PROGRAMMES: Goodness every school day

FRUIT DRINK More than 1,200 pupils in the vicinity of the new Coca-Cola plant in Bandar Enstek, Negri Sembilan will be the beneficiaries of a pilot programme which will provide them with a fruit drink that contains micronutrients for a balanced diet.

Under the US$100,000 (RM300,000) initiative, pupils and teachers from SK LB Johnson, SK Jijan and SK Dato’ Ahmad Manaf will receive a serving of the Nurisha fruit drink a day throughout the school term until August 2012.

During this period, surveys of pupils, teachers and parents will be used to evaluate whether pupils like the beverage.

Pupils will also receive nutrition, health and environmental education. Workshops on nutrition and health education will be conducted by experts from a local university. Pupils will be taught the importance of a clean environment and recycling.

Nurisha is a specially formulated, not-for-sale nutrient-filled drink, which contains 10 per cent orange juice, manufactured for select community programmes.

Each 200ml serving supplies 90 kilocalories of energy with 11 essential vitamins and minerals including iron, zinc, Vitamin A, folic acid, calcium and Vitamin C. The tasty, orange flavour makes the drink appealing to children while supplementing their diet.

The programme is approved by the Ministry of Health and Education Ministry while the schools were selected by Coca-Cola Malaysia and the Negri Sembilan State Education Department.

China factory sector shrinks most in 32 months

(Reuters) - China's factory sector shrank the most in 32 months in November on signs of domestic economic weakness, a preliminary PMI survey showed, reviving worries that China may be slipping toward a hard landing and fuelling fears of a global recession.

The steep fall in the HSBC flash purchasing managers' index (PMI) to 48 in November from 51 in October largely reflected domestic weakness as both output and new orders shrank even as export orders continued to grow.

The flash PMI, the earliest readout of China's industrial activity, was the lowest since March 2009 and suggests the factory sector contracted during the month. A PMI reading of 50 demarcates expansion from contraction.

The PMI unnerved financial markets already roiled by the euro zone debt crisis and a downward revision in U.S. economic growth and underscored expectations that Beijing will lean more on policies to support growth than ones to fight inflation.

"They are not going to want this to go too far," said Tim Condon, head of Asia research at ING in Singapore. "I'm not sure if it (PMI) is a tipping point but I think it adds to the evidence."

Beijing has already announced some selective steps, geared to small business, to support the economy. HSBC said evidence in the PMI of a sharp drop in inflationary pressures meant Beijing had room for more selective measures if need be.

"There remains no need to panic," HSBC economist Qu Hongbin said. "Easing inflation provides room for more easing measures, which will keep China on track for a soft landing."

The sub-indexes for input and output prices dropped around 10 points each to below 50 to lows last seen in April 2009.

HSBC said the output sub-index tumbled to a 32-month low of 46.7, a steep drop from October's final reading of 51.4 and new orders suffered the biggest drop in 1-1/2 years to sink well below 50.

Qu said the PMI data suggested industrial output growth in China will moderate in coming months to an annual rate of 11-12 percent, a pace not seen since 2009 when China was pulling out of the global financial crisis. Output has averaged close to 14 percent this year.

The final PMI reading for November may be slightly higher than the flash number, a comparison of the data shows.

HSBC has reported a flash PMI, which captures up to 90 percent of total responses, since February.

On five occasions, the final PMI reading was higher than the flash reading; twice it was lower and the other two months it was unchanged.

Kevin Lai, senior economist at Daiwa in Hong Kong, said the PMI data showed China's industrial production had started to contract on a month-on-month basis.

"We see a 25 percent probability of a hard landing in the first quarter of next year," he said, meaning growth of less than 8 percent.

GLOBAL GROWTH COOLS

The Australian dollar fell to a six-week low after the data on concern that demand growth from Australia's biggest trading partner and export market will ease.

