DESIGNING A COURSE ON CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS

Information is shoved at us daily from every direction, unceasingly. From the popular media, from the incessant messages that are pumped into our phones every minute, or more seriously, from the information that comes in the form of laws and policies that bind and restrict us. To submit to the barrage of information without critically examining it is a sure way to surrender our freedom. Critical thinking skills have become survival skills in the face of the information onslaught.

Critical thinking skills will help us maintain our freedoms, which is sufficient reason to acquire those skills. But it will do more. It will help us to deal with information more effectively and to innovate and create new ideas from the knowledge we extract from the information. Critical thinking will help us become more effective learners who can build on the large amount of knowledge that is being unleashed by the information.

Critical thinking is important not only in educational or professional contexts but as a living skill. It is an indispensable skill to understand and analyze information and make important decisions in our lives. Never in our history have we encountered information as today. Information technology will multiply the amount exponentially every few days. Much of that information is not abstract or detached from our daily lives. It affects the decisions and the choices we make.

In designing this course, we have taken into consideration the cultural traditions in this country that tend not to support critical thinking and regard a critical approach as being rude or disobedient. Our education system has contributed to this by encouraging rote learning and rewarding the regurgitation of information without critical analysis. Unfortunately, even in higher education, there is very little encouragement to critically analyze what is being taught. Only in a few institutions or programs is critical thinking taught as an independent subject or as part of the syllabus of any subject.

School teachers we have spoken to tend to think that critical thinking is a difficult skill to teach. Many of them believe that students are not ready to absorb such skills and must be content with obtaining knowledge that is found in the textbooks and formalized through syllabuses. Many have also alluded to the fact that critical thinking can only be taught after the learner has had a sufficient command of the knowledge and It is the role of teachers to equip students with the knowledge. What also emerged from our discussions is a reluctance amongst teachers, brought upon by fear of official retribution, to introduce any form of critical approach to education. Control and conformity and rigid adherence to the status quo seem to be the unalterable canons of education. Critical and creative thinking are aspirations stated in the Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025. A new curriculum has been proposed that will add these elements to the education meted out in schools. To make that happen, there has to be a reorientation of the attitudes of not only the teachers but the whole bureaucracy of education and of those in government, making policies on education. One thing that must cease is the punishment of individuals for artistic and literary expression. We have become a society with increasingly thin skin. Criticism has been criminalized.

Our institutions of higher education are no better. They are highly regulated, and contrary to the official rhetoric, the education provided in universities and colleges is not student-centered. Rigid adherence to outdated prescribed syllabuses does not cater to student needs. Dissemination of book-based knowledge is the main objective of higher education. As in primary and secondary education, tertiary teachers also believe that students are not ready to engage in any critical examination until they are sufficiently apprised of the knowledge that is imparted at the different levels of higher education. The containment of education in the classrooms is reinforced by laws that restrict the academic freedom of the professoriate. We cite only one set of such laws – the laws regulating university staff discipline that prohibit any form of criticism of the government or its policies and the university and its policies.

This course is driven by the belief that a disposition to critical thinking will benefit both the individual so disposed and the nation ultimately. A disposition to examine everything critically will increase creativity and productivity, whether individually, in groups, or in the workplace.

 Course Outline

1.       What is meant by critical thinking?

2.       Why teach/learn critical thinking?

3.       Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognitive Skills.

4.       The origins of critical thinking – in philosophy, in psychology, in education.

5.       Example of how knowledge developed through critical thinking.

6.       Dispositions, attributes, and behaviour that support critical thinking.

7.       Critical thinking tools

8.       Knowledge

9.       How emotions affect thinking

10.   Imagination as the mental projection of possibilities which transcend time and space and offer what could be rather than what is.

Are Private Universities and Colleges Really Private?

 Abbreviations used in this article

Act 555 - Private Higher Educational Institutions Act 1996

EA – Education Act 1996

PHEI - private higher educational institution

UUCA - Universities and University Colleges Act 1971 (Act 30)

 

The Question

Are private universities and colleges established under Act 555 private, in the sense that they are not government institutions? Or are they hybrid institutions, established and funded by private companies but controlled and managed by the government through the office of the Registrar General of Private Higher Educational Institutions? These are not idle questions but arise from provisions of the Act that deal with the management of private higher educational institutions (PHEIs). The  answers to the questions may have far-reaching implications on who bears the responsibility for breaches of duty and other failures by the institution.

