WITH ITS BILLIONS MAKE SOCSO RELEVANT IN THESE TIMES

GOVERNMENT MUST STOP TEXT BOOK SOLUTIONS FOR HR PROBLEMS

 by; Francis T Rozario
3/24/2020   21.49

The latest initiative to allow workers to withdrew five hundred ringgit per month from their EPF is a akin to telling the workers to go pay themselves with monies they have saved for their retirement.

It is well known that Employees Provident Fund savings are insufficient to sustain most contributors when they retire, and if this government has not realised this they are out of touch, terribly out of touch.

To make matters worse the the Ministry of Human Resources  has come out with statements saying Employers must pay workers their salaries which is understood as full salaries.

The  ministry is providing text book solutions and we do not need a Minister to come announce that.

SOLUTION PROVIDED BY LAW.

The law on wages regarding lawful deductions can be used to address this situation, and the Minister of Human Resources has to apply wisdom studying the implications of the current situation using the proviso of section 24 (7) to allow for  deductions of wages either in part or in full by the employer during this period  a proviso the Director General of Human Resources has the authority to use and implement..

Section 24(8) however stipulates that such deductions shall not exceed fifty percentum in any one month and considering that the current situation if the MOC remains at two weeks the employer bearing fifty percent  may seem fair.

However in this period of downturn in sales and the double whammy  of this shutdown  may make the situation  a burden too heavy for the employer to bear.

Covid 19 is without precedence accordingly the measures we take should have none either if industry is to survive.

Malaysia has never witnessed or experienced such a situation, it is a calamity that has has no precedence, and to deal with it we have to take measures never before taken and every Malaysian will have to support the best measures available for us to ensure that this can be done, to meet the basic needs of the Malaysian worker and the survival of industry on which the nation and the worker are dependent on.

Employees must not be left in despair, certainly not at such times, they must have the security of their wages to allow them to look after their families, put food on the table and look after their other essential needs, it is a time for survival not high living.

SECURITY OF TENURE EVERYONE'S RESPONSIBILITY 

Having said that, employees must also realise the fact that this can only happen as long as they are employed, continued employment is a necessity that cannot be ignored and they too have to make sacrifices on their part.

If employers are squeezed excessively they may resort to retrenchment of the workforce, and even closing down of the enterprise, that will put employment at risk, and at  times like this when we can't expect too much foreign direct investment unemployment will grow and we can't afford that.

 This is a situation where the employer, the employee and more so the government has to play its part, the government just can't stand aloof and pass moves that actually benefits no one like the latest initiative allowing the withdrawal of RM500 per employee from the EPF.

This EPF move is literally telling the worker to pay himself so where is the care from the Government?
The government should instead turn to SOCSO, and make it more relevant, this is what Social Security is after all.

There must be no Sacrifice of the MOC to try and lessen this burden on Employer and Employee.

In an attempt to lessen these burdens to employer and employee the government should not sacrifice the lock down or what we call the MOC, that has to continue and judging from our present position maybe for another four weeks at the minimum with more stringent controls if we have to get this act in order to curb the spread of the disease.

Lessening the controls of the MOC to try and right the despair of the employer and the employee is  tantamount to abandonment of its duties by the government , and we do not want that, neither should we accept it.

MAKE SOCSO RELEVANT - IT NEVER  HAS BEEN

In Malaysia we have the Social Security Organisation (SOCSO) to which both Employer and Employee pays a mandatory subscription to every month.

As stated earlier this Covid 19 outbreak has no precedence, so our actions will also be ones without precedence.

The government should scrap the EPF withdrawal plan of Ringgit Malaysian five hundred a month an get SOCSO to pay its members up to thirty percentum of their wages  for period of 12 months or until such time the situation returns to normal which ever is lesser to be reviewed at the time.

SOCSO has the funds and the government should use it, there is far more than 100 billion in assets alone in SOCSO.

If this is done and the Director General of Human Resources allows for the deduction of fifty percent in salary at this time, the employer can reduce his burden by  30 percent and the worker will receive  his fifty percent.

This is is the most meaningful exercise in Social Security  by a  Social Security  Organization, so go ahead please make SOCSO relevant. 

The Government does not need laws or  a precedent for this,  Covid 19 pandemic is without precedent and to do it is governing and that is precisely why we have a government.

To do their part, workers will have to sacrifice all the paid annual leave they are entitled to for the year to mitigate their loss of salary, this the worker has to do to be seen as contributing 
as a serious partner in this exercise.

The Government has to  lessen tariffs on Electricity and other utilities and suspend HRDF contribution for the period,  it is absurd to make such payments in a period training will grind to a halt except for very specific cases, this will also lessen the burden on the employer.

