This paper begins with a restatement of the co-operative principles as they are to be found in Co-operative Law in Malaysia and ANGKASA Manifesto. Two basic concepts are practiced in the co-operative movement, which is democracy and equity in the distribution of trading surplus as returns to capital or as patronage. Rules and regulation are stressed once again as it contradicts with the practices in the private sector. The school co-operative should be strongly encouraged especially in Sabah and Sarawak, based on four strong reasons. A brief guidance is given on how the school co-operative should be set up. And last but not least, the problems of school co-operative are pointed out as well.
What is the Islamic republic? Can traditional Islamic laws be reconciled with the demands of economic development? How reactionary or progressive socially would such a state be? And overall, how potent is the appeal of reviving Islam? This interview has been joined by Prof. Aziz from Malaysia, Professor Anwar Abdel Malek from Paris, Dr. Majid Tehranian from Oxford, and Dr. Haleem from London. What is the Islamic revival? The four learned doctors and professors shared their views. Prof. Aziz suggested that it actually depends on how individual look at it. Dr. Haleem commented that there was no other religion able to progress in the Middle East besides Islam. The Middle East people failed to experience the happiness of westernization but dictatorship. Dr. Tehranian shared his opinion that there is a fundamental impulse that the Middle East people are attempting to go to the purity and justice of pristine Islam and to reconcile the principles and spirit of Islam with the new influences around the world. However, Prof Malek commented that it is difficult to determine the Islamic revival by randomly fixed a date because Islamic revival started much earlier, which was in 1952. How does the Islamic teaching being reconcile with the modernization speed in Malaysia? Is there an alternative banking system besides the western banking system? What is Islamic taxation rules are regulations? How do the Islamic law and the Islamic penalties work? What are the views of the outside world regarding this issue? And what are these learned professors' views on the status of women in the society in today's world? There was a short discussion on Ayatollah Khomeini and what are the influences of this Iranian revolution on other societies. The Islamic countries are now working towards re-establishing their Islamic identity. No doubt that Ayatollah Khomeini will be a great inspiration to any movement. It will bring a great upsurge of fervor and the fervor that will strengthen the faith of the Muslim activist and cause a radical change, a change that does not involve only in political, but cultural and religious as well.
The first attempt to establish a higher education in Malaya was dated back to 1889, a first training course for assistant surgeons. With the public funds, King Edward VII Medical School and King Edward VII College of Medicine were established to meet the local needs. Raffles College was then established a few years later to provide courses in art and science and with the hope that these colleges would form the nucleus of the future university. In 1947, the King Edward VII College was amalgamated with Raffles College to form the University of Malaya, which was located in Singapore. Following the declaration of independence by Malaya and the perspective of expansion of the University in Kuala Lumpur, the committee has agreed to establish two largely autonomous divisions of equal status in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, with a vice chancellor to be based in Kuala Lumpur. After the formation of Malaysia, the rapid expansion in the social and economic has boosted the number of population. University of Malaya alone could no longer meet the increasing demand for higher education facilities. This led to the establishment of another four universities to accommodate the needs of higher education. Various events that happened have influenced the admissions, teaching and language policies of the universities. In order to restructure the society, the universities have set up the pre-university courses for the bumiputera students to prepare them better for the university courses and thus trying to reduce the higher failure rates among the group. The main medium of communication in the universities has been set as Bahasa Malaysia to promote unity and harmony of the society. The five universities, which are University of Malaya, University of Science, the National University of Malaysia, the University of Agriculture and the University of Technology have their own focus in their respective field of expertise. The University and University College Act was enacted to guide the directions of the universities as well as to restrict the students' activities. As the effect, the universities in Malaysia share the similar administrative pattern. And all the universities are funded by the government. Prior to the admission to the universities, the students need to go through the primary education, lower secondary education (LCE) and upper secondary education (MCE or SPM). Those who pass well in the exams may gain admission to the 2 years of sixth form (HSE), which is set as the university admission requirement. The courses offered in the universities range from certificate to postgraduate studies, in part time or full time. Students' Representative Council (SRC) consists of a representative from each faculty, institutions and all the registered students. The objectives of SRC are to foster a spirit of corporate life among students, to organize and supervise students' welfare activities, to represent students in dealing with the vice-chancellor regarding the living and working conditions of the students and to undertake activities as may be determined by the council from time to time. The tuition fees and the accommodation fees vary from university to the others.
