PPSMI Study: Findings wrongly reported?
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Wednesday, 15 July 2009 11:05
Azly Rahmanhttp://azlyrahman-illuminations.blogspot.com/2009/07/ppsmi-please-verify-if-this-is-true.htmlI would like those who have more information on the PPSMI study findings to verify the claim below which appeared as a comment in my blog:
Thanks Azly. Allow me to critique the study done by Prof. Isahak Harun and his colleagues from Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris. The study was reported in " Kesan Dasar Pengajaran Matematik dan Sains dalam Bahasa Inggeris di Sekolah Rendah", and has yet to be published in any international journal of educational research. It's basically a very kampung-style research, using flimsy methodology and with distorted reporting. Why distorted?? Well let me give you a few examples.Contoh 1:
Dilaporkan bahawa "sebahagian besar (purata 70%) pelajar melayu 5 mendapati kurang senang mempelajari Matematik dan sains dalam bahasa Inggeris" (m.s. 22). Kesimpulan ini dibuat berdasarkan penarafan kendiri oleh pelajar Tahun 5 dengan skala Likert 3 poin, yakni 1=KURANG SENANG DIPELAJARI, 2=AGAK SENANG DIPELAJARI, DAN 3=SENANG DIPELAJARI.Namun, apabila saya cuba meneliti angka tersebut, sebenarnya terdapat lebih kurang 25% yang mengatakan bahawa sains dan matematik SENANG DIPELAJARI dalam bahasa Inggeris, manakala lebih kurang 33% yang mengatakan sains dan matematik susah dipelajari. Sementara itu, terdapat lebih kurang 42% yang mengatakan sains dan matematik AGAK SENANG DIPELAJARI dalam bahasa Inggeris. Tetapi, dalam kajian ini (m.s. 22 tadi), kumpulan penyelidik UPSI telah menggabungkan peratusan yang mengatakan "susah dipelajari" (33%) dan "agak senang dipelajari" (42%) sambil merumuskan bahawa lebih 70% pelajar melayu 5 yang mendapati KURANG SENANG mempelajari sains dan matematik dalam bahasa Inggeris, berbanding dengan 25% yang mengatakan SENANG DIPELAJARI. Keadaan ini merupakan distorted reporting atau, pelaporan yang memesong dan berniat mengelirukan pembaca.Rumusan saya ialah, dengan adanya pelaporan yang memesong seperti ini, maka saya sememangnya berasa was-was, ragu-ragu dan syak terhadap dapatan-dapatan lain dalam pelaporan itu. Apa tidaknya, apabila kita mendapati sesuatu restoran itu menggunakan ayam yang TIDAK HALAL, maka secara spontannya segala yang ada dalam restoran tersebut sememangnya boleh diragui!CONTOH 2:
4:17 AM
Anonymous said...
CONTOH 2:Dilaporkan bahawa " di kalangan murid Melayu min skor matematik murid di sekolah 'luar bandar' (8.34) lebih tinggi sedikit daripada min murid di 'bandar' (6.57) dan 'pekan besar" (7.07)' ... [tetapi] ini adalah sesuatu yang diluar jangkaan" (ms. 52).Saya sungguh terkilan apabila kumpulan penyelidik UPSI boleh MENGENEPIKAN dapatan yang menunjukkan pencapaian matematik pelajar luar bandar lebih tinggi dan signifikan secara statistik berbanding dengan pencapaian pelajar bandar dan pekan besar. Apa yang mereka jangkakan???? Atau, apa yang ada dalam jangkaan kumpulan penyelidik ini???? Adakan mereka mempunyai prasangka bahawa pelajar luar bandar sememangnya lemah dan lembab dalam matematik, dan keadaan ini sepatutnya lebih teruk dengan penggunaan bahasa Inggeris?? Hello, kenapa tidak cuba mengupas keadaan ini? PENCAPAIAN PELAJAR LUAR BANDAR, sebagaimana yang ada dalam statistik kajian UPSI, ADALAH 20% LEBIH TINGGI DARIPADA PELAJAR BANDAR DAN PEKAN BESAR, DAN ANGKA INI ADALAH JUGA SIGNIFIKAN. Kenapa nak kata "tinggi sedikit" dan seterusnya mengabaikannya? kenapa tidak HIGHLIGHT dapatan kajian ini?Pelaporan ini sebenarnya bukan sahaja menunjukkan ketidakprofesionalan dalam kalangan penyelidik UPSI, bahkan ianya menggambarkan prasangka buruk yang ada dalam minda dan sanubari kumpulan penyelidik UPSI tentang "budak luar bandar yang lemah dan daif".KEMENTERIAN PELAJARAN MALAYSIA SEHARUSNYA MEMBUANGKAN DAPATAN INI KE DALAM TONG SAMPAH DAN TIDAK MENGGUNAKANNYA UNTUK MEMBUAT SEBARANG POLISI PENTING!
Comments (9)
...written by born2reign, July 15, 2009 11:31:36
I've always wondered if PPSMI conducted any survey to analyse if: 1) Rural students are better than City students in History. 2) Rural students are better than City students in Math. 3) Rural students are better than City students in Science. 4) Rural students are better than City students in Bahasa Malaysia. 5) Rural students are better than City students in Geography. 6) Rural students are better than City students in English. If the rural students are all worse than city students in all these subjects, we should also scrap off history, BM, geography, English together with Math and Science (English), since one of the reason is that govt teachers have no skills to teach these subjects hence causing the students to do poorly.
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...written by yellowwoman, July 15, 2009 11:51:20
Dr Azly Rahman, If what you highlighted is true, what are the implications? What can be done? Please do something!!!!
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...written by Ku Osman, July 15, 2009 12:42:33
I do admit the UPSI research are flawed. But this does not nullify works done by many educationists worldwide published in journals that conclude that learning science at primary level is best done using the student's mother tongue. Commenters here should not be emotional and think only for themselves. The kids from the kampong has suffered enough. Stop thinking that you know better than world top researchers in education. A lot of work have been done in this area and most of them come to the same conclusion. Azly, you are an academic, so do some websearch on this and please tell the findings by educational researchers in Turkey, Ghana, USA, Hong Kong, South Africa among others. If UPSI researchers do a proper research, I believe they would come up with the same conclusion that learning Science is best done in Malay for Malay kids. Don't tell me Malay language is different and unscientific compared to the language used by the natives of Ghana!!
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...written by Richfyf, July 15, 2009 12:59:46
Teach in BM, English , Chinese or Tamil. If the Teachers trained and produce by MOE cant teach whose fault is it? If 6 year old malay kids can read the q'uran in perfect arabic... it just show that children have the capability to study any subject in any language if the proper way is being used
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...written by yellowwoman, July 15, 2009 15:40:59
If the universal findings state that children study Sc and Maths best in the mother tongue, then why are only the rural kids' educational needs taken into account? If Malay kids study best in Malay, let them do so from Primary to secondary and even to university levels. If Chinese kids study best in Mandarin, let them do so in Mandarin. IF Indian kids study best in Tamil, let them do so in Tamil. If urban children and other Malaysians whose children learn best in English because their mother tongue is English, why is the government forcing these group of children to study in a language not their mother tongue? Give parents and children a choice. And English MUST be a choice because many Malaysians deem English as their mother tongue. What about Iban children? What about Kadazan children?
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...written by Junglefever, July 16, 2009 04:38:05
I have been following this argument for quite a while. I am sorry to say Malaysians are once again being led down the proverbial wrong path. How can you soar with the eagles if you insist on working/hanging around with turkeys? I guess in Malaysia we don't have much choice. May explain why there is such a brain drain with the smart ones leaving the country. My 2 cents worth on the matter are as follows. It doesn't matter what language science and math are taught, there are 2 prerequisites to ensure the students get a good command. Firstly, the teacher has to be capable and interested in ensuring the student learns and understands it well. Well, here is the first problem, if you insist on mass producing teachers to fulfill a quota or to garner votes then there are bound to be quite a few that slip through the cracks and end up as out children educational guides. Secondly, in order to compete with the rest of the world the students should be able to 'translate' their knowledge to whatever medium they need to work in. If they have a very good command of English with significant breadth in their scientific terminology then they would be able deal internationally. I attend international scientific meetings on a regular basis (not in Malaysia, needless to say) that are attended by scientists from all over the world. The medium is English. Chinese scientists ensure they have a good command of English to present these conferences. They do struggle as they had done all their studies in Mandarin but now they are ensuring they are doing things in English to communicate their ideas. Unfortunately, all the advantage we had in being well versed in English has been squandered by years political myopia. I am lucky as I had studied in mainly English with enough emphasis in BM to ensure I was fluent in both languages.What's wrong with that? Are we ensuring a new generation that is going to be 'katak dibawah tempurung' simply because they are unable to communicate with the rest of the world?
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...written by born2reign, July 16, 2009 10:27:00
I have already decided that my children are not state-owned children. God gave them to me, not to UMNO. We have hired a private tutor to teach our children and a group of friends' children the way we want them to be educated. These education books are easily purchased from their websites, and the high school certificate also recognised internationally with Australian Unis and American universities, matriculation and A-levels. Not recognised by Malaysian unis though, but then Malaysian unis don't recongnise our Chinese independant school certificates either, while Singapore give them Asean scholarships. Bodoh UMNO! So many Chinese flock into Chinese independant schools and they are snatched by our neighbouring countries but rejected by UMNO. By children don't have the time to be UMNO's guinea pigs. They will study in English, BM and Mandarin languages, and they will have playgroups approved by us as parents, sports activities privately arranged. All of you parents have the choice to take your children out of public schools and educate them the way YOU want them to be educated. We are not UMNO slaves. If a problem can be solved by money, it is not a problem. Get a second job or go into business, money is in abundance. Debating with fools are pointless. You are trying to convince a majority of population who only have ONE mother tongue all their generations. If you ask a Chinese, they speak Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkein, English and BM by age 7, due to exposure with grandparents, parents, neighbours, teachers and friends. If you ask an graduate who failed engineering, if engineering is easy to pass, he'll tell you not to do engineering. But if you ask a top scorer, he'll tell you engineering is a good career. If Malays want to learn from turkeys and mix with the crabs which pull you down, it's your free choice. But eagles soar alone, above the storms. Read "Even eagles need a push" by Michael Dell (if you have no money, cancel your Astro subscription). Even UMNOputera kids are taught in English. I'll believe this stupid study and our ministers when they place all their kids in UiTM.
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...written by cheemengwong, July 16, 2009 11:52:00
asking children if they find difficulty learning Science and maths is a BIG mistake. children are children... we do what is best for them. They the children cannot make any decisions for themselves. It is just like the doctor asking the patients what they want for their sickness! Phark
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...written by Mapel101, July 16, 2009 12:30:03
I find it annoying when the Gov is being fickle. No wonder our education system has gone haywire with too much changes implied in our system..Have mercy on the school kids primary or secondary future. Sheesh.