SOCSO contributions should be suspended during this period, and the arrears can be collected by SOCSO in installments when the situation normalises over a similar period as that of the the suspension.

EPF contributions shall continue during this period at existing rates, with Trade Unions and employee relations Managers in the non Unionised sector encouraging employees to increase their own contribution.

If these measures can be put in place Trade Unions must support it, but this is not to be a precedent for future negotiations on terms and conditions of service nor for the promulgation into law of these  conditions these will remain unprecedented measures for an unprecedented global calamity.

These are special measures taken at a  special time in our history and the history of the world we will learn with it.






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ONE STREAM EDUCATION, BE SERIOUS, LIGHT IT UP!!

Those who follow my articles know that I am almost totally anti UMNO.

 But I'l call a spade a spade when i see one, and I'll support UMNO's Razlan Raafii  who has echoed the wishes of Many Malaysians including me and even the Regent of Johor Tenku Ismail Sultan Ibrahim on a "ONE STREAM EDUCATION SYSTEM".

DON'T END IT THERE, AND DON'T TRASH IT HERE EITHER, BE COMMITTED TO IT BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT WE NEED.

 

Malay College Kuala Knagsar -It has to be opened for the good of the Malays

 Dwell on our Strengths

To do this we have to use our strengths, and one of our our biggest strengths which we must recognise  is,  the UEC system of education,  again calling the spade a spade.

I am not saying to make others learn Chinese, although that may be a good thing to encourage, because that language alone drives your brain into analytical mode, it is a language that is made of characters rather than alphabets so we must give thought to it, serious thought, ever wonder why Chinese are so good at Mathematics? .

 BAHASA HAS TO HAVE ITS RIGHTFUL PLACE
Of course Bahasa will not only be the compulsory language but we must get our young to love Bahasa it is our language and it should continue to be compulsory.

On the other hand Tamil is the oldest language in the world not Sanskrit, and Bahasa has its roots in that language not Jawi or Arabic   so we have the best of all the worlds and English in Malaysia though it has deteriorated leaps and bounds to the extent that a growing number of Indonesians especially Javanese are speaking the language very well these days we have to bring back focus on this language, it can be added as a choice if one chooses not to do POL.

Reintroduce the Bulan Bahasa Kebangsaan, the competitions,  the Songs etc, bring into light and let them celebrate our language - Celebrate BAHASA KEBANGSAAN KITA..

As far as the UEC system goes  I am saying use the expertise,   teaching methods, curriculum learning and teaching culture into the one stream of our education system, call on the Chinese Educationists to contribute, and contribute they will.

They will not only contribute but become active proponents to the idea of one stream as long as they are not threatened and their inclusion to learn from them will be seen as great milestone in our education history.

Malays are already flocking to Chinese Schools they'll accept if politics is out.

 Use the best resources.
To drive the people, the Education at National level, have   the UEC stream and the current Examination stream and allow pupils to choose from both like the AEB and the Cambridge streams in the UK. The UEC stream has earned it.

Let Schools choose one stream or the other, let it be managed at the national level by separate administrators  then it will result in competition at that level the very top, the government only funds the two systems, and we'll see a real healthy growth of education in Malaysia via competition, two systems one Examination if that is possible to be set by the Examinations syndicate based on a common  syllabus.
 

Send selected teacher trainees of all races to China to learn Chinese and other subjects to become teachers, pick those who have a genuine and sincere desire to cultivate their fellow Malaysians regardless of race and creed, so they can not only teach Chinese but Science and Mathematics, learn why the Chinese (not Malaysians) are so entrepreneurial, and develop our future generations.

Send successful teacher trainees with the right qualifications, attitude and aptitude to countries like the US, Germany, UK and France to learn how they develop their children, be like Japan before world war 2.

On the cultural front involve everybody the Malaysian culture is evolving, Nasi Lemak, Roti Canai are on the Nasional breakfast  menu, we eat mamak mee, mee Melayu and so on, we have the equivalent of Ang Paw with the Malays as Duit Raya, Chinese use kebaya annd kubarong we also pray in Malay,  it is evolving for  truly Nasional Malaysian culture we have to involve everyone.

Stop segregating pupils according to race,  encourage the Malays pupils who form the majority to mix with other children as we used to do before and to this end Sports and other cultural activities play a huge part.

Bring in Educationists from India and the UK to seriously look and help manage our Teacher training programmes and if need be let them head thesew Institutions.

We have to look at our strengths and even the Tamil School (that I have been very critical about in the past ) have now improved their standards tremendously, their students are winning the National and International awards, and their levels in Bahasa, English Mathematics have even surpassed the other type of National Schools. How did they do it given the great disadvantageous positions these schools were in less than a decade ago. 

There are still some remnants of the  Mission Schools, how effective they will be is hard to tell, they contributed f=very effectively to our education system before.