This paper outlines the rationale for developing a Cooperative Movement in secondary schools, with the examples drawn from Malaysia. There are 4 reasons to do so. Firstly, to give the students to experience the practice of democracy. Secondly, to give the students practical experience in organizing and cooperating an economic enterprise. Thirdly, to provide the schools, students and staffs with a convenient supply of items at attractive prices. And lastly, students could learn the art of working together or cooperating for the benefit of the whole school or for particular groups in the school. However, there are some problems concerning the school cooperatives, such as cash-flow difficulties, competition from the private sector, auditing facilities in decision making, as well as the needs to organize inter-cooperative activities.
Since the 14th century, there has been a remarkable constancy of trade in between China and Malaysia. However, the trade pattern has undergone some evolutionary changes from 16th to the 19th century. First and foremost, the increased population of Nanyang residents has increased the demand for foodstuffs and more functional textiles from China. Similarly, the composition of exports to China has changed as well. It was now rapidly dominated by the new raw materials, eg: rubber. Generally, the imports from China tend to be more stable than the export to China. A major part of total imports consists of food and beverages, tobacco and manufactured goods. With the more established operative trading system, Chinese traders tend to be at a more favorable stand over the importers. In terms of exports, Malaysia tries to maintain the position as the biggest importer of China's natural rubber imports. However, due to the strong competition from Sri Lanka and Thailand, the balance of trade has continuously been in China's favor. Therefore, neither imports nor exports that Malaysia is in a sufficiently strong position to exert much leverage. The character of Sino-Malaysian trade is considerably influenced by the Chinese community lifestyle in Malaysia. The urbanization of Chinese community and their consumption of a great variety of imported food have sustained a constant trade pattern with China. The unique distribution of Chinese clans and dialect groups, as well as the tightly organized system of trade associations (a polite euphemism for monopolies and monopsonies), have dominated the import and export composition of Sino-Malaysian trade. In the New Economic Policy, Malaysia government has tried to restructure the society by trying to encourage "Bumiputera" to enter this sector. However, due to the scarcity of resources, the Malaysia government has designated a trading corporation, Pernas to supervise and streamline the trading between China and Malaysia. The participation of the Chinese community in the higher income ...
Rukun Negara and Second Malaysia Plan, the New Economic Policy were set up to create a just society, to restructure the society and to eliminate poverty so that the nation could enjoy the national wealth equally. There were some radical changes implemented in the universities admission in conjunction with these national missions. There is an increasing number of the rural area students in the universities. The scholarship is given to the rural students sometimes could barely support their tuition fees and reasonable needs. Due to the scholar group also included well-being students who do not need any financial aid and some who do not appreciate the value of scholarship, Ungku suggested that the present scholarship system should be replaced by loan system. This would gradually reduce the use of public funds and the Government could use these funds for other development. The Tabung Siswa (Fund for Students) should be established to manage all the student loans. The fund would be financed from the present Government expenditures on scholarship which would eventually cease. The loan system would provide adequate loans to the student as per their need. It would be repayable in easy installments after graduation over an eight-year period. An interest of four percent would be charged after two years of convocation. After twelve years, this Student Fund should become financially independent or self-supporting. It is suggested that this new organization would overcome the present difficulties in finding a guarantor for the scholarship agreement. In the new proposed system, the guarantor can be one of the parents of the student, who is above 18 years old. The loan would either be deducted from the salary or EPF once the student graduates and starts working. The Student Fund could offer other benefits such as education insurance to parents of potential students. The complication of Government sponsored applicants could be overcome by establishing Organisasi Kemasukan (O.K). This new organization will work closely with all the government bodies and Student Funds, and the universities admission department to allocate the agreed number of applicants for admission to all faculties in all universities. Ungku also suggested a new system of cash prizes should be created to encourage sports, cultural activities and public services. This would create a pool of graduates with a healthy body and mind, with decent behavior and characteristics of being all-rounders in sports, cultural and rural services. Besides the present system of prizes awarded to undergraduate achieving top results in examinations, cash prizes could be awarded to undergraduates showing the best rate of progress in their respective faculties. This would strengthen the academic ambition, especially of rural students. This proposal is written based on the mission of forming a just society so that all the nations could enjoy the national wealth equally. This is also to encourage more youths from the rural areas to further their studies and thus improve their financial condition and escape from the exploitation of MM system. If the Government approved the proposal, a study should be carried out to examine and define the details about the Student Fund system.