Asia shares outside of Japan dropped more than 2 percent and U.S. S&P stock futures lost further ground as China's PMI added to the risk of a global recession.

A downward revision to U.S. third-quarter growth data on Tuesday had already put markets under pressure.

Vice Premier Wang Qishan is convinced the world is heading into a major downturn, saying at the weekend that a "chronic" global recession was "certain", the most dire reading from a senior Chinese policymaker to date.

Similar flash PMI surveys for the euro zone released later on Wednesday reinforced recession fears by showing the bloc's private sector contracted for a third month in November.

The World Bank forecast on Tuesday that growth in the world's biggest economy after the United States would slip to 9.0 percent in 2011 and then to 8.4 percent in 2012, adding "the risks are tilted to the downside.

China's export growth hit an eight-month low in October as industrial output grew at its weakest in a year. Up to a third of Hong Kong's 50,000 or so factories in China could downsize of shut by the end of this year, the Federation of Hong Kong Industries said this month.

The exuberant Chinese property market is also coming off the boil, a factor HSBC said had weighed on the PMI. Average home prices ticked lower in October for the first time this year and property sales fell.

"Worse is yet to come," Conita Hung, head of equity research of Delta Asia Financial Group, said after the data. "Companies involved in shipping, exports and even banking and finance will be affected."

Most analysts argue that China will keep to a policy Beijing has dubbed "fine tuning", under which it offers support to parts of the economy.

These measures have included support for small businesses. In the latest move, the central bank effectively cut reserve requirements for five rural banks in eastern Zhejiang province -- a cradle of private enterprise -- sources with knowledge of the matter said.

Broader measures, such as a rate cut, are not warranted unless the downturn becomes much more serious.

"We're not witnessing a collapse yet," said Connie Tse, an economist at Forecast in Singapore. "Policymakers are going to rely on selective fine-tuning measures."

BANK RESERVE CUT POSSIBLE

More aggressive policy easing measures are not needed because China's exposure to western demand is less now than it was during the 2008-2009 downturn and its dependence on exports for growth is lower, Qu at HSBC said.

The underlying strength of the industrial sector is also stronger, he suggested.

"It's not like 2008," Ting Lu of Bank of America/Merrill Lynch said.

"This is not as bad. There's no need for China to be in a hurry to roll out measures. The central bank needs to become more flexible and watch the unfolding crisis. It's not the time for them to change policy stance."

Still, like some other analysts, Condon said the selective measures could spread to broader measures in the months ahead as the economy weakens, so a cut in nationwide bank reserve requirements, currently a record high of 21.5 percent for big banks, may be on the cards within three months.

Wang Hu, an economist of Guotai Junan Securities in Shanghai, agreed but said a bank reserve cut could come by the end of the year.

Chinese policymakers will also be wary of easing policy too quickly for fear of reigniting inflation after a long battle.

Consumer inflation dropped from a three-year high in July of 6.5 percent to 5.5 percent in October, raising hopes the peak has passed.

"Inflation risks are still on the radar," said Tse. "It'll be premature for the PBOC to loosen on the macro front."

(Additional reporting by Kevin Yao and Langi Chiang in Beijing, Donny Kwok in Hong Kong,Masayuki Kitano in Singapore, Cecile Lefort in Sydney; Writing by Neil Fullick; Editing by Kim Coghill)

Greens for life

As World Meatless Day falls on Friday, it’s appropriate that we review our eating habits, and reconsider the role of vegetables in our diet.

IN the booklet, Why Vegetarian? A Beginner’s Guide, produced by the Malaysian Vegetarian Society in the late 90s, the society’s first president, Sona Zakariya, voiced her hope that one day, instead of people asking, “Why are you a vegetarian?”, the question would instead be, “So how do you become a vegetarian?”

We often are bombarded by messages and advice telling us to “quit smoking”, “lessen sugar intake” and “cut down on fatty foods”. Some habits die hard, others die even harder. But habits can be broken, what more in human beings who are the most adaptable creatures on the planet.

