Thinklog Wargafikir

Blog kali ini adalah pembacaan dan ulasan suatu penulisan yang dipetik dari The Economist, bertajuk "The Knowledge Factory", terbitan The Economist pada 4hb Oktober 1997. Dalam meneliti masalah yang dihadapi oleh Institut pengajian tinggi negara, saya terjumpa suatu artikel ini yang sangat berkait dengan isu ini. Ia tulisan Peter David yang memberikan perspektif luas tentang sejarah dan peranan universiti dari kacamata pemerhati penghujung kurun ke 20. Peter David Terjemahan oleh Zaky Jaafar Di Dalam Kilang Ilmu Sekiranya seorang lelaki yang sudah agak berumur, kembali ke universiti selepas bertahun-tahun meninggalkannya, pasti dia akan terkenang zaman remajanya. Pelajar-pelajarnya yang muda dan bersemangat, mengingatkannya akan anak-anaknya. Makmal yang bersih dengan teknologi tinggi terkini. Semuanya seolah-olah menunjukkan era futuristik. Sukar untuk membayangkan bahawa universiti adalah salah satu institusi paling kuno di dunia, sememangnya lebih tua daripada negaranya se...

Baru baru ini saya terlibat dalam suatu perbincangan diperingkat universiti untuk meningkatkan penyebaran ilmu kepada masyarakat. Maka diputuskan bahawa beberapa orang ahli akademik, ilmuwan, dilantik untuk menjadi penyelaras beberapa siri wacana ilmiah bersama tetamu jemputan menggunakan media awam. Maka diadakanlah pertemuan antara pengarah inisiatif ini dan ilmuwan2 berpengalaman. Namun bakal penyelaras ini dipilih dari kalangan yang umur muda. Ini kerana mereka dianggap lebih bertenaga untuk menjayakan hal ini. Andaiannya ialah ilmuwan ataupun sarjana yang lebih muda tentu lebih tahu isu semasa yang menjadi tumpuan masyarakat dan faham bagaimana hendak mendapatkan perhatian masyarakat.  Namun apa yang menarik perhatian ialah bagaimana perjalanan perbincangan itu yang menggambarkan ketiadaan kebebasan pemikiran, mahupun keyakinan diri dari ilmuwan2 yang hadir. Pada awalnya soalan2 yang dilontarkan bersifat pragmatik dan perlu dibahaskan, seperti kos, masa, konsep dsb. Tetapi sem...

 Keperluan ilmu rentas disiplin menjadi keutamaan perbincangan ilmiah dewasa kini. Ini kerana disedari bahawa ilmu yang terlalu khusus sesuatu bidang tidak dapat memberi sumbangan bermakna kepada dunia nyata. Seharusnya lebih banyak wacana ilmu rentas disiplin berlaku di universiti. Tapi apakah yang kerap dibincangkan oleh ilmuan pelbagai bidang ini bila ada diskusi rentas disiplin? Jika diteliti, ianya bukanlah wacana ilmu untuk menyelesaikan masalah dunia nyata, tetapi kebanyakannya lebih kepada perkara2 pengurusan, teknik dan strategi untuk meingkatkan produktiviti universiti dan status universiti. Ia lebih bersifat kepentingan diri (diri disini bermaksud kepentingan universiti itu sendiri dan tidak menjurus kepada kepentingan masyarakat) Contoh wacana rentas disiplin yang terjadi di universiti ialah, "kaedah mendapatkan geran antarabangsa, teknik menerbitkan di makalah berimpak tinggi, cara menulis kurikulum, cara menggunakan portal2 yang sekian banyak dan lain lain isu yang b...

Our guest this week was an Islamic finance industry insider. Harris Irfan is currently the CEO of Cordoba Capital Markets www.ccmkts.com. He has 29 years of investment banking and consulting experience. He was the former co-founder of Deutsche Bank's world-leading Islamic finance team and CEO of Deutsche's Islamic finance subsidiary. He is the Former Global Head of Islamic Finance at Barclays, and Then Head of Investment Banking for the Rasmala group. He is also the author of"Heaven's Bankers: Inside the Hidden World of Islamic Finance", the critically acclaimed best-seller about the Islamic finance industry. https://youtu.be/f13mgKVjJsU?si=yarjDY5kGx6h1x8L

When UberCab decided to ditch the word Cab from its name, it was a revelation in the importance of stepping back and doing less and not doing more. This is something that our education system in Malaysia can learn. We are at the time  when doing something different almost always mean doing something new, the idea of doing away with unnecessary baggage as a way to progress is almost unheard of. In 2011, when Uber CEO decided to change it's name from UberCab to Uber, one of its team asked "If we ditch the word Cab from UberCab, then we are Uber what?", as if Uber cannot stand on its own as a word. Nevertheless the company proceeded changing the name. The move was quite significant in the history of the company. San Francisco Municipal Transport Authority has been threatening UberCab with many potential lawsuits due to its unconventional practice in cab service. By getting rid of the idea of the company as a cab service, and reposition itself as a non cab service,  it simply...

Today I watched a documentary on climate change. The narrative is all too familiar to me, since it is part of the subject matter I teach. However s omething struck me as a resonance, of another narrative I have been dealing with. The documentary tells of an obstacle, in the early days, namely the reluctance of government, industrial players, and even scholars to acknowledge the harm of fossil fuels, in the face of mounting empirical evidence. After almost sixty years since the publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, only recently has the green sentiment begun to take hold in civilisation. I have been talking about reductionism in academia for so long. In doing so, I found similar symptoms in the economy, education, medicine and science itself. Despite the mounting evidence of their relationship with reductionism, it is hard to wean people off the reductionist mindset. I cant help but draw a parallel between the two narratives, our addiction to fossil fuel, and to reductionism. I...

Today I tested ChatGPT with a proposition the answer to which  i already know, but has not been clearly stipulated in thermal comfort study (which means you cannot simply google it to arrive at the conclusions). ChatGPT gives the correct answer within 3 seconds. I am impressed! If scholars today focus only on gathering data and forming obvious conclusion, then they are dispensable...😀 We should allow students to use AI apps in exam. Then we have to reform our teaching and assessments to develop new skills and assess them beyond what these tools can do. If we cannot do this, it means our program or even the whole university is dispensable. Looking at the way our curricula and assessments are being developed now, be ready for an unmanned universities, universities without professors and lecturers. Without expensive pay for glorified scholars, They are much cheaper to run, giving the same kind of results We dont expect our graduates NOT to use these tools when...