IRWANI’S thoughts

Our department weekly research cafe became very ‘hot’ today with Dr. Rafikul’s research presentation, entitled “Identifying and Ranking Critical Success Factors of Nine Challenges of Malaysian Vision 2020″. Honestly, I tend to forget the substance and challenges in achieving the vision, although we often address things with ‘Wawasan 2020′.

I was refreshed with the specific objectives of Vision 2020, namely: 

1. to have sufficient food & shelter with easy access to health & basic essentials
2. To eradicate poverty
3. To remove identification of race with major economic functions and fair distribution in contril, mgt and ownership of the modern economy
4. To maintain a population growth rate of 2.5% annually
5. To double ourreal GDP every 10 yrs btw 1990-2020
6. To have a balanced growth in all sectors (industry, agroforestry, transport, communication, banking etc.)

To these ends, 9 challenges are identified which are put in an order of importance:

1. establishing a UNITED MALAYSIAN nation
2. creating psycologically liberated, secure and developed M’sian society
3. developing a mature democratic society
4. forming a community that hs high morale, ethics & RELIGIOUS strength
5. establishing a mature, liberal and TOLERANT society
6. establishing a scientific & progressive society
7. establishing a fully CARING society
8. ensuring an economically JUST society
9. establishing a prosperous society.

Dr Rafikul quoted a saying of Tun Mahathir, “There can be no fully developed M’sia until we hv finally overcome the nine central strategic challenges that hv confronted us fr the moment of our birth as a independent nation.”

The research was conducted by personally interviewing 54 multi racial respondents. The findings reveal that the following critical success factors are ranked highest by the respondents:

• ensure that academic curricular promote racial integration
• Goverment shld be willing to listen to criticisms from the people & stand answerable to all queries
• People shld have power to change the Govt. when it fails to perform
• Eliminate corruption fr all levels of administration
• Have morally upright leaders in the Govt.
• Implement technology transfer fr developed nation
• Develop human capital
• Facilitate private sector to contribute significantly towards nation’s economic growth
• Ensure that public feels safe anywhere in the country

These findings are very striking as we are now on the ‘peak’ of the determining factor whether the objectives of Vision 2020 can be materialized or not. With economic crisis, political instability, unbalanced distribution of wealth, less racial integration and religious issues, I’m afraid that Vision 2020 is impossibly reacheable.

My colleagues like Prof Obi, Dr Azura, Dr Zabeda, Dr Zaki etc. said that the racial integration, though is possible, but not really easy to achieve, esp. with this racial separation imbued in our mind since we entered our 1st day of school. We have been kept reminded of our race (bumi or non-bumi) in many instances. Prof. Arif recalled he was asked about his race when he merely sent his car to a workshop!

To develop human capital is another challenge. Sopee’s saying was quoted, “constant development of human resource welfare & upgrading must accompany us each step of the way to 2020 or we cannot expect to reach our destination… a country cannot be regarded as fully developed unless it is developed multi-dimensionally - just as no man is developed if only a part of his being is developed. Just as a man cannot be regarded as developed if he is without ‘character’, the same must be said of a nation.”

To conclude, it is not easy to achieve Vision 2020. It needs full awareness & cooperation of every segment of the public.. esp. us, the academicians..

July 7, marks the first day of semester 1, 2008/2009. As usual the students who had below credit hrs were seen running here and there to do manual registration. Really feel pity to them, especially those who appealed to register for my sections that I had to turn them down due to the class size. May be it’s time for the academic committee of the KENMS to seriously look into this matter to find better solution for this inherent problem whick keeps repeating in every semester. One of possible solutions may be by offering courses in packages, starting from the first year students. Then we can offer sufficient sections with suitable time for the students. We need to always bear in mind that students are like our customers whose welfare need to be taken care of so that their satisfactions are guaranteed. What more they are always being expected to be our future generation who graduated from this beloved IIUM ‘madrasah’! They should get the best education & tarbiyah in terms of quality & quantity.

Whatever unsettled problem that we have within the campus, life must still continue as usual. In fact, I always enjoy my work esp. the teaching & consultation (except when they consulted me during lunch hour!!). I love all my students and I see each of them as a very potential & unic being to be developed. They seem innocent, hunger for inputs & energetic too! InsyaAllah, I will try to deliver & discharge my resposibility at my very best. This is amanah from Allah. May Allah bless me & make ease for me in fulfilling this trust. Hope my students will enjoy the law subjects for whole semester!