According to Dr P. Vythilingam, current president of the Malaysian Vegetarian Society, there are more than one billion vegetarians in the world today, with about one million in Malaysia. And the numbers continue to grow, which should be proof enough that human beings can and do survive on a non-meat diet.

Today’s world provides even more reasons for one to switch to a vegetarian diet. If not for environmental or animal welfare reasons, then the very fact that humans are not anatomically equipped to handle the consumption of meat should be enough of a catalyst.

According to Peta (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), the term “omnivore” is dubious, as anthropologists and biologists have studied our evolutionary history and concluded that we are quite simply herbivores. Our stomach acidity and intestinal length all show that we cannot fully digest meat. And because we do not fully process the meat, we end up with excessive fat and cholesterol, something that does not occur in carnivores.

The Malaysian Vegetarian Society states that research has shown that vegetarians are less at risk of heart disease, hypertension, obesity, diabetes, cancers, bowel disorders, gall and kidney stones and osteoporosis.

Dr William Castelli, former director of the Framingham Heart Study, once said: “Vegetarians have the best diet. They have the lowest rates of coronary disease of any group in the country (US) ... Some people scoff at vegetarians, but they have a fraction of our heart attack rate and they have only 40% of our cancer rate. On the average, they outlive other men by about six years now.”

Dr Vythilingam pointed to industrial farming practices that indirectly leads to the health problems faced by non-vegetarians – how the animals are bred and slaughtered, and the meat produced.

“There are a lot of antibiotics pumped into the animals (to keep them healthy in otherwise harsh living conditions),” he said. “There are the pesticides and DDT sprayed on the corn used for feeding livestock. And chickens, to make them grow faster, they are injected with hormones. This is why some people have hormone-related cancers.”

And whenever a cow is taken for slaughter, it becomes stressed and this increases the adrenaline inside its body, and this, in turn, affects the person who consumes the meat.

Further stress is inflicted on the animals in the form of the cutting of a pig’s tail (to prevent them biting each other in crowded pens), or the “debeaking” of a chick, all done without anaesthesia.

“They say the amount of DDT that is in livestock feed is 13 times more than the DDT on vegetables,” said Dr Vythilingam. “That’s a very dangerous level.”

Non-vegetarians usually argue that vegetables are also full of chemicals, so there is really no avoiding the danger.

But Dr Vythilingam said: “You can wash away the chemicals on the vegetables, but you cannot do the same with meat, because it is already inside the meat. If you put your vegetables under running water, most of it will be washed away. You can’t be washing every fibre in a piece of meat.”

He said organically-grown vegetables are, of course, preferable, but just washing your vegetables properly before cooking would also be enough.

There are a lot of myths and false beliefs surrounding vegetarianism, with many believing that a vegetarian diet lacks certain nutrients and vitamins needed for balance and health. But Dr Vythilingam said a vegetarian diet contains everything you would need and a vegetarian meal actually provides more calories than a non-vegetarian one. However, a non-vegetarian diet contains more fats and cholesterol. In fact, because the stomach has to work harder to digest meat, people often feel tired after a non-vegetarian meal.

A vegetarian meal that contains grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables will ensure a balanced diet. Iron and calcium can be found in leafy greens. Almonds, chickpeas and soyabeans also contain calcium, while grains provide protein and fibre. Vitamin B12 is only needed in microscopic amounts, and most breads today are fortified with it.

A non-vegetarian diet however, leads to an overdose of protein. And that’s not all. Because our digestive system is ill-equipped for meat consumption, some of the meat remain in our bodies and rot.

“There are not enough enzymes to digest the meat fast enough,” said Dr Vythilingam. “Which means you’re putting all this dead meat in your stomach; it is like a graveyard. It is all rotting. And you do not know how fresh the meat is. To make the meat look red and fresh immediately after slaughtering, they put in nitrites and nitrates (carcinogens). But you can’t see that it’s rotting inside.”

