Essentially, we must remind ourselves that progress that has been achieved in Sarawak, from the backwater lane of development to one of the fastest growing States in the country, has not come rolling on its own. It is the fruit of the struggle that entails a lot of sacrifices. It comes through the spirit that has been enhanced by a good discipline in politics, the discipline to pursue political struggle based on compromise and moderation to preserve the spirit of goodwill and harmony among the people comprising of various ethnic and religious groups in the state.
Undoubtedly, the overall struggle that has been founded on moderation and compromise has been able to change the enthusiastic spirit of the people in the struggle for Independence to become what it is today the spirit of unity and solidarity in the common pursuit for development and progress. In the early days, the enthusiastic spirit in the struggle for Independence sometimes caused enmity between various political parties to such an extent that some couples ended in divorce or broken engagements just because they belonged to different political parties. Such things may become history but they must serve as a reminder to us that that we cannot follow our emotions too much.
Basically, there cannot be prosperity without political discipline. Nor can there be real successful development without economic discipline. Everything we do needs discipline. For example, if we play football, we do not kick the ball into our own goalmouth. Nor do we punch or kick our opponents during the game.
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| Meet the people session |
Generally, the people over the years have learnt to restrain their negative tendencies and instead develop positive ambition. That is more crucial now as the country is in the process of migrating from the medium income to high income economy towards the year 2020 and beyond. By then the per capita income must at least be US15,000 or in today’s money value of about RM45,000. Now the State has reached RM33,000. The difference of RM12,000 is to be achieved in 10 years with the annual growth of about 5%. On paper, Sarawak should be able to achieve the objective of Vision 2020 to become a developed State in a developed nation quite comfortably.
However, the people must appreciate the need to preserve factors that have contributed to the State’s success thus far. They should not throw valuable experience that has given us success but instead nurture and enrich it in order to achieve more than US15,000 by the year 2020.
The State Government believes Sarawak will be able to achieve more than double the target of US15,000 by the year 2020 with the emphasis on industrial and manpower development. That means 52% of the jobs to be created, each will be able to pay about RM3,000 per month. The dissenting views of the opposition, which believes that Sarawak is still one of the poorest states in the country, are that they are the impossible targets. DAP, for example in the opposition blogs not in the mainstream media, vows to scrap SCORE if it ever comes to power in Sarawak. The party regards SCORE as an unnecessary burden to the people.
The program to create plenty of jobs that can give good salaries is what all the young people, who are now in schools or colleges want. SCORE will be able to create the jobs for them provided they can preserve fundamental disciplines namely political, economic and personal disciplines in carrying the struggle for nation building. Hence, they must think properly that nothing worthwhile can be achieved without good disciplines.
Chief Minister, Pehin Sri Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud, in his recent speech during 40th anniversary dinner of Yayasan Sarawak, says the development of SCORE will change the structure of the economy from what it is today a diversified economy with the structure of employment that provides medium income to workers to a high income economy towards the year 2020 and beyond.
He says the government, in formulating the 10th Malaysia Plan and the successive plans towards the year 2030, has to focus on the new economic structure that has the quality and capability to create more employment opportunities and give better remuneration to workers to spearhead the migration from the medium income to the high income economy towards the year 2020.
He admits of being a bit worried initially that the development plan for Sarawak for the next 20 years from 2011 – 2030 is very ambitious. However, with the experience in implementing SCORE during the last two years, it has become obvious to him that the response from investors is most encouraging.
For example, most of the lands, with a total acreage of about 6,000 hectare that the State government has opened up for Industrial Estate at Samalaju, have been taken by investors. The interests of the people to invest in Sarawak has increased to RM15 billion. They comprise of industries that consume lots of electricity that will be generated under the 10th Malaysia Plan. Some investors also come to look for opportunities to invest in bio-tech industries.
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| The International College of Advanced Technology Sarawak (Icats) strives to be among the best in providing technical skills such as information technology (IT). |
Again young people must be reminded that if they aspire to become politicians they must endeavor to become good politicians and not half-way ones. They must build a high standard of discipline, for example, to refrain from carrying out smearing campaign against the opponents. Generally, such lines of campaign are out of date; the politics is archaic and will not bring benefits to the people and the State.
Generally, the people must remain vigilant and not to let their guard down. For example, in the April 2011 State elections, some people mainly from outside raised racial issues in the run-up to the elections. There were instances of them raising religious questions which do not exist in Sarawak. They tried to equate us as if we were living in Peninsular Malaysia. Basically, things that do not happen in Sarawak should not become the subject or the issue of local politics. Whoever bring problems of other people into the state either do not understand local politics or just to create some problems for us.
Instead, the people must continue to think as Sarawakians, as Malaysians in consonance with the concept of 1Malaysia to have the soul of someone, who is committed to develop the state, the nation to become a more progressive, prosperous and modern country by the year 2020 and beyond. Besides, young people must endeavor to be become clever because the nation or the State cannot become prosperous and progressive without having people, who are clever and having a lot of skills to pursue variety of careers.
Pehin Sri Abdul Taib says technical education has increasingly become crucial as Sarawak enters the era of massive industrial development from now onward. Obviously, the development of heavy industries is very dependent on the State’s ability to produce people with technical training and skills.
A preliminary survey, which is quite accurate 20% either way, carried out by local universities, indicates that Sarawak will be able to create 1.5 million jobs in the next 20 years. Out of the total, 52% will comprise of semi skilled jobs for people who will be able to grow up with the industries.
Pehin Sri Abdul Taib says he have been able to see clearly, with his experience of more than 30 years at the helm of the State government, the strong eagerness of young people for education. The light can be seen in their faces, upon graduations, to show their eagerness to go to the outside world to exercise their skills and talents more satisfactorily and play their roles in nation building.
He says the state’s program to train more young people to do technical jobs is being motivated by the promise that the jobs will pay high salaries to the workers. It is worthwhile for the people, political and community leaders in particular to put every ounce of their energy to encourage more young people to go for technical education with better prospect of job opportunities.
Admittedly, it is a difficult task to undertake but it should be surmountable with the experience that Sarawak has in carrying out the development of education through Yayasan Sarawak since the midst 70s. Yayasan Sarawak, under the chairmanship of Tan Sri Datuk Amar Adenan Haji Satem, has decided to give more emphasis to technical education in the awards of scholarships or loans to students. Besides, it also believes that technical education should go down to the level of certificates to cover courses provided by Polytechnics.
Hence, conscientious efforts must be made from now onward to promote greater understanding of young people and parents on the importance to technical education. Actually, the whole society should be involved in this as young people parents in particular still have the deference for degree qualifications for their children.
benuasains
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