Education, involves the formal teaching of pupils from the primary school, secondary school to higher institution education. The education development extended to adult education and extension programs. Development, on the other hand, is the planned process where certain action or communication is designed to change the environment, techniques, institutions or attitudes of people. There is always an interrelationship in between education and development. The effect of education and development is causing an upward shift along the spiral of development to achieve the target to be a developed country. In Peninsular Malaysia, the government hits an impressive rate of getting the schooling age children to at least receive their formal primary and secondary education at school. However, there is a high dropped out rate after the fifth year of secondary school education into the universities. A university needs to move in at least four dimensions, which consist of the pursuit of excellence, restructuring dynamics, language and learning, and Acts and action. Excellence should pervade not only in academic aspects but should also in sports, library, museum, cultural activities, publications and landscape. University paths the ways to achieve our national objectives, especially in development. It has worked along with the national philosophy, Rukun Tetangga. Admission to the universities is restructured to have a balance ethnicity among the students. The academic has stressed on the tolerance in between cultures while orientating our society towards a science and technology developed country. Language plays an important role in education. It is the key to open the door to learning and thinking. It also serves as the bridge that unites all the Malaysians. By law, students are not prohibited from taking part in any political demonstrations or involving in any political parties or trade union. Development in Malaysia is mainly concerned with the restructuring of the society to eradicate poverty. Education is directly concerned in development, especially in the tertiary and secondary level. With the steps of restructuring the society and implementation of the national language, the imbalances in between ethnicity would be soon dressed. And excellence shall be the ultimate criterion for Malaysia to become a developed nation.
Monopolistic and monopsonistic, (or the MM system) are always the core problems in the developing rural areas in Southeast Asia. This system is closely interlocked with systems of employment, tenancy and also the exploitation of the credit system. The social relationship and the ethnicity patterns have sustained the system over a period of time. Discrimination of education, health facilities and public welfare have worsened the problem even since the colonialization period. Why is the peasant unable to escape from the exploitative system? What are the main obstacles to breaking the ethnicity clan-dialect operating system? What are the myths that politicians held on the peasants from the rural area? Are there steps taken by the Government or politicians to assist the peasants in increasing the production? What are the steps taken by the MM operators to secure their MM status? How did the MM operator evolve after the war ended? Education, health facilities and public welfare play an important role in improving the living standard of the nations. However, what are the reasons behind that the kids from the rural area are unable to gain access to the tertiary education? What are the differences between the health facilities and public welfare provided in the urban and rural area? The surge of mass media allows the peasant to have a better view of current social and economic conditions. Politicians tried to sharpen the dissatisfactory feeling by spreading distorted views. In the end, all these erupted into vicious violence which shaken the stability and peace of the society.
What are the problems facing by agricultural and economic development in Malaysia? With the help of modern technology and research as well as the Government's alms, are there still any underlying problem which the government has not realized? In order to overcome all these underlying problems, what are the areas that the government should look into and what are the steps that the government should take to execute its agricultural development programs? This paper is divided into five major parts. Part One is to study the basic facts about the agriculture in West Malaysia. Part Two looks into the Government's aim for agricultural development. Part Three studies about the implementation of agricultural policy. Part Four discusses the main steps taken by Government to define and execute its agricultural development program. Last but not least, Ungku concluded the paper with Part Five which discusses the effectiveness of the agricultural policy and its implementation, taking into account certain developments that have occurred rather recently.