“And look at animal diseases – mad cow disease, Japanese encephalitis, bird flu – all these are from animals. There are no such things in vegetables,” he added.

Another false belief is that vegetarians are all lean and thin, but few know that obese vegans and vegetarians do exist.

“This is because they consume more carbohydrates, more rice, and less of other things,” said Dr Vythilingam. “Again, you have to look at how the food is prepared. If they always consume deep-fried food, that will also increase the risk of diseases. We always advise vegetarians to be cautious.”

And vegetarians too can suffer from cancer if they consume too much saturated fat and deep-fried foods. But comparative studies have shown that the number of cancer sufferers among vegetarians is lower than among non-vegetarians.

Prof Nick Day of the University Of Cambridge and the European Prospective Study Into Cancer stated that there are 40% fewer cancers among vegetarians compared to the general population.

“It’s never too late to start a vegetarian diet,” advised Dr Vythilingam. “Human beings are the only ones on earth who can adapt to anything. You can’t give a cow a piece of chicken and condition the cow to eat it. And you don’t give grass to a tiger. But human beings can be ‘conditioned’.”

● World Meatless Day falls on Nov 25. The Malaysian Meatless Day campaign invites individuals and organisations to make a pledge to go meatless on that day. You can e-mail your pledge topenangmeatless@yahoo.com or fax it to 04-261 0126. All you have to say is “I hereby pledge to go meatless on Nov 25”. Name is required, but phone number and address are optional.

Automakers race to lose weight

SANT'AGATA BOLOGNESE, Italy — Beneath the high ceilings of a factory in the wheat fields of Emilia-Romagna in northern Italy, Lamborghini engineers are building a new supercar. Called the Aventador, it has been described as the closest thing to a stealth fighter jet you'll see on the road. It's also a high-profile symbol of a strategic battle taking shape in the auto industry.

Silhouetted against grey walls, workers in black polo shirts adorned with Lamborghini's gold raging bull logo guide sheets of black material into a vacuum-controlled cutting machine, before pressing and shaping the pieces into huge moulds. These parts will make the chassis of the Aventador, which is one of the first cars to have its entire body built of carbon fiber composites, an alternative to metals prized by plane makers for their lightweight malleability and strength. The materials give designers "freedom to design aggressively," says Lamborghini's Technology Manager Massimiliano Corticelli.

The materials -- plastics reinforced by synthetic fibers -- will also allow the kind of performance so important to Lamborghini drivers: 0-62 miles per hour in 2.9 seconds with a top speed of around 217 miles per hour. But their potential value lies beyond the handful of people who can pay a starting price of 263,000 euros ($355,000) for a car that rolls off the assembly line at just 20 a week.

Partly as a consequence of emissions reduction targets, mass-market auto-makers need to produce lighter cars. For the next few years, auto-makers such as Peugeot, Fiat, Volkswagen and Daimler expect weight reductions to come largely from using aluminum. But composites are 30 percent lighter than aluminum and 50 percent lighter than steel. If car makers can get the price down -- composites currently cost at least 10 times as much as aluminum and 30 times as much as steel, according to Volkswagen -- they hope to be able to use them in the mass-market.

"We have been working on making cars lighter for several years, but the tightening up of regulation for reducing emissions by 2020 makes it necessary in reality to move toward breakthrough solutions," says Louis David, materials expert at French car maker PSA Peugeot Citroen.

There is progress. Peugeot and other carmakers already make some small parts out of composite material but do not yet use the technology for large parts. But BMW, which plans by the end of 2013 to roll out electric cars with entire passenger cabins made from a composite known as carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP), is leading the race.

Helped by Germany's richest woman, Susanne Klatten, the luxury auto maker has been building close ties with Europe's only supplier of carbon fiber technology; it consolidated its hold this week with a share purchase.

"So far, there is no carmaker that is banking on carbon fibers quite like BMW," says Reto Hess, who coordinates global car industry analysis for Credit Suisse's private banking arm.

