applicants with five ‘As’ in Home Science, Tailoring, Religious Studies (Islamic studies only), Needlework, etc. But as for English, Bahasa Malaysia, Mathematics and Science - all these subjects they failed in.

How do they hope to get a job in the "real" world?

Bamboo: BN wants to keep the masses ignorant and with little knowledge of what’s really going on in the country so that BN can get their votes by throwing propaganda at them.

Producing low-skill graduates who are unemployable will not bring us to the status of a high-income nation.

It's a matter of time that our country will implode with high crime rates when masses who are unproductive and lazy - yet demand for good things in life - resort to crime for money.

Appum: Muhyiddin Yassin is not even fit to be the deputy prime minister of this great country, let alone the education minister.

Umno has damaged this country throughout these years with corruption, racism, religious bigotry, cronyism, and incompetency through dividing the peaceful ethnic groups to remain in power. All these are not by chance, but by systematic social engineering.

Yes teachers, we can understand that you can't take this nonsense further. Not only is the system of education sliding down, but also every other aspect of productivity in this nation.

Hill: Muhyiddin should just quit as an education minister. Then the problem can be solved easily.

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