It was nearly 2 weeks since my last post. I must admit that I have been fully occupied with many things, most of them are unexpected ones. Let me see… my plan since last week was to settle the following tasks:

1. Related to CLA; self-study module, exemption letter, research proposal
2. Conference paper for Ifta’ conference
3. Sending 2 papers to MLJ & ALQ
4. Prepare notes & powerpoint slides for a course in Singapore
5. Update lecture notes
6. Update course outlines & get it photocopied
7. Arranging & Coding bulks of journal articles in my ofis

Only task no. 1, 5 & 6 are settled, and I’m now working on task no. 2. Luckily, the deadline is extended to 15th July.

Two unexpected tasks that have really consumed much of my time, namely editting the Commercial law book & examining Stand Chart documents.

Hope to get back on track, don’t know how. I think I must try doing things one in a time. Now, need to focus on the conference paper, entitled, “THE STATUS OF PROMISE (WA’AD) IN THE ISLAMIC BANKING PRACTICES: AN APPRAISAL OF CONTEMPORARY IJTIHAD AND IFTA’”

Next week’s going to be fully occupied with CLA training (30/6-4/7). Then the new semester begins on July, 7. Bye for now..

Since my last post, I have received few feedbacks which I accept all with an open heart. My intention was to address prevailing issues in IIUM with a hope to see a better improvement made especially in service quality.  I’m just an ordinary customer who brought an issue based on personal experience with an objective view so that the service in IIUM will be more efficient, CONSISTENT & TRANSPARENT. Having been dissatisfied with the service provider, shouldn’t I be given a room to express it? Being fully aware of my function as an academician I have put my view in an objective way and is based on facts and possible probabilities. Of course, certain segment of staff concerned will feel uneasy with it. Believe me, I’m still the same person even though I brought forward a bitter view for us to ponder & muhasabah ourselves. I fully understand, if I were in your shoe & when people start to complain your work although you have performed your best, you will be very upset and question yourself why they did this to me? But nothing will change if we keep on blaming others. Instead we should ask ourselves, have we really done our best? If yes, alhamdulillah we will be rewarded for that, but if there is any slight negligence in discharging our duty, there is always a room for improvement no matter how bitter for us to bear people’s complaint & how difficult for us to change ourselves. This is mujahadah which needs us to be more patience, tolerance & wise.

I hope that I will not be personally judged & labelled for simply bringing up an issue within the university and using merely the internal blog.

So, as to date, my hypothesis seems to be partly true.. that our administration is indeed very powerful; unless there is other evidence otherwise showing and leading to a new finding! Allah knows Best! Wallahu A’lam…

This question has been in my mind for quite some time, but now I think I need to share this thought so that I will not continue with this presumption  forever. Hope to get feedbacks from other staff members (admin or academic). I guess a large numbers of other staffs (esp. academic staff) often feel the same but try to forget without forgiving it.

Why do I feel that sometimes our admin is more powerful than others (even the professors!)? I have encountered many instances that I feel my case & welfare are not properly cared of by the admin staff. In the most recent cases, I had faced these difficulties:

1. Claiming back the amount of takaful paid by my husband. When he did the clearance on 17/3/08. he had to pay more than RM800 for group takaful because the tenure will only end in August ‘08. Somehow, when we checked his salary slip on 29/4, we noticed that the same amount was deducted from his last salary. When we asked the medical centre, the answer was that it was due to their staff’s failure to advise the Finance!! Until now, we have not got back the money yet and I’m still unable to contact the staff-incharged (kejap meeting, kejap takde kat ofis, and then cuti!!)
2. Since my 8 years of service in IIUM, I never get a ‘critical service allowance’. Before this we were told that we are not entitled to it because we teach law in KENMS. Later it came to our knowledge that the allowance is given based on our degree, not based on which kulliyyah we are employed! In fact, all law lecturers in Business school in other universities are given the allowance. I have formally applied for this allowance on 12/4/08 with a hope to have it in restrospective effect. Dr Salwani & I have been consistently called MSD, but the answer is the same, “we have recommended but need to get our head’s signature, but she was on leave for 2 weeks, and then we need to bring it to the meeting and then other meeting & endless meetings!)
3. We are all aware of the discrimination in the entitlement of medical benefit for female staff’s spouse. The reasons given by the top management is simply because they presume the husbands will be covered by their employers! When I brought this issue to them, they said if we want such benefit we need to disclose that our spouses are unemployed or not entitled to such benefit in their employment. Although I’m still not satisfied with the answer (why not an automatic entitlement like male staff’s spouse?!!), I contacted the medical centre to declare that my husband is unemployed (during that time, but now alhamdulillah he’s settled down in Israr) so that he may enjoy the same benefit. To my dismay, the staff said that they have not received the instruction!! I was very furious, but they said my husband can get free treatment in the IIUM clinic and if we go to panel we can claim up to certain amount. How do you expect us to come all the way from PJ just to get a free treatment or having to claim everytime we consult a doctor? Why not automatic? Still use the same form, don’t my name & staff number are sufficient to show the evidence that he ’s my spouse needing a treatment?