Too pricey Taking composites mass market won't be easy. The European Union wants to cut average carbon dioxide emissions of cars manufactured in the region by 33 percent by 2020 -- to 95 g per km. Most mainstream European automakers say the cost of composites is too high to use them in whole cars any time soon.

Volkswagen's VW brand has the material in a prototype, but Ulrich Hackenberg, head of development of the VW brand, says finished parts cost between 30 and 50 euros per kg. That compares with only 1 euro for steel and 3 euros for aluminum. He thinks a reasonable target for the industry could be to bring this cost down to 15-20 euros.

Advertise | AdChoices

Fiat has long been using composite technology -- its Alfa Romeo 8C contains about 90 kg of the stuff -- but like other car makers, it is still exploring what the technology can do on a larger scale. "In recent years mass production has had the opportunity to push materials like high-strength steel that have won the challenge with composites," says Fiat materials expert Rosanna Serra. But "we know these traditional materials cannot support the challenge in the future. They have limits."

Daimler has since April 2010 had a joint venture with Toray Industries of Japan, the world's largest manufacturer of carbon fibers, to build parts for its high-end, convertible coupe SL class. Toray has said branching out further into automotive uses is a top priority. It plans to speed up molding carbon fabrics into car parts to provide a new generation of components for Daimler by 2013.

Cars built from carbon fiber parts will have to meet the same safety criteria as conventional ones; composites can potentially cut a car's mass by half, says PSA's David. But on costs, he is blunt: "Today we believe that composites that are competitive for the automotive industry in terms of cost and production rhythm do not exist," he says. The company is taking "baby steps" in using the materials in vehicles that should be in showrooms by 2014-15, and he expects the technology to be much more widespread by 2018.

Secure supply BMW isn't waiting. It won't disclose its investment, but according to German weekly Der Spiegel it has spent more than a billion euros on developing the technology and its new range of "i" electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids. Whole cars made of carbon fiber composites will be available from 2013.

Its strategy is based on the view that trendsetting car buffs with deep pockets will develop a taste for electric cars, especially if prodded by government incentives such as exemptions from city-center congestion charges. The company says the i3's bodywork will be 250-350 kg (550-770 pounds) lighter than that of a conventional car of the same size. With a much lighter chassis, it hopes its traditional clientele of drivers could even desire a premium electric vehicle for city driving.

BMW finance chief Friedrich Eichiner says the company is already working to cut costs to a point where they will be level with aluminum. It's a goal that can only be achieved with economies of scale. "Costs are a function of the volumes -- that remains the driver," Eichiner says.

To this end, BMW has already secured fiber production capacity which industry experts say is equivalent to what the entire car industry consumed last year. Since 2011, the company has sourced its carbon fiber reinforced plastics through a joint venture with Europe's only major producer of carbon fibers, German-based SGL Carbon signed in 2009.

To get an idea of the scale, it's worth a glance at SGL's production chain. Based in Wiesbaden, southwest Germany, the company gets precursor fibers, similar to those used in fleece clothing, from a joint venture with Mitsubishi Rayon in Japan. They are shipped for treatment - including baking at temperatures as high as 1,400 Celsius (2,550 Fahrenheit) -- to the United States. Then they go to Germany, for finishing.

SGL says its U.S. plant will eventually be able to churn out 3,000 tonnes of fiber per year. That compares with an estimated 2-3,000 tonnes used in all cars globally last year and about 35,000 tonnes across all industries.

Klatten clincher SGL is already majority-owned by Klatten, who is worth an estimated 8.9 billion euros according to German monthly Manager Magazin. Heiress to the fortune of German industrialist Herbert Quandt, she and her family also have a combined 46.7 percent of BMW.