All rural sectors, agricultural production involves some financial arrangements which bring the farmers into commercial contact with the agencies. Marketing agencies play an important role in influencing the financial aspects of rural production. The modernization of the agricultural sector universally, however, do not have much impact on the agriculture sector locally. Why? Government's main objective is always to eliminate rural poverty. Poverty is not merely referring to the low level of average income. It also includes the inequality in the income distribution among the nations, especially among the rural and the urban area. Rural poverty is mainly caused by 3 major factors, which are the man labour, the land and the capital. Majority of the agricultural producers in Malaysia is made up of small farmers. Subdivision and land fragmentation have made the problem worse as it becomes uneconomic for the farmers to process their crops. They could hardly have a surplus from the crop production. And they need consumer goods between harvest. So they will get the goods from the market operator and pay with their crops when it comes to harvest season. This has compelled the farmers to sell their productions to the market operators without the negotiation power. When they are lack of capital to purchase the intermediate capital such as fertilizers, chemical herbicides or fuel, they have to get the capital from the market operator. The high-interest rate will get the farmers into further indebtedness. This monopsony condition will soon allow the market operator to gain ownership and control over the important forms of rural capital. Trying their best to avoid conditions of perfect competition, the market operator will soon try to block off other buyers from entering into the market through political and financial control. Besides, language and ethnicity may have become another barrier to block outsiders from breaking the monopoly condition. All these data could hardly be been collected as there is no cooperation from the leaders. Through administrative and legislative measures, the government should intervene to eliminate the monopoly and monopsony systems in the rural area. Managerial talent is very much needed in the cooperative trading or public cooperation to guide the farmers. The public marketing board should have adequate facilities to process the capital, the total output, transport, mills and storage issue and to build a better relationship with the farmers. The elimination of the MM system should be seen as an imperative criterion for economic development.
The basic aim of this paper is a systematic presentation of the various role that Government plays in industrial relations in Malaysia. Ungku tried to present this paper in a comprehensive and viable anatomical structure. To avoid some misunderstanding, Ungku has restricted the discussion in this paper to the relations between labour and management that arise out of matters connected with employment and non-employment, or the terms of employment of the conditions of work of any person. In a certain sense, the industrial relations can be seen as a Game. There are always two players, labour and the management. And there are always rules that are formally stated or institutionally accepted. In this paper, Ungku suggested that there are six significant roles that the Government plays in the industrial relations Game. They are the legislator, administrator, peacemaker, participant, adjudicator and guardian. This paper discusses the current situation briefly, hence there is no discussion in details on each role.
Every leader in the world opts for national development. National development does not merely involve economic development, but also other aspects that may interact with it, such as education, culture, health and armed forces. This paper mainly focuses on the definition of economic development and how cooperation can contribute towards national development. An introductory idea to economic development can be obtained by examining the objectives of a Government's economic development plan. Generally, the First Malaysia Plan aims at increasing the income levels and consumption per head, especially those in the rural area, and to improve the general living standard as a whole. The economic expansion is different from economic development. The ideal economic development must include the elimination of poverty, unemployment as well as under-employment and inequality in the sharing of public services, such as health, education, water and electricity. The process of national economic development is well fit into the ideals of cooperation and with cooperative principles. How to increase the farmers' or peasants' income and the consumption power? The statistics show that private sectors in Malaysia still control in the economic markets, no matter in financing sectors, paddy milling sector or agricultural sector. The impact of cooperative movement is not as big compared to other countries. The lack of united voice by the whole cooperative movement and the lack of historical evolution could be the factors that lead to this consequence. The cooperatives must take initiatives to break into the present monopolist-monopsonist system. It must coordinate its efforts with those government agencies, to concentrate on one or two specifically designated area or sector with a few limited objectives. And finally, the harmony of action and positive mindset from the highest apex level to the lowest primary cooperative are very much needed to expand the cooperative movement nationwide.