Sometimes, when I called them continously I feel like ‘minta sadaqah’ but in reality I’m just fighting for my rights what more my money!! Moreover, the calling, the meeting (sometimes I dropped by their ofis) etc. have really consumed my precious time in d ofis. I’m supposed to focus on research & teaching, not these tiny bits which are supposed to be efficiently managed by our admin!!

I keep wondering why..

• maybe the top management is not aware of the grass-root problems that they tend to issue unnecessary and unpractical procedures, restrictions, policy & rule.
• maybe our decision-making is very poor (tak hbs2 meeting, meeting, meeting). The decision-making power can vary from different levels of staff. So upper level staffs shld not be burdened  with less important matters which can be decided at the lower level.
• Communication of our staff can be further improved in handling inquiries. Yes, it is understandable that sometimes they cannot answer or decide particular issues which are beyond their knowledge or jobscope. But they should know how to manage & deal with these inquiries, e.g. take note & refer to the relevant officers and then get back to the inquiring person.
• Efficiency of our staff, in terms of coding, recording & classifying the file, application, inquiries etc.
• Their focus in work may be affected by too many meeting or chatting or forwading emails etc.

These are just my presumptions that maybe true or false. I always want to husnu-zann to others, but sometimes I’ve waited so long that this zann is often affected by many other considerations.

However, by expressing this view I’m not generalising the issue and putting a blame on everybody. I admit that I have met many nice, pleasant & efficient admin staffs (esp. those in KENMS!) who have assisted & attended my inquiries satisfactorily.  I’m very thankful for that, alhamdulillah.

So please, my dearest colleagues.. let’s muhasabah again our core responsibility in IIUM. Have we done enough in discharging our routine responsibility. Maybe sometimes we delay some of our work so it affects people’s rights & hope. This is not right because our work is amanah and we are accountable for it. What more we are paid for it. The barakah from our salary will be affected if we do not perform accordingly. May Allah guide us in our future undertakings, insyaAllah..

I came across this short story unexpectedly. It was nicely written by my ex-schoolmate, Razisatul Asyifah. She shared her experience during the announcement of SPM result 14 years ago. I had no such experience because I was away in Makkah performing umrah.

HARI PENENTUAN…RAMADHAN … Malam semalam kulalui dengan gelisah.Hingga dinihari mata tidak dapat lelap. Apakah mentari esok menitipkan berita gembira? Sebaik bersahur, aku terus bersiap-siap untuk solat subuh. Ramadhan kali ini aku berpeluang berpuasa penuh di rumah setelah 6 tahun aku melalui kemanisan Ramadhan di asrama. Walau jarak dari rumah ke sekolah hampir 40 kilometer. Aku nekad untuk berulang alik bersama-sama beberapa orang lagi kawan-kawan yang tinggal sedaerah.Sepanjang perjalanan aku teingat-ingat butir bicara abah kelmarin. Pakda menelefon dari JPN. Benarkah apa yang dikhabarkannya? Kalau benar… alangkah… Tiba-tiba aku terpandang abe smart sedang melihat aku yang sedang tersengih-sengih sendirian dari tadi… Ya Allah! Malunya…Sebaik kaki melangkah ke dalam pagar sekolah, Mc Ann dari jauh lagi berlari-lari ke arah aku. Razzi! Mc Ann menjerit-jerit kesukaan.”Aku dah tahu!, Mak aku tengok di JPN!”"Ann betul ke ni? Tahniah!” Seronoknya Mc Ann dapat 7 agregat. Di kelas geng-geng ARMAN dah berlonggok di meja. Kelas hingar bingar. Sesekali terdengar Mek Kas berfantasi… kalau tak dapat result bagus aku kahwin saja!” Razzi… Mek Chah menyambutku mesra. sahabat kecil kesayangan ku. “Razzi, Razzi awak dah tahu result Mc Ann kan? Eee… macamanalah result saya nanti, tak sabarnyaaaa!” Sabar Pah… awak tahulah juga nanti… Najah mencelah. ” Aku menoleh ke belakang, Nabilah tersenyum. “Hai Neb!” “Awal hari ni…,” “aaa.. saya suruh abe smart tu pandu laju-laju, tak sabar nak datang sekolah…” Sekilas aku terpandang aku terpandang Kak Mak tersengguk-sengguk, Awie pula hanya mengangguk-ngangguk kepadaku, macho… he, he.Tak habis kalau aku melayan mereka ni. Sebelum kak Majidah mula mempromosi produk kecantikannya aku cepat-cepat keluar dari 6B4. Suasana di kelas-kelas 6 Bawah agak hingar bingar kerana hari ini adalah hari besar.Hari yang mendebarkan. Ketika melewati 6B3 aku tercari-cari Mek Teh dan Chique. Che Ngah pun tak kelihatan. Mungkin mereka ni sudah ke Bilik Disiplin.Adik-adik di kelas-kelas lain pun nampaknya tak tenteram berada di dalam kelas. Semua orang teruja. Adakah pada hari ini satu lagi sejarah gemilang akan dilakarkan di bumi MMP ini?