The car company's pact with SGL was signed a few months after Klatten, who is Germany's richest woman, had emerged as the largest shareholder in SGL, too. It was a strategic move, and one BMW appeared to seal on Friday when it said it had bought a 15.2 percent stake in the carbon fiber producer.

Advertise | AdChoices

The carbon-fiber industry suffered a meltdown when demand for expensive defense technology waned after the end of the Cold War, and now only about half a dozen makers globally are capable of producing on an industrial scale. SGL is the only major European player, with main rivals in Japan -- Toray, Teijin and Mitsubishi Chemical's Rayon division - and the United States: Zoltek and Hexcel.

Fiber technology requires high expertise. The slightest tweaks in the process can alter the fibers' molecular structure, potentially compromising the safety of the parts they go into. At a test production site for fibers in Meitingen, Bavaria, SGL measures no fewer than 2,400 parameters every five seconds to monitor the process. "It may be easy to build a production site for carbon fibers but it's certainly extremely complicated to operate one," says CSFB's Hess.

SGL's position in Europe was underlined in a headline-grabbing tussle between Klatten and Volkswagen over the carbon-fiber maker in March. Volkswagen, Europe's biggest carmaker and Lamborghini's owner, acquired an 8 percent stake in SGL, and Klatten responded by saying she was observing VW's actions "with a distance and with vigilance".

Since May she has lifted her holding to around 29 percent, which gives her the right to veto strategic decisions at the supplier. That, combined with BMW's purchase, would bring the BMW camp's holding of the company 

'Super Dan' targets China title

Olympic champion on a high again

SHANGHAI: Badminton superstar and home hero Lin Dan will look to prove he has put injury and controversy firmly in the past when he headlines a top-quality field at this week's China Open.  

One of China's biggest sports stars, Lin Dan's roller-coaster season resumed an upward trajectory when he shot to victory in Hong Kong at the weekend to claim  his first trophy since the World Championships in August.

   The Olympic champion has weathered new accusations that he handed out walkovers to benefit teammates, as well as a foot injury and a shock defeat to Hong Kong's Wing Ki Wong in Denmark.

   But he returned to his sublime best to oust great rival Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia in the Hong Kong semis, before crushing teammate Chen Jin 21-12,  21-19 in Sunday's final.

   "It's been a long time since I won the Hong Kong Open," said the five-time Hong Kong champion, who last won the title in 2007. "In between there were two or three years I didn't play very well so that's  why I didn't win, but it's good to win this time."

   Lin Dan has recovered from sixth to third in the rankings this season and the sport's most successful player, who turned 28 last month, will target an  Olympic defence next year at what will almost certainly be his last Games.

   The unflappable left-hander also knows time is running out to capture his first win in the annual Superseries Finals, which take place next month in China's Liuzhou.

   At the US$350,000 (RM1.1 million) Shanghai tournament this week, Lin Dan's teammates Chen Long,  ranked second in the world, and fifth-ranked Chen Jin are also bidding to  secure one of China's two men's singles spots for the finals in Liuzhou.

   World No 1 Chong Wei can claim his seventh Super Series win this year, while Indonesia's ex-Olympic champion Taufik Hidayat will bid to bounce back from his  two losses to Thailand's Tanongsak Saensomboonsuk at the Sea Games.

   In the women's singles, China's three Wangs -- Wang Shixian, Wang Yihan and Wang Xin, currently ranked one, two and three -- look set to extend their dominance after claiming all but one Super Series trophy this year.

   Wang Xin took the honours in Hong Kong against German veteran Juliane Schenk, and the all-conquering Wangs will face competition from teammate Jiang Yanjiao  and India's Saina Nehwal, ranked fourth.

   The Shanghai crowd will also be hoping for a second successive China  sweep after Cai Yun and Fu Haifeng, Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang, and Zhang Nan and  Zhao Yunlei claimed the Hong Kong men's, women's and mixed doubles titles. - AFP

Teaching young Malaysians for the love of it

They are young and eager to impart their knowledge, yet anxious if they can face up to the challenges of being transformational educators to the high-needs schools they will be sent to next year.