What is rural development? Why have poverty and rural development become vital topics in our world today? What are the causes of poverty and what are the effects to the community? Approximately we may say that the people living outside the towns or areas gazette as town boards are the rural people. However, there are people whose economic and social characteristics are similar to the urban people in their midst. Hence, in order to simplify the discussion, the rural people are restricted to the group neither belong to the barter system nor do they make elaborate use of money. The mining and the estate worker, as well as the government servants, are excluded from this discussion as they tend to have relatively high MV per capita. The common interpretation of poverty is always related to lower income group. In the author's interpretation, poverty always arises because of the inequality in the distribution of income and wealth. There are four aspects of poverty which can be considered. Firstly, the problem of measuring poverty, objectively. Secondly, certain measurable socio-economic characteristics that are associated with poverty. Thirdly, the aetiology of poverty and lastly, the inhibiting effects of poverty. In order to eliminate poverty in the rural area, it is necessary to understand what the underlying causes are. The problem has been rooted since the colonial period. The exploitation by the moneylenders and the agency houses, the monopoly and monopsony system, the government policy which protected the migrants and the sole distributors but neglected the rural people, have deepened the problem of poverty even though after the independence. When the development has reached its limit in a geographical area, it cannot grow any further. The income cannot be raised anymore. Hence the cooperation between the rural people and the government is very much needed to overcome the problem. What can we do for rural development? Ungku has made some proposal about the ways of rural development. The old systems of Bagi-Dua and the truck system should be abolished. He urged the Government to implement laws that will protect the rural people by improving the employee working conditions and to set a minimum wage floor. A new system is needed to replace or to break into the M-M system in the rural areas. Cooperation stands as the most suitable institution to take over the old systems, with the support from the Government. However, Ungku also stressed that the genuine competition would only exist when there are three sectors in the market, the public, private and cooperative.
The basic problem of developing countries or backward countries always lies in poverty. To improve the standard of living in the developing countries, we need to eliminate poverty. Since the western colonization period in Malaysia, the poverty problem has been rooted in the society. The disintegration of traditional villages, the uneven distribution of income, monopoly system, neglected rural development, etc. are among the main problems of poverty. What are the causes of poverty? Without lacking cheap labours and land resources, the productivity in the agriculture sector is relatively low. Better seeds for crops plantation, tools, fertilizers and education for farm techniques are very much in need to improve the productivity. However, all these need working capital. Besides, farmers are being exploited in every possible way. Heavy rents, high-interest rates on debts, monopoly and monopsony system, all the terms of trade tend to be unfavorable to the farmers. No matter public facilities or educational system, the government tends to focus on urban development, rather than the rural area. The training and textbooks in the universities tend to focus more on the developed countries rather than tropical climate and plantations. There are many factors of low productivity in production and rural development. The rural labour is underemployed and works on a seasonal basis. Since western colonization, a majority of the labours have been racially specialized in different fields. This hindered them from moving from industries to industries. They are only exposed to very basic education and in an indigenous language. Besides labour, the farmers also being threatened by the effect of subdivision, fragmentation, extensive tenancy and preference for land as a form of investment. The agglomerator owners are only interested in high rent and tea money rather than the efficiency of the land. Hence the agrarian reforms are needed to solve the problem. And the main factor is the capital. This is the basic tool for exploitation. Farmers hesitated to get the loan or mobile money in order not to get trapped in the high-interest rate from the local money lender. Government's support and assistance are very much in need to overcome this problem. We must realize that agriculture is the major occupation of the country. Other industries are practically non-existent. Government plays an important role in the backward country development. The economic development cannot be separated from agrarian reform and from revolutionary changes. The government must prioritize the phasing of the industries development and budget allocation of each industry in her national development plan.