Dr Ismail Aby Jamal
Born in Batu 10, Kg Lubok Bandan, Jementah, Segamat, Johor
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Jobless Singaporeans thumb noses at menial work
Saturday July 18, 2009
Jobless Singaporeans thumb noses at menial work
INSIGHT DOWN SOUTHBy SEAH CHIANG NEE
Employers in the service industry are struggling to hire locals, leading to an unhealthy dependence on foreigners.
MANY Singaporeans – like manager Joyce Ng – may be forgiven for asking: “Where is the job crisis? Is the recession for real?”
Despite the recession and a large loss of jobs, Ng, who runs The Whisky Store, was having anything but an easy time when she tried last month to hire local workers.
She posted six advertisements and finally got two responses. Both respondents, however, quit after a trial period.
Her complaint is shared by other employers who say that the Singaporean service worker is becoming a disappearing breed despite the downturn.
Singaporeans, including the newly-retrenched, appear reluctant to take up many types of service work, especially in eating places, shops and public transport, yet these are places that seem to be showing some signs of life despite the downturn.
Why are unemployed Singaporeans staying away from service jobs? In the United States, engineers have worked as hamburger flippers – but not here!
Singapore has produced a new highly-educated generation with high expectations, so jobs perceived as “lowly” get ignored. It is a national problem. The shortage affects every consumer in Singapore.
Significantly raising wages may attract local workers, but it will lead to higher prices for consumers. It is driving Singapore to become more dependent on foreign workers, who already make up a third of its work force and population.
In the latest case, hundreds of cooked food stalls, a major source of cheap meals, petitioned the Government to allow them to hire more workers from overseas.
Many of these low-margin – but socially important – operations have been forced to close because they couldn’t find locals to cook, wash and serve customers.
“Each closure deals a blow to lower-middle class workers and students who frequent these food stalls on a daily basis,” a Chinese newspaper reporter said.
Employers would rather have cheaper, harder-working nationals from China, India, Myanmar and the Philippines, but for a government permit quota restriction. Last month the authorities significantly loosened it for the service sector, which makes up 65% of the economy.
Employers can now hire five foreign workers for every five locals employed, up from the three-to-seven ratio. This change is merely following the reality on the ground. For many months now, so many foreigners have been seen in public places that even a one-for-one rule appears irrelevant.
As an example, of the 136,500 service jobs created last year, more than half – or 54% – went to foreigners.
Served By Foreigners
Today, Singapore is served by foreign nationals more than they are by their own people. If these workers pull out, life here will come to a complete standstill.
They work as waiters, salesmen, cooks, nurses, bus drivers, and take up a wide range of white-collar service jobs. They hail from some 20 countries all over the world, led by Malaysia and China.
The relaxation may have been timed to come just ahead of the scheduled launch early next year of the two big casino resorts – Sands at Marina Bay and Resorts World at Sentosa. Both need tens of thousands of workers – more than Singapore can produce on its own. So the bulk may come from abroad.
Some say the greenlight to allow one foreign worker for every Singaporean in the service industry will have a big impact on the demography, and even redirect its history.
The reason is that they account for a massive 68% of Singapore’s total work force. The majority are here on contract and may leave after a few years, but the unending cycle itself will leave a permanent mark on the city.
It was a different scenario a generation ago when large multinationals were flocking in to open up factories to manufacture products for export.
I remember how shocked I was at being told that for my country to survive, we needed a massive inflow of foreign workers because our citizens could fill only one of every seven vacancies generated.
The official mindset towards the issue, too, has changed. The political leadership under Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Keng Swee was a lot more wary about having too many foreigners. Their first concern was not its social impact, but the nation’s stability and security.
In several briefings, we were cautioned that having too many foreigners working in our midst could expose this tiny island to possible foreign manipulation – or even control. The use of foreign workers to organise strikes and street violence could become a weapon by a foreign power to blackmail Singapore.
In one briefing, editors were also told that Singapore would avoid Europe’s “addiction” to cheap labour from Asia and Africa. Look at the street violence they imported from home to the streets of Paris and other cities, I was told.
To prevent this, Singapore opted to automate operations to stem the high manpower consumption, and move some factories to Batam and other places.
But these days, under the shadow of an economic crisis, such talk has all but disappeared. We seem to be moving in the opposite direction.
Jobless Singaporeans thumb noses at menial work
INSIGHT DOWN SOUTHBy SEAH CHIANG NEE
Employers in the service industry are struggling to hire locals, leading to an unhealthy dependence on foreigners.
MANY Singaporeans – like manager Joyce Ng – may be forgiven for asking: “Where is the job crisis? Is the recession for real?”
Despite the recession and a large loss of jobs, Ng, who runs The Whisky Store, was having anything but an easy time when she tried last month to hire local workers.
She posted six advertisements and finally got two responses. Both respondents, however, quit after a trial period.
Her complaint is shared by other employers who say that the Singaporean service worker is becoming a disappearing breed despite the downturn.
Singaporeans, including the newly-retrenched, appear reluctant to take up many types of service work, especially in eating places, shops and public transport, yet these are places that seem to be showing some signs of life despite the downturn.
Why are unemployed Singaporeans staying away from service jobs? In the United States, engineers have worked as hamburger flippers – but not here!
Singapore has produced a new highly-educated generation with high expectations, so jobs perceived as “lowly” get ignored. It is a national problem. The shortage affects every consumer in Singapore.
Significantly raising wages may attract local workers, but it will lead to higher prices for consumers. It is driving Singapore to become more dependent on foreign workers, who already make up a third of its work force and population.
In the latest case, hundreds of cooked food stalls, a major source of cheap meals, petitioned the Government to allow them to hire more workers from overseas.
Many of these low-margin – but socially important – operations have been forced to close because they couldn’t find locals to cook, wash and serve customers.
“Each closure deals a blow to lower-middle class workers and students who frequent these food stalls on a daily basis,” a Chinese newspaper reporter said.
Employers would rather have cheaper, harder-working nationals from China, India, Myanmar and the Philippines, but for a government permit quota restriction. Last month the authorities significantly loosened it for the service sector, which makes up 65% of the economy.
Employers can now hire five foreign workers for every five locals employed, up from the three-to-seven ratio. This change is merely following the reality on the ground. For many months now, so many foreigners have been seen in public places that even a one-for-one rule appears irrelevant.
As an example, of the 136,500 service jobs created last year, more than half – or 54% – went to foreigners.
Served By Foreigners
Today, Singapore is served by foreign nationals more than they are by their own people. If these workers pull out, life here will come to a complete standstill.
They work as waiters, salesmen, cooks, nurses, bus drivers, and take up a wide range of white-collar service jobs. They hail from some 20 countries all over the world, led by Malaysia and China.
The relaxation may have been timed to come just ahead of the scheduled launch early next year of the two big casino resorts – Sands at Marina Bay and Resorts World at Sentosa. Both need tens of thousands of workers – more than Singapore can produce on its own. So the bulk may come from abroad.
Some say the greenlight to allow one foreign worker for every Singaporean in the service industry will have a big impact on the demography, and even redirect its history.
The reason is that they account for a massive 68% of Singapore’s total work force. The majority are here on contract and may leave after a few years, but the unending cycle itself will leave a permanent mark on the city.
It was a different scenario a generation ago when large multinationals were flocking in to open up factories to manufacture products for export.
I remember how shocked I was at being told that for my country to survive, we needed a massive inflow of foreign workers because our citizens could fill only one of every seven vacancies generated.
The official mindset towards the issue, too, has changed. The political leadership under Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Keng Swee was a lot more wary about having too many foreigners. Their first concern was not its social impact, but the nation’s stability and security.
In several briefings, we were cautioned that having too many foreigners working in our midst could expose this tiny island to possible foreign manipulation – or even control. The use of foreign workers to organise strikes and street violence could become a weapon by a foreign power to blackmail Singapore.
In one briefing, editors were also told that Singapore would avoid Europe’s “addiction” to cheap labour from Asia and Africa. Look at the street violence they imported from home to the streets of Paris and other cities, I was told.
To prevent this, Singapore opted to automate operations to stem the high manpower consumption, and move some factories to Batam and other places.
But these days, under the shadow of an economic crisis, such talk has all but disappeared. We seem to be moving in the opposite direction.
A Perspective on the Growth Process in India and China
by Prabhat Patnaik 17.07.2009
It is possible to argue that the growth rate figures for both India and China are exaggerated. But, we shall proceed by accepting them as correct. The inequalities in both economies however have increased dramatically during this very phase of extraordinarily high growth, to a point where substantial segments of the population, particularly, but not exclusively, belonging to the rural areas, appear to have witnessed little improvement in their living conditions, if not actual retrogression. This fact has been admitted by the governments in both countries. In China this admission was reflected in the call for a "socialist countryside" by the new leadership of the Communist Party in 2008, which entailed diverting substantial resources to the countryside for an improvement in the conditions of the people. In India the Eleventh Five Year Plan launched in 2007 aims at "inclusive growth", thereby admitting that growth till now has "excluded" large segments of the people.
Neither government however has been explicitly critical of the growth strategy pursued till now; both see high growth as the panacea for the conditions of the "excluded". In India in particular the emphasis is on still higher growth. The only theoretical "concession" made by the government has been to accept that the "benefits of growth" will not automatically "trickle down". "Inclusion" will require fiscal intervention by the government; for such intervention to work, however, a high growth rate is a necessary condition.
Whether India and China will continue to experience the growth rates they have been experiencing of late is a moot point. Both economies have become heavily export-dependent, with China even more than India, and the current world recession, if it persists, will certainly bring down their trend growth rates. But our purpose here is not to discuss the sustainability of the growth rate; it is to argue that inherent in the very nature of this growth process is a tendency towards "dualism" or a progressive accentuation in the internal social hiatus; an increase in the growth rate, far from eliminating or reducing this hiatus, may well accentuate it further.
This position is fundamentally different even from the "benefits-of-growth-will-not- automatically-trickle-down" point of view. It constitutes a basic critique of the growth process itself. If it is valid, and inherent to the growth process is a production of dualism, then no fiscal intervention by the State is likely to nullify it, as the Indian Eleventh Plan believes.
The obvious question that arises is: what exactly is meant by "this growth process"? After all, India and China have significant differences in their growth processes. Which is the common aspect of it that we have in mind in claiming that inherent to this growth process is a "dualistic" development? The immediate analytical answer to that question is: the flexibility of the product and process mix to adjust in response to changing market demand, in a situation where income distribution is largely market determined. In other words, the aspect being emphasized consists of two conditions: the fact that the production structure and hence the ensemble of technologies adjusts to the pattern of demand; and the fact that income distribution and hence this pattern of demand is itself largely market determined. These conditions characterize any capitalist economy. They obviously characterize contemporary Indian economy. And even in the case of China, they hold in substantial measure.