I WAS privileged recently to speak to the first cohort of 50 teachers selected from all over the country for the Teach For Malaysia programme at Institut Aminuddin Baki, Genting Highlands. They are currently undergoing a training stint from Oct 30 to Dec 23 before they report for work in January to serve in 17 high-needs schools identified under the programme.

Looking at them, I saw fresh-faced individuals considerably aware of being the ones whose chosen career path offered hope and promise to scores of young Malaysian students they would be teaching in the coming year.

Yet, behind their cheerful facades, I sensed too their anxiety and concern. How would they shape up as real-life teachers?

As one Business Administration graduate said in his feedback form: “I’m anxious about the fact that we’re being sent to the most challenging schools and are expected to be transformational teachers.”

In an earlier corporate job, this graduate said he “had enough of a life sitting in a cubicle and being overwhelmed with reports and spreadsheets.”

“As a Teach For Malaysia fellow, I now look forward to a life that is interesting, challenging and exciting.”

Another, an English Literary Studies and Political Science graduate, wondered whether she has what it takes to come up with effective methods and strategies to teach, motivate and inspire her students.

“Will I make a difference?” she asked.

As an old hand at the game, all I can say is while their concerns are common to any young person joining the profession, it is their willingness to give their best shot that makes them stand out.

Take the young lady for instance who said that she had joined the programme to improve the lot of the children deprived of a good education.

She looks forward to putting “a smile on the faces of kids and being there for them” and showing them how much people like her “still care”. Frankly, I was moved by the altruistic intentions of this bunch of young teachers.

Their professional goals and good intentions come from their heart and this is what matters most in teachers seeking to redress inequity in education.

But, having worked with underprivileged kids before, I know these teachers have yet to face the harsh reality of being in a real-life classroom.

When they get loads of paperwork to do, a barrage of administrative duties to perform, politicking at work to deal with and a group of highly unpredictable students with varying abilities to tend to, will they be able to cope?

All new teachers take time to find their teaching feet.

When dealing with academically disinclined students, they must also be able to hold their own against encrusted teacher attitudes such those who ask “why waste your time with this lot”?

As for students from poor socio-economic backgrounds, they must contend with parents who rarely make their presence felt in school.

Then there are those who want their children desperately to do well in school, but who just don’t know how to handle their learning difficulties.

Meanwhile, among under-achieving students, ignorance, boredom, fear of failure, learning disorders, habitual patterns of unproductive behaviour and years of cultural conditioning are serious obstacles to learning.

Some students are even vicious enough to consistently challenge their teachers. Yet, I wish them all well.

I have worked with many problematic students before and I can assure you that it is an uphill task to move students from being passive, reluctant and bored learners to active, interested ones. But, small milestones are definitely possible.

Only the throes of the life of a teacher, going to school day by day, entering class after class, meeting students one after the other, will enlighten these Teach For Malaysia graduates.

I told them, “In school, you get the lesson first, then the test; but in life, you get the test first, then the lesson!”

I related to them story after story and of the strategies I used and those that were a success.

As a teacher, I never told any student that he was hopeless. Instead, I began by being hopeful myself and I filled even the most academically-challenged child I taught with the hope that if he worked at it, education was his ticket to a better world.

I also related to the eager teachers-to-be of a Form Two student who would not pass his Science exam because he had a learning disability and was not proficient in the language.

However, never did I ever allow him to think that he was incapable of learning or understanding material in my classroom.”

In fact, in 2006, when I was teaching a weak class in a rural school, I experimented with a programme I devised called GROW.

·G for Group teaching where I separated my students in groups according to their learning abilities and taught them separately;

·R for the group to Relax, play and learn where I used various forms of games to give them rest periods between bouts of learning (due to their short attention spans, I never taught them for more than 15 minutes at a time);

·O for Oral questioning techniques and Outdoor learning to stay relevant, generate variety and boost self-confidence; and

·W — the Whatever Works approach (role play, video clips, NiE, cartoon-filled worksheets, art, music) to kindle interest and motivate.