Take politics and race out of education

The quest for one stream must come by tapping the resources of all people in our society and there is a real possibility of that being achieved if,  the Ministry of Education involves all the parties involved in Education system and stop playing a racial game here.

We must be focused here on what is best  for the development of the country into a first world country.

Take politics out of education, Malay parents who know and are not easily politically misled send their children to Chinese and Indian Mathematics  and Science teachers to get them to improve their

Have more of this.

standards in these subjects, 

Disregard race, take politicians out of the equation, make it a crime to criticise and gain political advantage on race and religion in National Education, if we are serious about making our young quality graduates who can really positively and effectively  contribute to the nation and our development.

If we continue with our "tiga suku" politically driven education system we have today, this country is doomed to be a failure.

2020 Missed  2030 in danger of going he wrong way
We have already missed 2020 and I dare say with our focus on unimportant issues in our education system, our total lack of insight into what is really needed of our graduates for development of the country economically, technologically and the needs of enterprise a situation we have been in since  at least the early 80's,   by 2030 we will successfully sink into world nation. and that will be thanks to our politicians, our so called technocrats, and our leaders, who to this day insist on playingthe race card even with education our children.

Why? and the only reason one can attribute this to is that they can't be bothered, just find out ewhere their Children are being educated.

We can't have people like Mazlee heading education, please Mahathir, I think you have done that on purpose to spite everyone else since we did not let you take the portfolio of education with your Prime Ministers you put this man who seems not to have an inkling of really improving education and the core issues regarding that and National Development there.  

Russia can bring in the best Areo-space technology in the world into to Malaysia as Putin has just said, but all we will be able to do is to continue to be followers and not innovators and leaders,  we'll forever, be followers at this rate . take a look of how we fared with your favourite project in -the Auto Industries,   we are still reliant on foreign models, foreign technology and lack the ability to design, innovate and create new technology and a big part of that blame was to have Proton be led by inadequate people since its inception. 

 Made in Malaysia or China?

Proton for all its present worth is driving high because of China, Chinese technology  and Chinese Management, is that what  you planned for? Do want to continue to do just that?

Don't blame the Malays blame yourself, you allowed bureaucrats lead the industry, people without any experience in cars,   although we had people who owned and managed motor assembly plants successfully and they would have been the logical choice for progression bt you played the race card and see what has happened.

You could not have insulted us more.

We are calling a made in China product assembled in Malaysia a Malaysian product, how nice.

Education  should be the domain of the best,  the educators and policy makers must come of the crème de la crème of our society in this field and if that is not available buy them from Singapore, India, Finland anywhere where we can find the really best. 

Teachers, policy makers and and other educationists must be rewarded well enough that they do not have to look for other means of earning money like becoming private tutors which is so commonand so lucrative these days.


One Session Schools
One Session schools from 8.30 a.m to 4.30 pm.with break-times in the aggregate of one hour.

Build more Schools, have a only one session in schools, reintroduce sports at a serious level, and school hours should be stretched longer with breaks.

No morning school and afternoon school. only one session, one serious session. Reward teachers well and have performance driven incentives fo them, level the playing field.

Regulate class sizes, .

 Ban Homework
Ban home work for children like they have done in  Finland even China espouses to do so.
Children should not be burdened to the extent they find school a bore, or something weary.
Allow them to have a say on the subjects they'd like to pursue make them part of their education

Bring in sports seriously into the school curriculum, inculcate the spirit of competition, sports also gets students into the mindset of being competent and we need it to develop   well balanced educated young men and women  not to mention good sportsmen and sportswomen.

The authorities must show that they are serious, by involving all parties and if on merits another race will provide the best candidate to lead such initiatives it should go to that person, it is not race we are talking about we are talking about a truly and sincerely Malaysian system of education - one stream.
This is not NEP or privileges it is getting the best for our children all our children

Politicians should stay away let this body set up to do it decide and come out void of all political involvement are we matured enough to do that.

We need almost a total revamp of  our educational systems.

The Education Ministry will be the custodian of Education policy but the setting up of the policy must be the work of the Educationists, this will minimise  political interference. 

The Education minister will secure the budgets required prepared by the System administrators and managers, there should be no interference other than if it involves issues other than education.

Infrastructure could be the responsibility of the Ministry and mechanisms and rules must be in place to ensure that the Minister or any politician does not use his position to get the administrators to do their bidding.   

Why Politicians  Should be out 
Since Independence we have not really improved our education system, it has gone from bad to worse, and if it continues we are really going to become the sick man of ASEAN and maybe Asia.

Even Vietnam will supersede us  soon if they haven't already. 
Whilst our other ASEAN nations are improving leas and bounds we can't say the same for ourselves.