II
Poverty and abysmal conditions of life are necessarily linked to the existence of labour reserves. Many economists argue that the poor economies, like all economies, are characterized not by unemployment and underemployment but by low levels of productivity, and what is needed to overcome poverty is an increase in labour productivity. The difference between the "high labour reserves" view of poverty and the "low labour productivity" view of poverty may appear at first sight to be a merely semantic one; but there is a substantive difference, namely that the rate of growth of labour demand plays no role in the latter which sees interventions for overcoming poverty exclusively in terms of supply-side measures. (The current emphasis of the government of India on imparting skills as a means of overcoming poverty, on which more follows later, falls into this genre). Since labour demand in reality does play a crucial role, it is the non-using up of "labour reserves" which constitutes in our view the basic reason for persisting absolute poverty.
Now, there is a fundamental difference between India and China on the one hand and all the developed capitalist economies on the other, namely that the former are saddled with substantial labour reserves which cannot simply migrate abroad. This is a result of their colonial or semi-colonial past. Both China and India experienced "de-industrialization" in the sense of the destruction of their craft industries, and the throwing of large numbers of traditional craftsmen into the ranks of labour reserves that typically got located in agriculture, but also spilt over into low-paid occupations everywhere in the economy in the so-called "informal sector". W. Arthur Lewis calls India and China the locations of the world's labour reserves, but these enormous labour reserves did not always exist in India and China; nor were they the outcome of excessively high population growth rates as is often supposed. They got created as a consequence of colonial penetration into these economies, where, in addition to de-industrialization, the forcible introduction of a commodity economy in the context of an unpaid appropriation of economic surplus by the metropolis also played a crucial role. By contrast, today's developed capitalist economies not only never had such labour reserves to contend with, but even succeeded largely in exporting such labour reserves as they had, through emigration to the "new world" consisting of the temperate regions of White settlement.
It follows then that any growth strategy for India and China, if it is to address their social needs, must be one capable of rapidly absorbing their labour reserves. If this does not happen, then such a growth strategy necessarily sets up a vicious cycle. The existence of vast labour reserves keeps the real wage rate close to subsistence level. And the increase in growth rate, accompanied as it is by an increase in the growth rate of labour productivity, necessarily increases the share of economic surplus in the economy. An increase in inequality in other words is built into the system. Moreover, since those subsisting on economic surplus tend to demand newer goods which are in vogue in the metropolis, and which entail the use of technology with higher labour productivity, such an increase in inequality ipso facto gives rise to a further increase in the rate of growth of labour productivity in the economy, which again raises inequality, and so on.
In other words, a change in the structure of products and processes in the direction of higher labour productivity, which is itself in response to a shift in demand arising from a shift in income distribution away from wages to surplus, causes a further shift in income distribution, demand and technology in the same direction, since the labour reserves remain unexhausted. And the labour reserves remain unexhausted precisely because at the rate of growth of labour productivity that arises as a consequence of this dynamics, the rate of growth of labour demand, given the growth rate of output, does not adequately exceed the rate of growth of labour supply. We thus have a dynamics where labour reserves continue to remain unexhausted and the pauperized mass constituting the labour reserves continues to remain a pauperized mass; precisely because of the existence of such vast labour reserves, the wage rate remains tied to subsistence or near subsistence level. And yet the economy experiences extraordinarily high growth rates accompanied by extraordinarily high rates of growth of labour productivity, which both keep swelling the share of the economic surplus and get sustained by this very fact.
In presenting this picture we have assumed "given growth rate of output". That was merely a device for deferring a discussion of the factors that determine the growth rate. The dynamics sketched above, of a rise in the share of surplus giving rise to the demand for a change in the process and product mix, which calls forth technological progress leading to higher labour productivity, also calls forth investment and growth. In other words, the dynamics sketched above also spontaneously generates growth. But this spontaneous growth process can be deliberately accelerated through the pursuit of neo-mercantilist policies by the government or through the stepping up of public investment (or of public spending generally) as an exogenous stimulus.
State intervention, by way of both public investment and the pursuit of neo-mercantilist policies, has been far more pronounced in China than in India. In the latter, the quest for "fiscal responsibility" at more or less given tax rates, and the relative insignificance of net exports as a demand stimulus, have made growth largely a spontaneous affair, a fall-out of burgeoning capitalists', and more generally of middle class, consumption, sustained by a growing share of economic surplus.
Those in India who argue that the panacea for poverty lies in still higher growth of the same kind, usually see public investment in infrastructure as the instrument for stimulating higher growth, and this is what the Eleventh Plan visualizes. Their perception is normally a supply-side one, namely that public investment in infrastructure increases growth rate by removing bottlenecks on growth; but the importance of such public investment lies more in its ability to stimulate demand. To what extent the Eleventh Plan provides such a stimulus -- given the government's quest for "fiscal responsibility" at more or less given tax rates, which is itself enjoined upon it by the economy's openness to speculative financial inflows -- remains to be seen.
It is not our purpose in this paper, however, to discuss whether government intervention can accelerate the growth rate in an economy like India (we assume that it can in China), or whether, given the constraints upon the government, the growth process should be seen essentially as being spontaneous. Our argument is that even if the growth rate is accelerated, whether in India or in China, such acceleration may, instead of overcoming the dualism, further accentuate it. To illustrate this argument, we present a simple model.
III
There are two basic relations that we would emphasize: the impact of the rate of growth of surplus upon the rate of growth of productivity, and the impact of the rate of growth of productivity upon the rate of growth of surplus in an economy with labour reserves to start with. If μ denotes the share of surplus in output Q, which for simplicity is supposed to incorporate the outputs of both the modern and the traditional sectors, and θ the rate of growth of composite labour productivity, then the rate of growth of economic surplus, on the assumption that the real wage rate is given for the economy as a whole, can be written as (g + θα) where g denotes the rate of growth of output Q, and α is nothing but the ratio between the wage share and the surplus share, i.e. (1-μ)/μ. The rate of growth of labour productivity in turn would depend partly upon the rate of growth output itself, and partly, for reasons already mentioned, upon the rate of growth of surplus. Taking a very simple form of such dependence we can say that
θ = cg + d (g + θα)
Since the instantaneous rate of growth of employment at any moment is given simply by (g-θ), we can, by substitution, express it as: g [1-c-d{(1-cα)/(1-dα)}]. If this expression is less than the rate of growth of the labour force n, then the share of labour reserves at that instant of time will only increase.
The crucial parameter in this expression is d, i.e. the sensitivity of the rate of growth of labour productivity to the rate of growth in the size of the economic surplus. If it crosses a threshold level, then the term within the square brackets becomes negative. For instance, if α = 1 to start with, then, even if we take c = 0, a value of d ≥ 0.5 makes the term within the square brackets ≤ 0; for c > 0, the threshold value of d is lowered. If the term within square brackets is negative, then not only is a positive rate of growth in output accompanied by a negative rate of growth of employment, but an acceleration in the rate of growth of output is accompanied by a further increase in the negative rate of growth of employment.
If the term within square brackets is positive, then an increase in growth would appear to be beneficial, in so far as it reduces the magnitude of labour reserves. This is so even if at any given initial output growth rate, the relative size of the labour reserves keeps increasing, i.e. even if the rate of growth of employment, despite being positive, is less than the rate of growth of labour supply to start with. Even in such a case, an increase in the output growth rate will raise the growth rate of employment, in which case if output growth is raised to a sufficiently high level, then labour reserves will eventually have to diminish, as will absolute poverty, thus validating the claim of the government of India that the panacea for poverty is still higher growth.
But while this is perfectly true given the parameters of the above model, an increase in the growth rate -- if brought about, as suggested by the government of India, through larger investment in infrastructure -- cannot leave the value of c unchanged. The acquisition of scarce natural resources like land for infrastructure will certainly affect agricultural employment, so that an increase in the overall output growth rate brought about in this manner will be accompanied ceteris paribus by a higher rate of growth of labour productivity, thus amounting to an increase in the value of c. When this happens, then a rise in g will be accompanied by an increase in the value of the term within square brackets, in which case labour reserves will not necessarily get used up.
Of course, a question will be raised about the term in square brackets, which denotes the instantaneous rate of growth of employment at any point of time divided by the growth rate of output. This term itself keeps changing over time, since α keeps changing over time as the share of surplus increases. As α tends to zero, the term in square brackets tends to (1-c-d), which is much less than when α is positive (since c < d). In other words, the dynamics that we have outlined above is only a transient phenomenon, in the sense that as the share of wages falls in output, the rate of growth of productivity tends to decline for any given growth rate. Sustained output growth, in the long run, is likely to generate a faster employment growth than initially. But this fact itself is of little consolation since the emergence of such dualism is likely to generate social tensions that make the arrival of the long-run itself rather problematical. The emergence of such dualism and its persistence even for some time will alter in other words the parameters of the model itself, so that we cannot claim a happy ending in the long run.
It follows that given the historical legacy from the days of colonialism of being saddled with massive labour reserves, which they have to absorb domestically, the growth process in countries like India and China -- no matter how impressive in comparison to other countries, and no matter how effective in making them into budding "big powers" -- does not really address their social need. It is not a matter, in other words, of growth rates; it is a matter of the growth process itself, because of which even an increase in the growth rate is unlikely to address their social need.
IV
A reference was made earlier to the view that the removal of poverty demanded an increase in the productivity of the labour force. Special emphasis is laid in this perception on the upgradation of the skills of the labour force. Some holding this view would argue that it is not an overall mismatch between demand and supply of labour that afflicts economies like India and China, but rather a situation of excess demand for skilled labour co-existing with an excess supply of unskilled labour. Others, who reject the idea of excess supply of labour altogether, would argue nonetheless that if the unskilled workers are given skills, then they will be able not only to access jobs, but also to do so at much higher wages than they earn as unskilled workers. In short, given the much higher wages that skilled labour gets in the advanced capitalist countries, at the prevailing level of wages of skilled workers in countries like India and China -- which is much higher than their unskilled workers' wages -- there is (for all practical purposes) an infinitely elastic demand for skilled labour. The way to overcome poverty therefore, apart from investing in the infrastructure sector, is to invest in skill impartation, including in education. The hype about China being the future manufacturing centre of the world and India being the future office centre of the world takes off from this perception. And the government of India's emphasis on higher education in the Eleventh Five Year Plan is also based on it.
While such emphasis on education is always to be welcomed no matter what the ostensible argument underlying it, since education enriches the human being, the specific argument mentioned above lacks validity. It is based on the presumption that the wage differential between skilled labour in the advanced countries and skilled labour in countries like India will induce a continuous shift of employment from the former to the latter, that capital is nation-blind. The fact that this has not been the case in history can scarcely be denied, for otherwise the dichotomy between the developed and the underdeveloped countries in world capitalism would never have arisen. But the proponents of this view would argue that capital is much more internationally mobile today than ever before, and that this mobility has introduced a nation-blindness into its perception.
