CELOTEH (3)

Here is the concluding part:-

On the second day, I was the first person to arrive in class and remarked to the lecturer-in-charge that there were not enough tables in the room. I ended up helping him to bring down the tables from upstairs. In schools and colleges, there is no janitor or handy man. We have to do everything ourselves including moving tables and chairs and cupboards and cabinets. So there I was in my heels carrying a table down two flights of stairs. I was wondering if my insurance covers that kind of situation. Maybe someone in insurance might come up with a special plan for teachers – there are more than 200 thousand of us out here.

Since the first day, I detected wireless connection in the room but could not get associated to the network. I enquired from the lecturer-in-charge about the kind of arrangement made for my group concerning Internet connection since it is one of the course components. His response was negative so again I requested to speak with the Head Department ….

Somehow an access point was installed in the room during lunch.

On Wednesday morning, I found myself in the Director’s office (summoned) earnestly justifying my actions (which has by now been registered as complaints – not my doing though) but somehow I ended up feeling like I was supplying him with classified information about a certain department. I took the opportunity to suggest some topics which I think should be covered during the course because after two days of classes, I honestly felt that I was not getting what I was supposed to get from the course and the coordinator kept giving us excuses. So when the Director asked for my opinion, I gave him my honest ones or so I thought.

However, by the next day my honest opinion has turned into complaints about lecturer’s insufficient ICT skills and ‘periuk belanga terbang melayang menghentam’ the scapegoat and I was it. Gee weez! And guess what! I became an ‘inFAMOUS celebrity’. Even the Head of Unit (an EXSASian, Nnnnnnn Jnnnnnnnn class of ’81- I hope you read this Nnnnnnn) turned up in the classroom to ‘see’ this teacher from Jerantut. All the lecturers who came to the class knew my name and I was officially appointed ‘Penghulu’ for this first cohort. Hehehe! The male teachers were so happy and I could see their wives wearing big ‘batu’ studded earrings.

On the second week, I sat down with one of the lecturers who seemed unhappy with the macro and micro facilities at the institute and think that the top gun of the college has personal interest in the company which gets the contract to supply and service all the ICT need at the institute which kind of creates a bottle neck situation. The ICT infrastructure (read: broadband facilities) of Kxxxx Xxxxx is way below what is required and available at the college. Hence the millions RM worth of equipments supplied and installed to the college under Multi Media Super Corridor Programme launched in 1997 just went to rot. There is nothing anybody can do about the persisting problem.

Personally, I feel this is a real ‘lebih kuah dari sudu’ and the ‘sudu sebesar belanga’ situation.

Exsasians would be familiar with these two expressions: ‘lebih kuah dari sudu’ was a misquote (I think) from brother Yyyyyy and ‘sudu sebesar belanga’ was coined by brother Dddddd (I sincerely hope both would not claim royalty from this poorly paid teacher).

I regard the bottle neck situation created by over specification of ICT facilities at the institution as ‘lebih kuah dari sudu’ because the infrastructure available at the location is very limited and this situation is in fact the reality of our country. For all the hypes over MSC, in actuality there is hardly 2 MB availability of broadband connection for the mass despite the latest launching of MAESAT (?). Hey! Yours truly is using a wireless fixed line telephone (cdma) and paying the dial-up rate for internet connection which is quite hefty and that is a ‘sudu sebesar belanga’ situation.

In conclusion, I think we are in serious need of a paradigm shift in our attitude towards responsibilities. We should be professional in carrying out our duty. Material and personal gains should not be the guiding force. At the end of the day, the money we earn will be used to feed those innocent children who in turn will take care of us when we are no longer able to care for ourselves.

Wassalam.