Educational Systems in Malaysia

People here actually believe that there are two types of knowledge and/or learning disciplines, namely the Arts and the Sciences. The smarties are the left brainers - logical, calculating, sequential, analytical etc and all the smart students, especially those who do well in the 'science' subjects, are streamed to the Science stream. From there on, they will become the future scientists, doctors, architects, engineers etc. The not so smart ones, (meaning the leftovers from those who do not qualify for the science stream) will go into the Art Stream where they will study mundane, memorisisng subjects like history, geography, literature, accounts and will count themselves lucky if they get a job doing general things like administration, teaching, and anything else remote from what they actually studied. This is the fate of the right brainers - people who are intuitive, random, subjective, in touch with feelings rather than logic to the point of being illogical.

Of course, everyone wants to be a professional, to be left brained and successful, wielding powers of logic and lording it over the illogical right brainers. Unfortunately, our world is not so logical. Ten years down the line, the brightest of the professionals will be working under (earning less pay, subordinate to) their not so smart right brainers, who by virtue of their adminstrative positions are able to lord it over their so-called smarter counterparts of old. Wouldnt it therefore strike these left brainers that, contrary to what is logical, it is better to be 'stupid' and be illogical (at least pretend to be) and join the right-brainers in the study of the Arts and become administrators to fast track up the social ladder. In fact, that illogical line of action must therefore be the logical thing to do. So far, not many takers from the logical left-brainers who believe that their aptitude and knowledge areas are far superior to that of the lower life-form of right brainers and that they will never want to demean themselves to study the Arts. They will, and must, ultimately rise to the top of the social pile, as logic says that they will.

I dont believe in that crap of course. To me, any study matter is neutral - what we make out of the facts/information that we get from our learning is that which matters. Long after the information/facts gets superceded (yes, information today has very short shelf lives) the ability we develop in processing and using the information to solve problems will remain with us - to be used on the new information that we will be recieving. Arts and Science distinction blurs when actual problems are faced. And yet, in this illogical world, we categorise and stream people into Arts and Science people and setting up barriers which may be beyond the capability of an individual to break through and thus condemn him/her into a certain pattern of life and thought.
Which is why education in Malaysia stinks (among many other reasons)