Even if this was the case, the fact remains that during the entire long period since 1973 (the precise initial year makes little difference), the rate of growth of world output has been less than the rate of growth of labour productivity in the advanced capitalist countries. In the metropolis, the rate of growth of ex ante labour productivity is equal to the rate of growth of ex post labour productivity, since the unemployed exist more or less openly as unemployed. But this is not so in the developing world where the unemployed simply swell the ranks of "informal sector workers" and do not appear openly as unemployed, which lowers the observed rate of productivity growth below its "true value", i.e. what it would have been if the unemployed had been counted as unemployed. Hence the rate of growth of ex ante labour productivity in the developing world is necessarily higher than the rate of growth of ex post labour productivity. At the same time, the rate of growth of ex ante labour productivity in the developing world is higher than in the developed world, since the former like to catch up with frontier technologies which are much more advanced than what are in vogue in their economies. It follows from these propositions that the rate of growth of ex ante world labour productivity is necessarily higher than the rate of growth of observed labour productivity in the advanced capitalist countries, and hence, taking the world as a whole, the tendency in the post-"Golden Age" period, has been towards an increase in the relative magnitude of labour reserves, even in the absence of any population, and hence work-force, growth. The fact of a positive rate of world population growth has only worsened matters, though -- unlike what is usually presumed -- it cannot be held responsible for the fact that labour reserves are not getting exhausted at the world level. A shift of employment from the advanced capitalist countries to India and China in such a context would simply mean a redistribution of the world labour reserves, away from India and China to the metropolitan centres. This would mean a weakening of the home base of metropolitan capital, which it would not be able to afford for any length of time. And even if metropolitan capital is unmindful of the social and political consequences of such weakening in its pure quest for profits, the metropolitan capitalist States will put a stop to this weakening by restricting "outsourcing".
Hence, even though some amount of "outsourcing", whether of services or of manufacturing, is occurring at present and may continue for some time, there are strict structural limits to the extent to which it can be carried forward. And if the additional factor of the recession in the U.S. and over much of the metropolitan capitalist world is taken into consideration, then these limits will be reached even sooner. It follows that the "horizontal demand curve for skilled labour" hypothesis, as an argument for the view that the using up of the labour reserves is simply a matter of imparting skills to unskilled workers, lacks validity.
V
From what has been argued until now, it would appear that the only certain way for reducing labour reserves in countries like India and China is to follow any one (or all) of the following options: to intervene in the process of income distribution so that it ceases to be market-determined; to intervene in the process of demand formation by altering preferences (by debunking the hankering after metropolitan life-styles); or to snap the link between changes in the pattern of demand and changes in the process and product mix by controlling the production structure, as was the case in both these economies earlier. Of course if the last of these is given effect, then -- since the impact of growth will be a reduction of labour reserves (as was the case in the former socialist countries) -- inequalities in income distribution will be automatically kept in check, as the basic roots of such inequalities lie in the non-exhaustion of labour reserves. Hence a control over the structure of production, a regulation of the rate of technological change -- so that this rate is not so rapid as to frustrate progress towards full employment -- appears as the proximate intervention objective. It amounts, in terms of the above model, to a deliberate State effort to hold down the value of d, for which controls are the obvious mechanism. The problem with controls, however, is too well-known for recapitulation here. But there exists another way of reducing the value of d and hence achieving the same objective, which is both more efficacious and more acceptable. To discuss this we must introduce an additional element that has been missing from our discussion till now. We have so far talked of the economic surplus as one homogeneous mass; its distribution across different social groups has not figured in our discussion. But obviously, who earns how much of the economic surplus, or, if we move away from a pure "worker-capitalist" economy to one with petty producers, the distribution of income between the surplus earners on the one hand and the petty producers on the other, also has an important bearing on the pattern of demand, and hence the pace of technological change.
In particular, one can argue that even if the real wages of workers remain tied to the subsistence level owing to the existence of labour reserves, the terms of trade between agriculture and the other sectors (assuming that the relative prices between the secondary and tertiary sectors move more or less synchronously) will have an effect on the rate of productivity growth for any given growth rate: it will tend to lower both c and d and hence increase labour absorption. For the same reason, for any given subsistence real wage and terms of trade, a given rate of growth, if it is sustained more by the contribution of peasant agriculture, will have a larger labour-absorbing impact than if it is sustained more by the contribution of the other (capitalist) sectors.
It follows then that peasant agriculture-led growth will be far more labour absorbing than either export-led growth or consumption-led growth of modern sector products. (A situation of burgeoning exports of agricultural products, it should be remembered, is not the same as peasant agriculture-led growth, since such burgeoning exports can also be squeezed out of a stagnant agriculture; and peasant agriculture-led growth is not the same as agriculture-led growth, since the latter can be on account of corporate farming whose capacity to absorb labour reserves is limited for the same reasons as that of consumption or export-led growth of modern sector products).
VI
It was argued earlier that a mere acceleration of the growth rate does not necessarily entail a reduction in the relative magnitude of labour reserves. In the light of the argument just advanced, an additional variable has to be taken into account in our analysis, and this is the distribution of incomes between the peasants and even the small agricultural capitalists and proto-capitalists on the one hand, and the surplus earners in the modern capitalist sector on the other. While an acceleration of growth of the kind that India and China have been experiencing of late is unlikely to alleviate rural poverty (which may of course migrate to urban areas and thereby cease to exist as rural poverty), a deceleration of such growth, if accompanied by an adverse shift in the terms of trade for agriculture and other allied primary sector activities, will almost certainly aggravate rural poverty. It follows that during the period of recession in the world economy, rural poverty in countries like India and China will get aggravated for two distinct reasons: first, the slowing down of the growth rate as a result of it will reduce employment growth further below what it otherwise would have been (even if "what it otherwise would have been" might still not have meant a reduction in the relative size of the labour reserves); and second, the terms of trade shift against agriculture that such a slowing down of the world economy would entail will have a similar effect.
An important result of this would be an increase in inequalities within countries like India and China. This is for the following reason. A slowing down of growth in the metropolis will have contradictory effects on the diffusion of activities to countries like India and China. On the one hand, the cut in profits of firms will make them even keener to reduce costs by outsourcing activities to India and China; on the other hand, the growth of unemployment within the metropolis will make the metropolitan States come down more heavily against such outsourcing. Some restrictions on outsourcing are likely, but only at the margin. The segment of the urban population that is a beneficiary of the current growth process is unlikely therefore to witness any significant cuts in its living standards compared to what it otherwise would have been, while the segment of the rural population that constitutes the "excluded" is likely to witness further deterioration in its living standards. A world recession therefore will compound both poverty and inequality in India and China, even though the booms they have witnessed may have been accompanied by increases in both.
VII
It may appear at first sight that the government of India's Eleventh Five Year Plan, which emphasizes a revival of agriculture, is aiming to do precisely what we have been arguing for, namely a peasant agriculture-led growth. But there are two basic differences: first, the emphasis on the part of the government is on "agriculture" and not "peasant agriculture" as such; and second, the means of stimulating a revival of peasant agriculture must include the provision of assured remunerative prices, and hence a commitment to the pursuit of appropriate exchange rate, trade and tariff policies which the government does not envisage; it talks instead of raising "productivity" to make agriculture "competitive". But if the rise in "productivity" is supposed to mean labour productivity, then the labour absorbing capacity of agriculture will go down; and if productivity is supposed to mean land productivity, then while the labour absorbing capacity may not go down, adequate incentives have to be provided for the introduction of land-saving methods, for which again a prior provision of assured remunerative prices constitutes a necessary incentive. Putting it differently, a strategy of peasant agriculture-led growth cannot be pursued within the context of a neo-liberal economy which allows freedom of financial flows (making any meaningful exchange rate policy elusive), which restricts the freedom to levy tariffs (though in India's case the actual tariffs on agricultural goods have often been below the tariff bounds), and which prioritizes the withdrawal of the State from market intervention.
To talk of "peasant agriculture-led growth" does not preclude egalitarian land reforms; on the contrary, precisely because a growth process based on a more egalitarian distribution of assets and incomes has a greater labour absorptive capacity than one based on inequalities, egalitarian land reforms must constitute a necessary accompaniment of peasant agriculture-led growth. Likewise, peasant agriculture-led growth does not preclude the formation of peasant co-operatives and collectives, including in the sphere of farming, as the basis for agricultural growth. In other words, peasant agriculture in this context does not necessarily mean individual petty production; it means agriculture based on a non-separation of the peasants from land, i.e. agriculture from which the peasantry is not expropriated (even if the impact of such expropriation is "softened" through the payment of some compensation or some price for their land). Since the labour absorptive capacity of any growth trajectory that entails such separation of peasants from land is likely to be low, such separation is likely only to end up swelling the relative size of the labour reserves.
The argument of this paper, in critique of the current growth process being experienced in India and China, may appear to some as similar to that put forward by Bukharin during the Soviet industrialization debate. While in some respects -- e.g. the need for industrialization and, more generally, economic diversification in large "labour-surplus" economies like India and China, to be based on a home market provided by expanding non-corporate agriculture -- there is a similarity between the two positions, the need for such agricultural expansion to be spearheaded by a burgeoning "kulak" class is not a part of what is being argued here. The evolution of the balance of class forces in the countryside and its implications for development, and hence conversely how a development strategy focused on the elimination of poverty should deal with it, is a separate matter that is not discussed in this paper. Its concern has only been to re-emphasize the need, in the context of economies like India and China, for a growth strategy stimulated by an expansion of agriculture, which, in turn, is based on a non-expropriation of the peasantry from land.
It is possible to argue that the growth rate figures for both India and China are exaggerated. But, we shall proceed by accepting them as correct. The inequalities in both economies however have increased dramatically during this very phase of extraordinarily high growth, to a point where substantial segments of the population, particularly, but not exclusively, belonging to the rural areas, appear to have witnessed little improvement in their living conditions, if not actual retrogression. This fact has been admitted by the governments in both countries. In China this admission was reflected in the call for a "socialist countryside" by the new leadership of the Communist Party in 2008, which entailed diverting substantial resources to the countryside for an improvement in the conditions of the people. In India the Eleventh Five Year Plan launched in 2007 aims at "inclusive growth", thereby admitting that growth till now has "excluded" large segments of the people.
Neither government however has been explicitly critical of the growth strategy pursued till now; both see high growth as the panacea for the conditions of the "excluded". In India in particular the emphasis is on still higher growth. The only theoretical "concession" made by the government has been to accept that the "benefits of growth" will not automatically "trickle down". "Inclusion" will require fiscal intervention by the government; for such intervention to work, however, a high growth rate is a necessary condition.
