Focus Focus: Pirated Education

While sitting and whiling some time away with an academic friend the other day, our conversation invariably led to the sense of imminent doom looming over the current state of tertiary education in Malaysia. It was a morbid conversation to be honest. Gruesome details about depressingly incompetent administrative apparatchiks, the unending flood of life-sapping paperwork, and most hellish of all, lackadaisical students who could care less about what they’re doing and their heinous habit of (literally) “copy-and-paste.” Yes, plagiarism, the pirate of intelligence, scourge of independent thinking, destroyer of creativity and originality.

But is plagiarism truly the beast our educators make it out to be? Does it truly afflict the development of a student's growth? And what is our stand on this condition, vis-a-vis the messages that have been flung to the four corners of our country from the podiums of politicians about a world-class Malaysian education (sure, politicians rarely write their own speeches, but still...)?

A cousin of mine, to whom I had spoken to regarding this topic, provided an anecdote. While studying in USM, Penang, the entire first-year class were informed of the dangers (to their degrees, at least) of plagiarism, and that they should avoid it like the plague if they wanted to graduate. After this very stern warning, my cousin spoke about the ineffectively vague and obscure definitions of “plagiarism” provided to the student body throughout nearly her entire time there. This left students none the wiser, as it was in their fourth year, my cousin related, that what this bugbear truly was finally revealed: the usage of a (textual, pictorial, etc) resource without citing the original source.

And they only found this out, in a very practical fashion, in their final year, during the preparation of their final paper. What the… fuck!

I’m inspired to ponder the genesis of this malignant affliction. Perhaps it arises out of the complete and utter disconnect of the student from the educational process. I mean, if you ain't got love for it, why furrow your brows and churn your grey matter?

Perhaps “why should I care?” is the real question. And maybe the easiest answer is the photocopy solution.

Or, more ominously (and with more dangerous ramifications for the future of nation and society): “I don't care.”

Apathy. That is our contemporary A-Bomb. To quote a passage from the Bhagavad Gita, which Robert Oppenheimer was supposed to have quoted upon witnessing the first atomic bomb's mushroom cloud, “We are become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds.”

So drama ah? I suppose, but it reflects a much larger psychological condition, which we as a society need to address sooner or later. Is there a significant disengagement by our students, either in classrooms or outside (i.e. in student life, or as a member of society)? If there is, how do we seek to re-engage the interests of those who are no longer interested?

One fear I have is that there’s no real or serious consideration of this malady among the faculty and administrative staff in these bastions of higher learning. In the end, a university in a contemporary Malaysian context is anything but a university. It's an excuse to win the next general elections. It's a factory, to produce workers for an Asian economy in the midst of talks on the Free Trade Agreement. It's a breeding house for more right-wing communal politics. It's a space to erase our memories of the more vigorous and conscientised student spirit of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.

It's all that (and probably more). But it's not a university.
 

TEXT Fahmi Fadzil PHOTO Bright Lights At Midnight