I’m back in d office after 5 days-off. My target for this week :

1. CLA module
2. Literature search on Islamic Capital Market
3. Continue previous unexecuted plans

May has always been my favourite month of the year, not only because I become very inspired to do research, but most importantly because May marks a number of meaningful days for me, such as…

• Our anniversary on 27th.
• Salwani’s birthday on 25th.
• Abe Su’s birthday on 23rd.
• Mak & Nani’s birthday on 18th.
• Abang’s birthday on 14th.
• Abg. Alan’s birthday on 6th.
• Aan’s (my maid) birthday on 5th.

Bye for now. InsyaAllah, we shall meet again next year.

I’m 4 months n ready for my first meal! Like my elder brother & sister, I like home-made meal & ‘air tangan ummi’ coz it tastes yummy without preservatives which are definitely harmful to my development. I had mashed boiled carrot for lunch & mashed apple for dinner. In the next few days, the menu will range to mashed cauliflour, potato & brocolli. Hmmm.. delicious! Wait until I’m 6 month to have rice with chicken or beef or fish…

Happy teacher’s Day to all teachers, especially those who have taught me since kindergarten till Ph.D. I spent half of my student’s life in Kota Bharu, Kelantan. Starting with Kindergarten Fatima, then SRK Zainab 2 till standard 4 & continued to SK Paloh Pintu Geng. The most memorable teachers to my life are those in Maahad Muhammadi (P) who have contributed a lot, particularly a high standard Arabic based learnings and skills which I am still benefitting in my present career.

My love to Arabic languages had initially motivated me to pursue my studies in the middle east (Jordan), what more my best friend, Syakirah had also expressed the same intention. However, I had to abide to my parent’s decision to have me reading laws in IIUM. They were very persistent that they put IIUM-Laws as the first and the only choice in UPU form!! (Kalau tak dapat 10As tak boleh buat mcm ni, risky betul!!)

That was how I met my law lecturers in matric & AIKOL and had been the first batch transferred to this Gombak Campus in September 1996.

I had been struggling hard to improve my CGPA in the first 2 yrs of study. These years (1993-1997) were known as killers’ years, where almost all law lecturers were notoriously called as ‘killer’. Can U imagine I got only ‘C’ for my first main camp paper- Family Law, and even the best student among us only got C+!!

SOmehow the situation has changed now… Alhamdulillah I graduated with 2nd class upper (No first class holder during my time!) and was ranked the 49th in my batch. Thanks to all dedicated lecturers, to name a few; Dr Nora, Dr Azmi, Dato Hashim, Dr Mahanoon & Dr. Baharuddin, Mr Baharuddeen, Us Yaacob, Dr Aziz Bari, Dr Haseeb, Dr Altaf, Dr Samsar, Dr Hunud, Dr Akram Shair, Dr Mahmood Sanusi, Dr Mohd Deen, Dr. Norhashimah, Dr. Mohamed Al-Sagoff, Dr Azlinor, Dr Nasimah, Dr Said, Dr Badruddin, Dr Ismail Mohd, Dr Mohd Hisham, Dr Naim Omar, Dr nor Asiah, Dr Shamrahayu, Dr Zulfakar, Us. Tajul Aris, Mdm Afridah, Us. Salleh, Mdm Mazlina, Ms. Ahlam, and not forgetting those who had left UIA like Dr Daud Bakar, Dr Badrul Amin (Got A1 for Islamic Legal maxim) and Us Suhaimi (got A1 for Usul Fiq). Above all, I’m also very fortunate for the opportunity of being a student to Allahyarham Prof Tan Sri Ahmad Mohd Ibrahim who was actually my very first lecturer in Main Camp PJ teaching me MLS.

Thank you all.. I could not have been what I am now without your endless contributions & dua’…