Whether India and China will continue to experience the growth rates they have been experiencing of late is a moot point. Both economies have become heavily export-dependent, with China even more than India, and the current world recession, if it persists, will certainly bring down their trend growth rates. But our purpose here is not to discuss the sustainability of the growth rate; it is to argue that inherent in the very nature of this growth process is a tendency towards "dualism" or a progressive accentuation in the internal social hiatus; an increase in the growth rate, far from eliminating or reducing this hiatus, may well accentuate it further.
This position is fundamentally different even from the "benefits-of-growth-will-not- automatically-trickle-down" point of view. It constitutes a basic critique of the growth process itself. If it is valid, and inherent to the growth process is a production of dualism, then no fiscal intervention by the State is likely to nullify it, as the Indian Eleventh Plan believes.
The obvious question that arises is: what exactly is meant by "this growth process"? After all, India and China have significant differences in their growth processes. Which is the common aspect of it that we have in mind in claiming that inherent to this growth process is a "dualistic" development? The immediate analytical answer to that question is: the flexibility of the product and process mix to adjust in response to changing market demand, in a situation where income distribution is largely market determined. In other words, the aspect being emphasized consists of two conditions: the fact that the production structure and hence the ensemble of technologies adjusts to the pattern of demand; and the fact that income distribution and hence this pattern of demand is itself largely market determined. These conditions characterize any capitalist economy. They obviously characterize contemporary Indian economy. And even in the case of China, they hold in substantial measure.
II
Poverty and abysmal conditions of life are necessarily linked to the existence of labour reserves. Many economists argue that the poor economies, like all economies, are characterized not by unemployment and underemployment but by low levels of productivity, and what is needed to overcome poverty is an increase in labour productivity. The difference between the "high labour reserves" view of poverty and the "low labour productivity" view of poverty may appear at first sight to be a merely semantic one; but there is a substantive difference, namely that the rate of growth of labour demand plays no role in the latter which sees interventions for overcoming poverty exclusively in terms of supply-side measures. (The current emphasis of the government of India on imparting skills as a means of overcoming poverty, on which more follows later, falls into this genre). Since labour demand in reality does play a crucial role, it is the non-using up of "labour reserves" which constitutes in our view the basic reason for persisting absolute poverty.
Now, there is a fundamental difference between India and China on the one hand and all the developed capitalist economies on the other, namely that the former are saddled with substantial labour reserves which cannot simply migrate abroad. This is a result of their colonial or semi-colonial past. Both China and India experienced "de-industrialization" in the sense of the destruction of their craft industries, and the throwing of large numbers of traditional craftsmen into the ranks of labour reserves that typically got located in agriculture, but also spilt over into low-paid occupations everywhere in the economy in the so-called "informal sector". W. Arthur Lewis calls India and China the locations of the world's labour reserves, but these enormous labour reserves did not always exist in India and China; nor were they the outcome of excessively high population growth rates as is often supposed. They got created as a consequence of colonial penetration into these economies, where, in addition to de-industrialization, the forcible introduction of a commodity economy in the context of an unpaid appropriation of economic surplus by the metropolis also played a crucial role. By contrast, today's developed capitalist economies not only never had such labour reserves to contend with, but even succeeded largely in exporting such labour reserves as they had, through emigration to the "new world" consisting of the temperate regions of White settlement.
It follows then that any growth strategy for India and China, if it is to address their social needs, must be one capable of rapidly absorbing their labour reserves. If this does not happen, then such a growth strategy necessarily sets up a vicious cycle. The existence of vast labour reserves keeps the real wage rate close to subsistence level. And the increase in growth rate, accompanied as it is by an increase in the growth rate of labour productivity, necessarily increases the share of economic surplus in the economy. An increase in inequality in other words is built into the system. Moreover, since those subsisting on economic surplus tend to demand newer goods which are in vogue in the metropolis, and which entail the use of technology with higher labour productivity, such an increase in inequality ipso facto gives rise to a further increase in the rate of growth of labour productivity in the economy, which again raises inequality, and so on.
In other words, a change in the structure of products and processes in the direction of higher labour productivity, which is itself in response to a shift in demand arising from a shift in income distribution away from wages to surplus, causes a further shift in income distribution, demand and technology in the same direction, since the labour reserves remain unexhausted. And the labour reserves remain unexhausted precisely because at the rate of growth of labour productivity that arises as a consequence of this dynamics, the rate of growth of labour demand, given the growth rate of output, does not adequately exceed the rate of growth of labour supply. We thus have a dynamics where labour reserves continue to remain unexhausted and the pauperized mass constituting the labour reserves continues to remain a pauperized mass; precisely because of the existence of such vast labour reserves, the wage rate remains tied to subsistence or near subsistence level. And yet the economy experiences extraordinarily high growth rates accompanied by extraordinarily high rates of growth of labour productivity, which both keep swelling the share of the economic surplus and get sustained by this very fact.
In presenting this picture we have assumed "given growth rate of output". That was merely a device for deferring a discussion of the factors that determine the growth rate. The dynamics sketched above, of a rise in the share of surplus giving rise to the demand for a change in the process and product mix, which calls forth technological progress leading to higher labour productivity, also calls forth investment and growth. In other words, the dynamics sketched above also spontaneously generates growth. But this spontaneous growth process can be deliberately accelerated through the pursuit of neo-mercantilist policies by the government or through the stepping up of public investment (or of public spending generally) as an exogenous stimulus.
State intervention, by way of both public investment and the pursuit of neo-mercantilist policies, has been far more pronounced in China than in India. In the latter, the quest for "fiscal responsibility" at more or less given tax rates, and the relative insignificance of net exports as a demand stimulus, have made growth largely a spontaneous affair, a fall-out of burgeoning capitalists', and more generally of middle class, consumption, sustained by a growing share of economic surplus.
Those in India who argue that the panacea for poverty lies in still higher growth of the same kind, usually see public investment in infrastructure as the instrument for stimulating higher growth, and this is what the Eleventh Plan visualizes. Their perception is normally a supply-side one, namely that public investment in infrastructure increases growth rate by removing bottlenecks on growth; but the importance of such public investment lies more in its ability to stimulate demand. To what extent the Eleventh Plan provides such a stimulus -- given the government's quest for "fiscal responsibility" at more or less given tax rates, which is itself enjoined upon it by the economy's openness to speculative financial inflows -- remains to be seen.
It is not our purpose in this paper, however, to discuss whether government intervention can accelerate the growth rate in an economy like India (we assume that it can in China), or whether, given the constraints upon the government, the growth process should be seen essentially as being spontaneous. Our argument is that even if the growth rate is accelerated, whether in India or in China, such acceleration may, instead of overcoming the dualism, further accentuate it. To illustrate this argument, we present a simple model.
III
There are two basic relations that we would emphasize: the impact of the rate of growth of surplus upon the rate of growth of productivity, and the impact of the rate of growth of productivity upon the rate of growth of surplus in an economy with labour reserves to start with. If μ denotes the share of surplus in output Q, which for simplicity is supposed to incorporate the outputs of both the modern and the traditional sectors, and θ the rate of growth of composite labour productivity, then the rate of growth of economic surplus, on the assumption that the real wage rate is given for the economy as a whole, can be written as (g + θα) where g denotes the rate of growth of output Q, and α is nothing but the ratio between the wage share and the surplus share, i.e. (1-μ)/μ. The rate of growth of labour productivity in turn would depend partly upon the rate of growth output itself, and partly, for reasons already mentioned, upon the rate of growth of surplus. Taking a very simple form of such dependence we can say that
θ = cg + d (g + θα)
Since the instantaneous rate of growth of employment at any moment is given simply by (g-θ), we can, by substitution, express it as: g [1-c-d{(1-cα)/(1-dα)}]. If this expression is less than the rate of growth of the labour force n, then the share of labour reserves at that instant of time will only increase.
The crucial parameter in this expression is d, i.e. the sensitivity of the rate of growth of labour productivity to the rate of growth in the size of the economic surplus. If it crosses a threshold level, then the term within the square brackets becomes negative. For instance, if α = 1 to start with, then, even if we take c = 0, a value of d ≥ 0.5 makes the term within the square brackets ≤ 0; for c > 0, the threshold value of d is lowered. If the term within square brackets is negative, then not only is a positive rate of growth in output accompanied by a negative rate of growth of employment, but an acceleration in the rate of growth of output is accompanied by a further increase in the negative rate of growth of employment.
If the term within square brackets is positive, then an increase in growth would appear to be beneficial, in so far as it reduces the magnitude of labour reserves. This is so even if at any given initial output growth rate, the relative size of the labour reserves keeps increasing, i.e. even if the rate of growth of employment, despite being positive, is less than the rate of growth of labour supply to start with. Even in such a case, an increase in the output growth rate will raise the growth rate of employment, in which case if output growth is raised to a sufficiently high level, then labour reserves will eventually have to diminish, as will absolute poverty, thus validating the claim of the government of India that the panacea for poverty is still higher growth.
But while this is perfectly true given the parameters of the above model, an increase in the growth rate -- if brought about, as suggested by the government of India, through larger investment in infrastructure -- cannot leave the value of c unchanged. The acquisition of scarce natural resources like land for infrastructure will certainly affect agricultural employment, so that an increase in the overall output growth rate brought about in this manner will be accompanied ceteris paribus by a higher rate of growth of labour productivity, thus amounting to an increase in the value of c. When this happens, then a rise in g will be accompanied by an increase in the value of the term within square brackets, in which case labour reserves will not necessarily get used up.
Of course, a question will be raised about the term in square brackets, which denotes the instantaneous rate of growth of employment at any point of time divided by the growth rate of output. This term itself keeps changing over time, since α keeps changing over time as the share of surplus increases. As α tends to zero, the term in square brackets tends to (1-c-d), which is much less than when α is positive (since c < d). In other words, the dynamics that we have outlined above is only a transient phenomenon, in the sense that as the share of wages falls in output, the rate of growth of productivity tends to decline for any given growth rate. Sustained output growth, in the long run, is likely to generate a faster employment growth than initially. But this fact itself is of little consolation since the emergence of such dualism is likely to generate social tensions that make the arrival of the long-run itself rather problematical. The emergence of such dualism and its persistence even for some time will alter in other words the parameters of the model itself, so that we cannot claim a happy ending in the long run.
It follows that given the historical legacy from the days of colonialism of being saddled with massive labour reserves, which they have to absorb domestically, the growth process in countries like India and China -- no matter how impressive in comparison to other countries, and no matter how effective in making them into budding "big powers" -- does not really address their social need. It is not a matter, in other words, of growth rates; it is a matter of the growth process itself, because of which even an increase in the growth rate is unlikely to address their social need.
