Education

Admitting Humanity’s Exploitative Ties with Nature: Penang’s Pursuit of Sustainable Development

By Ooi Kee Beng, in HESB (Higher Education in Southeast Asia and Beyond) March 2020 ISSUE #07: pp.13-15 Globalisation’s Historical Consequence The atypical ambition to make human development sustainable would not have come about in our time, if not for the pervasive sense we all feel that human insatiability has gone too far. Human interference—or … Continue reading →

Are digital disruptions laying the foundations for holistic education in the 21st century?

By Ooi Kee Beng, for The Edge Malaysia, 30 December 2019 With disruptions in major industries changing the structure of daily economic life, all of us should sense very clearly by now that the education industry — if you will allow me to call it an industry — is a ripe fruit that is about … Continue reading →

The Khat Controversy in Malaysia — A Dicey Storm in a Massive Teacup

Education in Southeast Asia: Disruptions are Happily at Hand

By Ooi Kee Beng Keynote speech given at the First ASEAN-Australia Education Dialogye, held at Hotel Equatorial, Penang, on 21-23 March 2018 Let me immediately say how honoured I am to be given this opportunity to state in 20 minutes some of the points about Southeast Asia’s development that I have been wanting to make … Continue reading →

One Thing is Certain—There will be More Amendments to the Constitution

By Ooi Kee Beng, Editorial, Penang Monthly, August 2017 As with all agreements, consensus and contracts, a Constitution is a hunt for a balance – and a dynamic one at that, between the expressing on one hand of lofty national aspirations and ambitions, and on the other of compromises meant to be more binding than … Continue reading →

The Parochial and the Global are Intertwined

By OOI KEE BENG For The Edge, Forum July 24, 2017 In the time of Brexit and the tenure of Trump; with the triumph of Putin and the threat of Kim, instead of thinking about how Globalisation is being reversed, we should take a longer perspective and think about how the global battle in modern … Continue reading →

The Primacy of Political Economy in Asia

By Ooi Kee Beng, Editorial, Penang Monthly, July 2017 It’s a complicated subject, this thing we call Economics. I don’t always know what it means. I remember once talking to Robert Kuok about it. His reply was (and I paraphrase from my vague memory of that conversation): “Economics is simply about living, isn’t it? As … Continue reading →

Does the National Economy Exist?

By Ooi Kee Beng for The Edge Malaysia, 31 July 2016. The income gap, technically defined, is quite an easy concept to comprehend. One can compare Gross Domestic Product per capita or per household within a given country; and collectively, one can use the Italian sociologist Corrado Gini’s measure of statistical dispersion developed in 1912 … Continue reading →

School is Dead, Long Live Education

By Ooi Kee Beng For THE EDGE, Malaysia (29 October 2012) Under the rubric of Nation-building, countries throughout modern times have been struggling to construct institutions that can safeguard national independence, bring economic growth, and create a harmonious society. Thus, small and new countries like Malaysia have been frantically trying to put their house into … Continue reading →