To Sir With Love

This posting is specially dedicated to a special person who changed my looking at history from the normal conservative angle. He is Professor Datuk Dr. Mohammad Redzuan Othman, who was removed from helming the UM's Centre For Democracy and Election (UMcedel) apart from his contract as the Dean of UM Faculty of Arts and Social Science. His controversial sacking was made even ironic when the PM in his Facebook Account commented on the newly introduced PT3 assessment system and said a "holistic education must be a top priority if Malaysia aspires to achieve a developed nation status" ...

In the wake of this controversial episode Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah relinquished his position as a fellow at UM a sign of protest whilst KJ came up with a statement saying that  "Putrajaya tidak tergugat dengan kajian UMcedel" in an obvious reference to the Centre's not so  favourable reports/survey on the public perceptions towards the government of the day.

I am not going to delve on the sacking of the ex Don but to share my personal "close encounter" with Prof Redzuan  ... I first met him when I was a private student at Premier College in Ipoh in the early 80s. I was taking up my STPM examination as a private student and he was teaching history there. Apparently, he took this initiative whenever he was on his semester leave and obviously due to him wanting to share his "ilmu" with youngsters like me. His method of teaching history is not of conventional approach but was very critical as he went out of his way photostating history journals or articles which you could not find in the text books.

Then, I became intrigue with the Professor who was so down to earth - he always came to the class wearing a "reformed" front buttoned baju melayu with black pants and capal!!! Upon queries, I came to know that Prof Redzuan was also instrumental in the setting up of a well known private institution  in Ipoh i.e. Institut Sofar. This institute was set up by a group og young graduates and undergraduates of our local varsities to give opportunities to private students to pursue to dream to be enrolled in the local varsities. They also became the teachers/tutors at the said Institute. All these were done during their semester breaks ...

I am very sure that scores of students had benefited from these kind hearted people and Prof Redzuan is one of them. As for me, learning history is never the same anymore and I managed to get distinctions for both my STPM history papers .....

To Prof. Redzuan, history will judge you and your ex students, me included owe so much to you for nurturing us in what we are today. My pray to you and your family, Sir .....

I just wonder whether this is one of the reasons why none of our varsity is being listed in the top 100 varsities in the world ......