Ibra's Education policy

Wow! I just listened to Ibra’s education policy on DhiFM 95.2. I must say he is a real good speaker. The adherence in his words, the examples he showed is simply mesmerizing. He did not put something special in his educational policy; he just put the bits n bots where the current government have failed. It showed his brilliance and understanding in the education sector.

Some of the positive points he focussed should be highlighted because of its importance and I really cheer him for that. The part where he said he would try to incorporate foreign languages in to our education system including Arabic is something we need desperately. In an era prompting for globalisation, the need for it is immense.

The need to function an independent valuation body for the education sector is another point which should be highly applauded. However, I don’t strongly support his philosophy of giving the whole authority of the valuation process to the parents. But it’s just my view.

He also pressed the need for increasing teacher’s salary and more higher educational opportunities for them. I agree to this one to some extent. I don’t think anyone maintains this statistic in the government. But for sure, most of the scholarships offered by the government are still allocated for teachers.

I strongly disagree with his point of view of abolishing the awarding process for top schools. The current process gives an extra motivation for the students who want to achieve more and who wanted to learn more! I guess everyone at the moment have equal chances as they are judged by the 8 subjects they are taught in school.

However, his long speech which lasted for more than half an hour was well structured and he also said he would challenge all the other educational policies in a debate. So that’s something to look out for!

Just a mere thought!

Well, another party! Another day in the political arena in the Maldives and the build up for the elections 2008 is getting much more unpredictable! Imagine, for a population of around 300,000 we have 10 and I reiterate, 10 political parties. Wow! For god’s sake! This is too much of our resources wasted on politics!

One funny thing I notice is none of the political parties aims to bring peace and harmony to the Maldivians and to provide a better life. Their main target is to get rid of Maumoon and that’s it! Anni talked about some aspects including tourism, housing and fisheries in his manifesto and I just could not think of how he could achieve in the time frame he told. He obviously needs to change his thinking so that it could be easily accepted by people rather than us wondering whether it would be empty promises! We still have to wait for others to talk about their manifestos, especially from our current president. Would he opt out from issuing a manifesto like how he has done for the political debate! Let’s wait and see what he does!

Back to thought! The public have to fund for the 10 political parties and I can’t see some of them functioning at all! I just can’t believe! Maybe we should start a Maldives Green Party to promote and aware the environmental condition rather than an association or an NGO, because it is more profitable! Easy capital! It’s kind of the easiest way of financing an association of such I guess because you get a yearly capital free of charge! No interest!

Just a mere thought!

A brief look at Anni's transport policy

Its election time in Maldives and the so called ‘politicians’ have started to announce their agendas and manifestos. Since I am living abroad at the moment, I just get all the news from the local media and just could not imagine the differences in how it’s been reported in here and in Maldives.

The last policy was announced by Maldivian Democratic Party’s presidency candidate, Nasheed (Anni) for the transport sector. The main outcome of the policy was to connect all the islands from a ferry mechanism. He highlighted that Maldivians are suppressed in their islands and the difficulty in transport in emergencies. The mechanism would be facilitated bydividing the country in to different zones and the zoned islands were announced in the news briefing held in Hulhumale’ ferry terminal. However, this information was not available (not even in MDP website).

However, after reading the articles about it in haveeru, miadhu, aafathis and jazeera a lot of questions popped in to my head, like any other Maldivian. The journalists failed to ask key questions or failed to report key factors in the newspapers.

First key question is how could it be done?

Is government going to start a ferry business separately or would it be run through MTCC? I thought Anni mentioned about privatising all government business and the need for government to pull away from the business sector.

By having zone ferries would it still solve the emergency problems, I don’t agree. It might give a little comfort but I don’t believe it’s the complete solution.

How could it be financed?

If ferry services are to operate, it sure has to be profitable or is government going to subsidise the company like STELCO. The business would be highly risky n volatile with the increase in fuel prices in the world. Would this policy be financed by the public and would they be charged?

Finally within how many years would it take to implement such a plan?

I don’t support any political party so far, but definitely my vote in the elections would go to a person who has the best mandate to help the people of Maldives and I hope I would get some answers for this in the near future!