IV
A reference was made earlier to the view that the removal of poverty demanded an increase in the productivity of the labour force. Special emphasis is laid in this perception on the upgradation of the skills of the labour force. Some holding this view would argue that it is not an overall mismatch between demand and supply of labour that afflicts economies like India and China, but rather a situation of excess demand for skilled labour co-existing with an excess supply of unskilled labour. Others, who reject the idea of excess supply of labour altogether, would argue nonetheless that if the unskilled workers are given skills, then they will be able not only to access jobs, but also to do so at much higher wages than they earn as unskilled workers. In short, given the much higher wages that skilled labour gets in the advanced capitalist countries, at the prevailing level of wages of skilled workers in countries like India and China -- which is much higher than their unskilled workers' wages -- there is (for all practical purposes) an infinitely elastic demand for skilled labour. The way to overcome poverty therefore, apart from investing in the infrastructure sector, is to invest in skill impartation, including in education. The hype about China being the future manufacturing centre of the world and India being the future office centre of the world takes off from this perception. And the government of India's emphasis on higher education in the Eleventh Five Year Plan is also based on it.
While such emphasis on education is always to be welcomed no matter what the ostensible argument underlying it, since education enriches the human being, the specific argument mentioned above lacks validity. It is based on the presumption that the wage differential between skilled labour in the advanced countries and skilled labour in countries like India will induce a continuous shift of employment from the former to the latter, that capital is nation-blind. The fact that this has not been the case in history can scarcely be denied, for otherwise the dichotomy between the developed and the underdeveloped countries in world capitalism would never have arisen. But the proponents of this view would argue that capital is much more internationally mobile today than ever before, and that this mobility has introduced a nation-blindness into its perception.
Even if this was the case, the fact remains that during the entire long period since 1973 (the precise initial year makes little difference), the rate of growth of world output has been less than the rate of growth of labour productivity in the advanced capitalist countries. In the metropolis, the rate of growth of ex ante labour productivity is equal to the rate of growth of ex post labour productivity, since the unemployed exist more or less openly as unemployed. But this is not so in the developing world where the unemployed simply swell the ranks of "informal sector workers" and do not appear openly as unemployed, which lowers the observed rate of productivity growth below its "true value", i.e. what it would have been if the unemployed had been counted as unemployed. Hence the rate of growth of ex ante labour productivity in the developing world is necessarily higher than the rate of growth of ex post labour productivity. At the same time, the rate of growth of ex ante labour productivity in the developing world is higher than in the developed world, since the former like to catch up with frontier technologies which are much more advanced than what are in vogue in their economies. It follows from these propositions that the rate of growth of ex ante world labour productivity is necessarily higher than the rate of growth of observed labour productivity in the advanced capitalist countries, and hence, taking the world as a whole, the tendency in the post-"Golden Age" period, has been towards an increase in the relative magnitude of labour reserves, even in the absence of any population, and hence work-force, growth. The fact of a positive rate of world population growth has only worsened matters, though -- unlike what is usually presumed -- it cannot be held responsible for the fact that labour reserves are not getting exhausted at the world level. A shift of employment from the advanced capitalist countries to India and China in such a context would simply mean a redistribution of the world labour reserves, away from India and China to the metropolitan centres. This would mean a weakening of the home base of metropolitan capital, which it would not be able to afford for any length of time. And even if metropolitan capital is unmindful of the social and political consequences of such weakening in its pure quest for profits, the metropolitan capitalist States will put a stop to this weakening by restricting "outsourcing".
Hence, even though some amount of "outsourcing", whether of services or of manufacturing, is occurring at present and may continue for some time, there are strict structural limits to the extent to which it can be carried forward. And if the additional factor of the recession in the U.S. and over much of the metropolitan capitalist world is taken into consideration, then these limits will be reached even sooner. It follows that the "horizontal demand curve for skilled labour" hypothesis, as an argument for the view that the using up of the labour reserves is simply a matter of imparting skills to unskilled workers, lacks validity.
V
From what has been argued until now, it would appear that the only certain way for reducing labour reserves in countries like India and China is to follow any one (or all) of the following options: to intervene in the process of income distribution so that it ceases to be market-determined; to intervene in the process of demand formation by altering preferences (by debunking the hankering after metropolitan life-styles); or to snap the link between changes in the pattern of demand and changes in the process and product mix by controlling the production structure, as was the case in both these economies earlier. Of course if the last of these is given effect, then -- since the impact of growth will be a reduction of labour reserves (as was the case in the former socialist countries) -- inequalities in income distribution will be automatically kept in check, as the basic roots of such inequalities lie in the non-exhaustion of labour reserves. Hence a control over the structure of production, a regulation of the rate of technological change -- so that this rate is not so rapid as to frustrate progress towards full employment -- appears as the proximate intervention objective. It amounts, in terms of the above model, to a deliberate State effort to hold down the value of d, for which controls are the obvious mechanism. The problem with controls, however, is too well-known for recapitulation here. But there exists another way of reducing the value of d and hence achieving the same objective, which is both more efficacious and more acceptable. To discuss this we must introduce an additional element that has been missing from our discussion till now. We have so far talked of the economic surplus as one homogeneous mass; its distribution across different social groups has not figured in our discussion. But obviously, who earns how much of the economic surplus, or, if we move away from a pure "worker-capitalist" economy to one with petty producers, the distribution of income between the surplus earners on the one hand and the petty producers on the other, also has an important bearing on the pattern of demand, and hence the pace of technological change.
In particular, one can argue that even if the real wages of workers remain tied to the subsistence level owing to the existence of labour reserves, the terms of trade between agriculture and the other sectors (assuming that the relative prices between the secondary and tertiary sectors move more or less synchronously) will have an effect on the rate of productivity growth for any given growth rate: it will tend to lower both c and d and hence increase labour absorption. For the same reason, for any given subsistence real wage and terms of trade, a given rate of growth, if it is sustained more by the contribution of peasant agriculture, will have a larger labour-absorbing impact than if it is sustained more by the contribution of the other (capitalist) sectors.
It follows then that peasant agriculture-led growth will be far more labour absorbing than either export-led growth or consumption-led growth of modern sector products. (A situation of burgeoning exports of agricultural products, it should be remembered, is not the same as peasant agriculture-led growth, since such burgeoning exports can also be squeezed out of a stagnant agriculture; and peasant agriculture-led growth is not the same as agriculture-led growth, since the latter can be on account of corporate farming whose capacity to absorb labour reserves is limited for the same reasons as that of consumption or export-led growth of modern sector products).
VI
It was argued earlier that a mere acceleration of the growth rate does not necessarily entail a reduction in the relative magnitude of labour reserves. In the light of the argument just advanced, an additional variable has to be taken into account in our analysis, and this is the distribution of incomes between the peasants and even the small agricultural capitalists and proto-capitalists on the one hand, and the surplus earners in the modern capitalist sector on the other. While an acceleration of growth of the kind that India and China have been experiencing of late is unlikely to alleviate rural poverty (which may of course migrate to urban areas and thereby cease to exist as rural poverty), a deceleration of such growth, if accompanied by an adverse shift in the terms of trade for agriculture and other allied primary sector activities, will almost certainly aggravate rural poverty. It follows that during the period of recession in the world economy, rural poverty in countries like India and China will get aggravated for two distinct reasons: first, the slowing down of the growth rate as a result of it will reduce employment growth further below what it otherwise would have been (even if "what it otherwise would have been" might still not have meant a reduction in the relative size of the labour reserves); and second, the terms of trade shift against agriculture that such a slowing down of the world economy would entail will have a similar effect.
An important result of this would be an increase in inequalities within countries like India and China. This is for the following reason. A slowing down of growth in the metropolis will have contradictory effects on the diffusion of activities to countries like India and China. On the one hand, the cut in profits of firms will make them even keener to reduce costs by outsourcing activities to India and China; on the other hand, the growth of unemployment within the metropolis will make the metropolitan States come down more heavily against such outsourcing. Some restrictions on outsourcing are likely, but only at the margin. The segment of the urban population that is a beneficiary of the current growth process is unlikely therefore to witness any significant cuts in its living standards compared to what it otherwise would have been, while the segment of the rural population that constitutes the "excluded" is likely to witness further deterioration in its living standards. A world recession therefore will compound both poverty and inequality in India and China, even though the booms they have witnessed may have been accompanied by increases in both.
VII
It may appear at first sight that the government of India's Eleventh Five Year Plan, which emphasizes a revival of agriculture, is aiming to do precisely what we have been arguing for, namely a peasant agriculture-led growth. But there are two basic differences: first, the emphasis on the part of the government is on "agriculture" and not "peasant agriculture" as such; and second, the means of stimulating a revival of peasant agriculture must include the provision of assured remunerative prices, and hence a commitment to the pursuit of appropriate exchange rate, trade and tariff policies which the government does not envisage; it talks instead of raising "productivity" to make agriculture "competitive". But if the rise in "productivity" is supposed to mean labour productivity, then the labour absorbing capacity of agriculture will go down; and if productivity is supposed to mean land productivity, then while the labour absorbing capacity may not go down, adequate incentives have to be provided for the introduction of land-saving methods, for which again a prior provision of assured remunerative prices constitutes a necessary incentive. Putting it differently, a strategy of peasant agriculture-led growth cannot be pursued within the context of a neo-liberal economy which allows freedom of financial flows (making any meaningful exchange rate policy elusive), which restricts the freedom to levy tariffs (though in India's case the actual tariffs on agricultural goods have often been below the tariff bounds), and which prioritizes the withdrawal of the State from market intervention.
To talk of "peasant agriculture-led growth" does not preclude egalitarian land reforms; on the contrary, precisely because a growth process based on a more egalitarian distribution of assets and incomes has a greater labour absorptive capacity than one based on inequalities, egalitarian land reforms must constitute a necessary accompaniment of peasant agriculture-led growth. Likewise, peasant agriculture-led growth does not preclude the formation of peasant co-operatives and collectives, including in the sphere of farming, as the basis for agricultural growth. In other words, peasant agriculture in this context does not necessarily mean individual petty production; it means agriculture based on a non-separation of the peasants from land, i.e. agriculture from which the peasantry is not expropriated (even if the impact of such expropriation is "softened" through the payment of some compensation or some price for their land). Since the labour absorptive capacity of any growth trajectory that entails such separation of peasants from land is likely to be low, such separation is likely only to end up swelling the relative size of the labour reserves.
The argument of this paper, in critique of the current growth process being experienced in India and China, may appear to some as similar to that put forward by Bukharin during the Soviet industrialization debate. While in some respects -- e.g. the need for industrialization and, more generally, economic diversification in large "labour-surplus" economies like India and China, to be based on a home market provided by expanding non-corporate agriculture -- there is a similarity between the two positions, the need for such agricultural expansion to be spearheaded by a burgeoning "kulak" class is not a part of what is being argued here. The evolution of the balance of class forces in the countryside and its implications for development, and hence conversely how a development strategy focused on the elimination of poverty should deal with it, is a separate matter that is not discussed in this paper. Its concern has only been to re-emphasize the need, in the context of economies like India and China, for a growth strategy stimulated by an expansion of agriculture, which, in turn, is based on a non-expropriation of the peasantry from land.