Act 555

The Act enables the establishment of a higher education institution by almost anyone, so long as the application to establish is made by a registered company, local or foreign, and in accordance with the establishment procedures laid down in the Act. The Act defines PHEIs to include all levels and types of higher education institutions, from colleges to universities, irrespective of size and regardless of their mode of delivery, whether by traditional face-to-face methods, online, or by distance education and includes universities established in this country as branches of foreign universities. The single definition also embraces within its scope, professional bodies that offer courses leading to membership in those bodies. The Private Higher Educational Institutions (Amendment) Act 2017 added two new definitions to the Act. A foreign branch campus is now defined as a branch of a foreign university or university college. College, which was a term that was not defined before the passing of the Amendment Act, is now defined as a PHEI without the status of a university, university college, or foreign branch campus.

When passed in 1996, the Act made ground-breaking changes to the way higher education has since developed in this country. Its most important contribution to that development is the establishment of a framework for private higher education institutions that had the immediate effect of legitimising an already vibrant private sector that had existed for many decades without any roots in any enabling laws.

The Company and the PHEI it establishes

Institutions established under the Act are private because they are defined, inter alia, ‘as not established or maintained by the government’. The definition, does not, however, stipulate where control and governance of these institutions lie. A reasonable assumption would be that the PHEI is managed and controlled by the company that established the institution. But such an assumption is not supported by the provisions of the Act. Instead, many provisions of the Act treat the PHEI as if it is a legal entity capable of acting on its own with powers of its own and without the agency of the company. Every imposition in the Act that in any way concerns the delivery of educational programmes is directed at the PHEI and not the company. It is doubtful whether these provisions as currently worded can be enforced against the company which is the legal entity carrying out the business of higher education. The statutory impositions on a PHEI must be imposed on the company that established the PHEI and not on the PHEI which does not have the capacity to do anything in law. The error in the Act probably arises because of the assumption that a PHEI is like a university established under the UUCA, which is an incorporated body.

The attempt to correct the anomaly

The Amendment Act 2017, attempted to correct the anomaly by introducing a new section 75A, which provides that ‘Where the Act requires a private higher educational institution to do or prohibits it from doing something, the obligation to comply is imposed on the company . . .’ This is at best only a limited solution as it still treats the company and the PHEI as two separate entities. It is also unlikely that the section will be enforceable because a PHEI, not being a legal entity, cannot be required or prohibited from doing anything. Hence, the company establishing the PHEI cannot be made liable to do something which cannot be done.

The Chief Executive

Section 31 of the Act requires every PHEI to have a chief executive appointed by the company. Section 33 provides that the chief executive is to exercise general supervision over arrangements for instruction, day-to-day administration, and the welfare and discipline in the PHEI.  Under s. 46 of the Act, the chief executive is also the disciplinary authority over student discipline. In all these matters concerning the powers/duties of the chief executive, the Act makes no reference to the company or its rights or obligations over those same powers that the chief executive is empowered to exercise.

An ordinary interpretation of the sections referred to will make the chief executive the sole governor and administrator of the PHEI. Section 46 confers on the Chief Executive the right to delegate his disciplinary authority, but he is not given any delegatory powers in respect of his other duties/powers. The prescribed constitutions allow for the board of directors of the company to be included in the management, but notwithstanding that, the statutory powers of the chief executive are not ousted by those provisions. There is also nothing in the Act to make the Chief Executive answerable to the board of directors of the company nor is there any provision that gives the board powers over the chief executive. When the chief executive is in a quandary as to who to obey, he will have no choice but to comply with the statute.

The PHEI as a separate entity

We earlier remarked on the position of the company as the animating legal entity, but the Act is ambivalent on that point treating the company and the PHEI as separate entities. The sections in the Act that treats the PHEI as separate from the company might also support a conclusion that in law that it is the Minister, Ministry, and the Registrar General who are responsible for the proper management of the PHEI.

Minister’s and Registrar General’s powers over the chief executive

Such a conclusion is strengthened by the provisions of section 5 of the Act. The section states that (the) Minister may, from time to time, give a board of directors, a chief executive, or an employee of a PHEI directions, not inconsistent with the provisions of this Act, in relation to matters in respect of which regulations may be made under this Act, and such board of directors, chief executive or employee shall give effect to every such direction. 

To add to the confusion and the unenviable position of the chief executive, s. 37 of Act 555, gives the Registrar General wide powers over the chief executive which include, giving the chief executive directions in writing as to the exercise of the latter’s powers and the discharge of his duty.

Registrar General’s Responsibilities over PHEIs

Part VI of the Act, and the sections dealing with the chief executive specifically, suggest that the Registrar General is duty-bound to monitor the conduct of the chief executive and give him the appropriate directions. Read together, these provisions appear to impose on the Registrar General not only the power of overseeing the management of PHEIs but also a duty to ensure its proper management. Any failure in that duty may therefore impose on the Registrar General liability for any loss suffered by the shareholders.

Act 555 in an attempt to maintain control PHEIs, may have imposed unintended liability on the Registrar General and the Ministry for the failures of the chief executive and the company establishing the PHEI.

There is an urgent need to reevaluate Act 555 as it now stands.