If my teaching was transformational, it was because I gave these students a sense of self-worth and achievement they didn’t have before.

Till today, I cannot forget the 14-year-old Chinese boy who couldn’t speak good English or write a decent sentence in Malay, but could explain perfectly in bahasa pasar how river water is converted into tap water.

Then there was the Indian boy who stuttered when he spoke but could tell me orally, yet correctly, half in Tamil and half in Malay that photosynthesis is the process by which a plant like sugar cane makes sugar in the sun.

My focus was on learning — their learning — and in whatever form it took, I accepted the outcome.

Sometimes, I was astounded by their answers. As Science students, they were intelligent, curious and interested — they just didn’t have language skills to match or the ability to remember massive facts for exams.

So, to these young teachers going forth to serve the nation, when you are teaching for Malaysia, you just put your shoulder to the wheel and do whatever it takes to strive, survive and triumph.

To beat the odds, you have to seek wisdom from the experienced and learn from your own daily teaching sessions. One particular memory that stands out for me is of the pint-sized Form Two boy, who cried: “Teacher, how will I learn without you? Please don’t go.”

As Wendy Kopp, the founder of Teach For America, puts it in her book A Change to Make History, “highly effective teachers are a massive lever for influencing the achievement gap.”

I think so too. Give a child a good teacher and you make all the difference.

YACHTING: Monsoon Cup to carry on

Pulau Duyung stays as WMRT venue

PULAU DUYONG: The Monsoon Cup is here to stay. Sports Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Shabery Cheek said, in all likelihood, Pulau Duyong will continue to be the venue for one of the World Match Racing Tour legs.

  Speaking to reporters after opening the seventh edition of the Monsoon Cup yesterday, Ahmad Shabery said there is no other suitable place in the country to host a premier sailing event where a world tour champion is crowned every year.

   "We have world class sailing facilities here and the Monsoon Cup is already recognised as the best tour event by the world sailing governing body," said Ahmad Shabery.

   "We also know that the Monsoon Cup organisers are doing what they can to develop the sport at grassroots level and now that the Monsoon Cup is attracting private sponsorship, we should be able to continue our support of the event after its four-year contract with WMRT expires next year."

   Shabery also applauded the efforts of Monsoon Cup organisers T-Best Events Sdn Bhd and the Malaysian Yachting Association (MYA) to start the Malaysian Match Racing Tour (MMRT) next  year.

   "This will do our national sailors a world of good as competing in such a circuit will harness the potential of local sailors and prepare them for international events," the minister added.

   "Four venues - Langkawi, Lumut, Klang and Kuala Terengganu - have been identified as MMRT venues but the organisers will still consider other locations if there is interest from other states."

   Ahmad Shabery later joined Yanmar Racing, skippered by four-time world champion Datuk Peter Gilmour, in the Pro-Am race against other Monsoon Cup competing teams and the event sponsors.

   But Ahmad Shabery and Gilmour had to be satisfied with a runner-up position after The Wave Muscat, with Torvar Mirsky at the helm, proved to be too strong under a cloudy sky punctuated by intermittent rain.

   Third place went to Berntsson Sailing Team, skippered by Johnie Berntsson while tour leader Ian Williams and his Team GAC Pindar finished fourth.

   The Monsoon Cup round-robin series will begin today.

The other  competing skippers are Francesco Bruni of Bruni Sailing, Bjorn Hansen of Mekonomen Sailing Team, Damien Ielh of French Match Racing Team, Danish Jesper Radich of Adrian Lee & Partners Racing Team, Mathieu Richard of French Match Racing Team, Phil Robertson of Waka Racing Team, William Tiller of Full Metal Jacket Racing and  Jeremy Koo of Abdullah Chan-Koo Racing Team.