Friday, July 3, 2009
Dr Mahathir has dismissed the efforts of Najib to liberalise the economy
Dr Mahathir: Plan to open up economy won’t help
Dr Mahathir has dismissed the efforts of Najib to liberalise the economy.
KUALA LUMPUR, July 4 — Former premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has dismissed the efforts of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to liberalise the economy, saying they were “not going to help anybody”.
The plan seemed designed to make Najib popular, said Dr Mahathir, adding: “It will not help the Chinese, Malays or Indians.”
Dr Mahathir was asked to comment on Najib's steps to open up the economy to make it more attractive for foreign investors.
The steps included relaxing a host of restrictions on foreign investment, including a rule requiring businesses to be partly owned by Malays.
Listed companies will no longer be required to allocate 30 per cent of their stake to Malays as part of an affirmative action programme for the country's Malays.
Among other measures were allowing stock brokers and unit trust management companies 70 per cent foreign ownership, up from the current level of 49 per cent.
Najib also announced a government private equity fund to invest in high-growth industries and promote Bumiputera ownership of Malaysian businesses.
Najib said the Bumiputera rule for companies was neither benefiting poor Malays nor sustainable amid the global economic slowdown, which would force Malaysia into its first recession in a decade.
But Dr Mahathir was not impressed.
“I think it's a kind of move more designed towards becoming popular. I don't know if it will help the economy, because Malaysia has been growing since independence,” The Star newspaper on its website quoted Dr Mahathir as saying.
“Now that there is a lack of growth, this is due more to external reasons. It's not about internal things,” he told reporters.
He also said Malaysia should be cautious of foreign investors keen on total ownership of fund management companies as they “owed no loyalty to the country”.
“They are here to make money. When they can't make money, they go out and we pay the price,” he was quoted as saying.
He asserted the potential hazard of capital flight should investors no longer find the Malaysian market lucrative saying: “In some instances, they come to build factories and produce things for export. Well, that's fine. But when they can openly go into the market, well, that's not good,” he said. — Straits Times
Dr Mahathir has dismissed the efforts of Najib to liberalise the economy.
KUALA LUMPUR, July 4 — Former premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has dismissed the efforts of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to liberalise the economy, saying they were “not going to help anybody”.
The plan seemed designed to make Najib popular, said Dr Mahathir, adding: “It will not help the Chinese, Malays or Indians.”
Dr Mahathir was asked to comment on Najib's steps to open up the economy to make it more attractive for foreign investors.
The steps included relaxing a host of restrictions on foreign investment, including a rule requiring businesses to be partly owned by Malays.
Listed companies will no longer be required to allocate 30 per cent of their stake to Malays as part of an affirmative action programme for the country's Malays.
Among other measures were allowing stock brokers and unit trust management companies 70 per cent foreign ownership, up from the current level of 49 per cent.
Najib also announced a government private equity fund to invest in high-growth industries and promote Bumiputera ownership of Malaysian businesses.
Najib said the Bumiputera rule for companies was neither benefiting poor Malays nor sustainable amid the global economic slowdown, which would force Malaysia into its first recession in a decade.
But Dr Mahathir was not impressed.
“I think it's a kind of move more designed towards becoming popular. I don't know if it will help the economy, because Malaysia has been growing since independence,” The Star newspaper on its website quoted Dr Mahathir as saying.
“Now that there is a lack of growth, this is due more to external reasons. It's not about internal things,” he told reporters.
He also said Malaysia should be cautious of foreign investors keen on total ownership of fund management companies as they “owed no loyalty to the country”.
“They are here to make money. When they can't make money, they go out and we pay the price,” he was quoted as saying.
He asserted the potential hazard of capital flight should investors no longer find the Malaysian market lucrative saying: “In some instances, they come to build factories and produce things for export. Well, that's fine. But when they can openly go into the market, well, that's not good,” he said. — Straits Times
A(H1N1) in Sarawak! and I was one of the suspects....
A(H1N1) in Sarawak! By Irene C
First swine flu case confirmed in student home after sitting for exam in Melbourne, Australia
KUCHING: Sarawak yesterday recorded its first confirmed case of influenza A(H1N1) in a 23-year-old university student.
The local male student, who tested positive for the virus yesterday afternoon, had arrived here on Friday after sitting for an examination in Melbourne, Australia.
He was admitted at the Sarawak General Hospital’s isolation ward on Sunday after complaining of fever and cough. Four of his family members have also been quarantined.
In confirming the case yesterday, State Disaster Relief Committee chairman Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Dr George Chan advised all those onboard the same aircraft as the student to impose self-quarantine and contact the Health Department as soon as possible.
“If you’re in the Melbourne-KL flight or the connecting flight from KL to Kuching on Friday, impose self-quarantine and contact the Health Department quickly,” Dr Chan said.
The student reached Kuala Lumpur at 6.15am from Melbourne onboard aircraft MH 128 and his connecting flight here, MH2504, arrived at 10.15am. He was seated at 30J onboard MH128 and at 11H on MH2504.
Environment and Public Health Minister Dato Sri Wong Soon Koh, meanwhile, said the student’s condition was stable.
He said the health authorities were tracking down persons who have come into contact with the student since he returned from Australia and they were likely to be quarantined.
“It’s unfortunate that Sarawak has fallen to the virus too. We were safe when many states had already had cases,” said Wong.
Wong also revealed that at noon yesterday, a young man who was returning to Kuching from Australia via Singapore was admitted at the Influenza A(H1N1) isolation ward at SGH after he was found to have high temperature at the Kuching International Airport .
However, he said results of the tests on the young man would only be known today.
Having said that, Wong emphasised that it was now very important for people to be vigilant, practise high level of hygiene and be self disciplined.
“If you have symptoms of flu, you should immediately isolate yourself and seek medical treatment so that you do not pass the virus to other people. Self quarantine should be done,” he said.
On a related development, he said he had read of complaints in the newspaper about the “unsightly barricade” around the isolation ward at SGH. He said the barricade was necessary.
He explained that although the hospital had put up huge signs warning people to stay clear of the isolation ward, it was largely ignored.
“The barricades, though unsightly, serves a practical purpose,” said Wong.
The first suspected case for the virus here was on May 4, where a 31-year-old man who was in the United States of America the previous week was admitted into the isolation ward specially set up for the A(H1N1) virus at the SGH.
The man was admitted after complaining of sore throat, cough and shortness of breath. He was tested negative and since then there have been several others who were admitted but were also clear of the virus.
As of Sunday, there were seven new cases reported, bringing the total number of cases to 49 in the country, said Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai.
According to Liow, one of the cases involved a Year Five pupil of SRJK (C) Jalan Davidson who was a classmate of an 11-year-old girl who had tested positive after returning from holiday with her family in Melbourne.
This showed that the school has two confirmed cases, he said.
Liow said that of the seven, six were ‘imported’ cases involving two from Melbourne, two from United States, one each from Toronto and Thailand.
Search for 132 on flight MH2504 By Irene C
24TH JUNE 2009 WEDNESDAY
A(H1N1) positive passenger on KL-Kuching route prompts frantic search for rest of passengers
KUCHING: The Sarawak Health Department is anxious to locate all the 132 passengers on board flight MH2504 from Kuala Lumpur to Kuching on June 19, in which one of the passengers was confirmed to have Influenza A(H1N1).
“On top of the list are 13 of 28 passengers who sat three rows in front and three rows behind the victim, based on recommendation from the World Health Organisation for immediate home isolation,” said Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Dr George Chan at a press conference in his office yesterday.
He added: “We have been trying to trace 28 passengers who were on the same flight and as of today (yesterday), we have traced 15 of them.”
According to him, of the 15 who have been traced, four are from Kuching, two from Kuala Lumpur, seven from Selangor and one each from Kedah and Pahang. Except for those from Kuching, the other 11 have gone back to their places of origin.
He added that there were also 11 crew members on flight MH2504, and all efforts are being made to trace all the 132 passengers.
Towards this end, Dr Chan advised those passengers on board the flight to call the operations room at 082-248316 immediately.
They need to be self-quarantined and to inform the Health Department immediately, he said.
The first Sarawak case is a 23-year-old local male student who came back for the holidays from his university in Melbourne, Australia and not from a local university here as reported yesterday.
He arrived in Kuala Lumpur at 6.15am on June 19 onboard MH 128 and Kuching on his connecting flight MH2504 at 10.15am. He was seated at 11H on MH 2504, according to Dr Chan.
“On June 21, he sought medical treatment at Sarawak General Hospital’s Emergency and Accident Department at 10am and was admitted to the isolation ward at noon.”
He added that the student’s parents, brother and a friend were quarantined at home on the same day.
Dr Chan, who is also the State Disaster Relief Committee chairman, said that for those who have since returned to their hometowns, the respective states have been notified of the name list of those who were on the same flight.
The four passengers from Kuching who have been traced are being home quarantined and should they develop fever, will be put straight into the isolation ward.
When asked on the student’s condition, Dr Chan said that he was recovering.
“We are also questioning him on the persons he had come into contact with during the three days.”
On the treatment used for the virus, Dr Chan said the patient was given flu tablets and supplements to boost his resistance.
“We are also asking those who have been contacted to follow our advice. All precautions have been taken and we are trying to stop local spread of the virus. We are in control, not the virus,” he said.
“We need the cooperation of everyone and if you have any information, please do your social duty and contact us. If you are not careful, you might spread it to your own families and loved ones.”
He also told the media members present that 473,019 people had filled forms and underwent temperature tests at various entry points in the state since May. Of the number, 61,404 were flight crew members and 411,615 were airline passengers.
When asked to shed light on rumours that some schools in the state were closed due to the virus, Dr Chan said it was not true, adding that contrary to some reports, the victim is not studying in Swinburne Sarawak.
Meanwhile, Sarawak Health Department director Dr Mohd Kamil Hassan said the SGH isolation ward presently has four beds but can be increased to 36 beds if the need arise.
“We have designated the staff to take care of the patients. We also have protective equipment like masks. If the situation worsens, we will open up another isolation ward at Hospital Sentosa in Mile 7,” said Dr Kamil.
Thursday, June 25th, 2009
Second A (H1N1) case in Sarawak By Puvaneswary Devindran
Australian woman, 26, admitted to SGH isolation ward on June 22 tests positive
KUCHING: Sarawak confirmed its second case of Influenza A (H1N1) yesterday, and the patient is a 26-year-old Australian woman.
The woman was admitted to the Sarawak General Hospital (SGH) isolation ward on June 22 and tested positive yesterday.
It is learnt from a report faxed from the state Health Department to Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Dr George Chan’s office yesterday the patient was screened at Kuching International Airport and was detected to have fever an d cough before she was admitted to SGH.
She had travelled from Darwin, Australia to Singapore on flight JQ61 on June 20 before arriving here on JetStar flight 3K529 on June 22.
She was seated on seat number 7C on JQ61 and 5C on 3K529.
The department said there were 26 other passengers on board the flight and as of now, 18 passengers had been contacted and quarantined at home.
Thirteen of them are here, two in Miri while the other three are in Singapore.
The rest are still in the process of being contacted.
So far, the patient is said to be in a stable condition with no shortness of breath and having no sign of pneumonia.
Dr Chan, who is State Disaster Relief Committee chairman, confirmed the case after a telephone call to the state director of Health director Dr Mohd Kamil Hassan.
The state recorded its first case of Influenza A (H1N1) in a 23-year-old local male university student on June 22 after he came back from Melbourne, Australia for a break.
He was admitted to the SGH isolation ward on Sunday after complaining of fever and cough while three of his family members and a friend were quarantined.
Dr Chan, meanwhile, said the male student was doing fine and as of Tuesday, the Health Department had managed to locate 15 others who were on the same flight with the student and was confident that the department would have tracked down more yesterday.
He also said for now, the state had yet to receive any directive from the federal government to have students coming from countries such as the Philippines, United States of America, United Kingdom and Australia, to be self-quarantined for seven days.
“We are keeping our fingers crossed on this, and what we are afraid of most is the virus being spread locally.
“Once you get a local spread, then we will get into trouble,” he said.
He was asked to comment on news reports which quoted director-general of Health Tan Sri Dr Mohd Ismail Merican advising students from several countries to undergo self-quarantine for seven days and keep away from school.
Environment and Public Health Minister Dato Sri Wong Soon Koh called on the people to cooperate with the health authorities and be self-disciplined.
“If you are asked to be quarantined, please do so for your own good and for the sake of others as well,” he said.
He said the authorities for now could only persuade those who came in contact with the confirmed cases.
He said they could not bring the police into the matter unless the quarantine was taking place in the hospital, which would not be possible.
First swine flu case confirmed in student home after sitting for exam in Melbourne, Australia
KUCHING: Sarawak yesterday recorded its first confirmed case of influenza A(H1N1) in a 23-year-old university student.
The local male student, who tested positive for the virus yesterday afternoon, had arrived here on Friday after sitting for an examination in Melbourne, Australia.
He was admitted at the Sarawak General Hospital’s isolation ward on Sunday after complaining of fever and cough. Four of his family members have also been quarantined.
In confirming the case yesterday, State Disaster Relief Committee chairman Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Dr George Chan advised all those onboard the same aircraft as the student to impose self-quarantine and contact the Health Department as soon as possible.
“If you’re in the Melbourne-KL flight or the connecting flight from KL to Kuching on Friday, impose self-quarantine and contact the Health Department quickly,” Dr Chan said.
The student reached Kuala Lumpur at 6.15am from Melbourne onboard aircraft MH 128 and his connecting flight here, MH2504, arrived at 10.15am. He was seated at 30J onboard MH128 and at 11H on MH2504.
Environment and Public Health Minister Dato Sri Wong Soon Koh, meanwhile, said the student’s condition was stable.
He said the health authorities were tracking down persons who have come into contact with the student since he returned from Australia and they were likely to be quarantined.
“It’s unfortunate that Sarawak has fallen to the virus too. We were safe when many states had already had cases,” said Wong.
Wong also revealed that at noon yesterday, a young man who was returning to Kuching from Australia via Singapore was admitted at the Influenza A(H1N1) isolation ward at SGH after he was found to have high temperature at the Kuching International Airport .
However, he said results of the tests on the young man would only be known today.
Having said that, Wong emphasised that it was now very important for people to be vigilant, practise high level of hygiene and be self disciplined.
“If you have symptoms of flu, you should immediately isolate yourself and seek medical treatment so that you do not pass the virus to other people. Self quarantine should be done,” he said.
On a related development, he said he had read of complaints in the newspaper about the “unsightly barricade” around the isolation ward at SGH. He said the barricade was necessary.
He explained that although the hospital had put up huge signs warning people to stay clear of the isolation ward, it was largely ignored.
“The barricades, though unsightly, serves a practical purpose,” said Wong.
The first suspected case for the virus here was on May 4, where a 31-year-old man who was in the United States of America the previous week was admitted into the isolation ward specially set up for the A(H1N1) virus at the SGH.
The man was admitted after complaining of sore throat, cough and shortness of breath. He was tested negative and since then there have been several others who were admitted but were also clear of the virus.
As of Sunday, there were seven new cases reported, bringing the total number of cases to 49 in the country, said Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai.
According to Liow, one of the cases involved a Year Five pupil of SRJK (C) Jalan Davidson who was a classmate of an 11-year-old girl who had tested positive after returning from holiday with her family in Melbourne.
This showed that the school has two confirmed cases, he said.
Liow said that of the seven, six were ‘imported’ cases involving two from Melbourne, two from United States, one each from Toronto and Thailand.
Search for 132 on flight MH2504 By Irene C
24TH JUNE 2009 WEDNESDAY
A(H1N1) positive passenger on KL-Kuching route prompts frantic search for rest of passengers
KUCHING: The Sarawak Health Department is anxious to locate all the 132 passengers on board flight MH2504 from Kuala Lumpur to Kuching on June 19, in which one of the passengers was confirmed to have Influenza A(H1N1).
“On top of the list are 13 of 28 passengers who sat three rows in front and three rows behind the victim, based on recommendation from the World Health Organisation for immediate home isolation,” said Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Dr George Chan at a press conference in his office yesterday.
He added: “We have been trying to trace 28 passengers who were on the same flight and as of today (yesterday), we have traced 15 of them.”
According to him, of the 15 who have been traced, four are from Kuching, two from Kuala Lumpur, seven from Selangor and one each from Kedah and Pahang. Except for those from Kuching, the other 11 have gone back to their places of origin.
He added that there were also 11 crew members on flight MH2504, and all efforts are being made to trace all the 132 passengers.
Towards this end, Dr Chan advised those passengers on board the flight to call the operations room at 082-248316 immediately.
They need to be self-quarantined and to inform the Health Department immediately, he said.
The first Sarawak case is a 23-year-old local male student who came back for the holidays from his university in Melbourne, Australia and not from a local university here as reported yesterday.
He arrived in Kuala Lumpur at 6.15am on June 19 onboard MH 128 and Kuching on his connecting flight MH2504 at 10.15am. He was seated at 11H on MH 2504, according to Dr Chan.
“On June 21, he sought medical treatment at Sarawak General Hospital’s Emergency and Accident Department at 10am and was admitted to the isolation ward at noon.”
He added that the student’s parents, brother and a friend were quarantined at home on the same day.
Dr Chan, who is also the State Disaster Relief Committee chairman, said that for those who have since returned to their hometowns, the respective states have been notified of the name list of those who were on the same flight.
The four passengers from Kuching who have been traced are being home quarantined and should they develop fever, will be put straight into the isolation ward.
When asked on the student’s condition, Dr Chan said that he was recovering.
“We are also questioning him on the persons he had come into contact with during the three days.”
On the treatment used for the virus, Dr Chan said the patient was given flu tablets and supplements to boost his resistance.
“We are also asking those who have been contacted to follow our advice. All precautions have been taken and we are trying to stop local spread of the virus. We are in control, not the virus,” he said.
“We need the cooperation of everyone and if you have any information, please do your social duty and contact us. If you are not careful, you might spread it to your own families and loved ones.”
He also told the media members present that 473,019 people had filled forms and underwent temperature tests at various entry points in the state since May. Of the number, 61,404 were flight crew members and 411,615 were airline passengers.
When asked to shed light on rumours that some schools in the state were closed due to the virus, Dr Chan said it was not true, adding that contrary to some reports, the victim is not studying in Swinburne Sarawak.
Meanwhile, Sarawak Health Department director Dr Mohd Kamil Hassan said the SGH isolation ward presently has four beds but can be increased to 36 beds if the need arise.
“We have designated the staff to take care of the patients. We also have protective equipment like masks. If the situation worsens, we will open up another isolation ward at Hospital Sentosa in Mile 7,” said Dr Kamil.
Thursday, June 25th, 2009
Second A (H1N1) case in Sarawak By Puvaneswary Devindran
Australian woman, 26, admitted to SGH isolation ward on June 22 tests positive
KUCHING: Sarawak confirmed its second case of Influenza A (H1N1) yesterday, and the patient is a 26-year-old Australian woman.
The woman was admitted to the Sarawak General Hospital (SGH) isolation ward on June 22 and tested positive yesterday.
It is learnt from a report faxed from the state Health Department to Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri Dr George Chan’s office yesterday the patient was screened at Kuching International Airport and was detected to have fever an d cough before she was admitted to SGH.
She had travelled from Darwin, Australia to Singapore on flight JQ61 on June 20 before arriving here on JetStar flight 3K529 on June 22.
She was seated on seat number 7C on JQ61 and 5C on 3K529.
The department said there were 26 other passengers on board the flight and as of now, 18 passengers had been contacted and quarantined at home.
Thirteen of them are here, two in Miri while the other three are in Singapore.
The rest are still in the process of being contacted.
So far, the patient is said to be in a stable condition with no shortness of breath and having no sign of pneumonia.
Dr Chan, who is State Disaster Relief Committee chairman, confirmed the case after a telephone call to the state director of Health director Dr Mohd Kamil Hassan.
The state recorded its first case of Influenza A (H1N1) in a 23-year-old local male university student on June 22 after he came back from Melbourne, Australia for a break.
He was admitted to the SGH isolation ward on Sunday after complaining of fever and cough while three of his family members and a friend were quarantined.
Dr Chan, meanwhile, said the male student was doing fine and as of Tuesday, the Health Department had managed to locate 15 others who were on the same flight with the student and was confident that the department would have tracked down more yesterday.
He also said for now, the state had yet to receive any directive from the federal government to have students coming from countries such as the Philippines, United States of America, United Kingdom and Australia, to be self-quarantined for seven days.
“We are keeping our fingers crossed on this, and what we are afraid of most is the virus being spread locally.
“Once you get a local spread, then we will get into trouble,” he said.
He was asked to comment on news reports which quoted director-general of Health Tan Sri Dr Mohd Ismail Merican advising students from several countries to undergo self-quarantine for seven days and keep away from school.
Environment and Public Health Minister Dato Sri Wong Soon Koh called on the people to cooperate with the health authorities and be self-disciplined.
“If you are asked to be quarantined, please do so for your own good and for the sake of others as well,” he said.
He said the authorities for now could only persuade those who came in contact with the confirmed cases.
He said they could not bring the police into the matter unless the quarantine was taking place in the hospital, which would not be possible.
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