By: Dr. Zakri Abdul Hamid

PM Najib Tun Razak launched New Economic Model

On March 30, 2010, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak announced the New Economic Model (NEM) with the objective of doubling the current per capita income of approximately US$7,000 to US$15,000 by 2020. The NEM is a package comprising of the 1Malaysia concept, the Economic Transformation Programme, the Government Transformation Programme and the 10th Malaysia Plan (10MP).

However, to be sustainable in the long run, the NEM initiatives need underpinning by a strong set of fundamentals embedded in knowledge — a solid mastery in science and technology, a penchant for innovation and a culture of doing well in Science and Mathematics among our pupils from an early age.

Progress lagging behind intentions

Despite our professed good intentions, the reality on the ground over the past few years has not been encouraging. Science is not a preferred discipline in our universities, one consequence of which is a low number of researchers, scientists and engineers in our country — 17.9 per 10,000 workers when the optimum number for a technologically advanced economy is four or five times as many.

Apart from not producing enough PhDs in the Natural Sciences, it doesn’t help that a significant number of Malaysians choose not to return home to work and serve their country upon graduation.

According to World Bank indicators, our output of scientific and technical articles in peer-reviewed journals — a key performance indicator of scientific advancement — remains low compared with those in the developed world or developing country giants such as Brazil, China or India.

Our national expenditure on R&D, less than one per cent of our gross domestic product, is also inadequate compared with technologically advanced countries, which typically spend between 2.5 and 3.3 per cent.

There is also big scope for our primary and secondary school students to improve in international Mathematics and Science, as assessed periodically by the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study.

New initiatives provide hope for the future

Dr. Zakri Abdul Hamid, Science Advisor to the Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak

Nevertheless, several recent developments give hope for optimism. For the 10MP, some RM700 million has been allocated to the Higher Education Ministry for fundamental research while the Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry remains the pivotal point of reference for all things science in this country, setting national priorities and directions.

Establishment of the National Science and Research Council (NSRC), meanwhile, is also expected to help reinvigorate the role of science in our development. The NSRC is already at work in several areas such as overseeing the formulation of a National Science Act, a National Science and Technology Policy, reviewing the roles and functions of the numerous Malaysian public research institutes and the role of the private sector in R&D.

The NSRC will work closely with another newly established entity, the Malaysian Innovation Agency, a special unit on innovation located in the prime minister’s office to promote and eventually commercialise research findings.

To ensure that any programme or project we undertake remains sustainable and empowers the people, another new entity, the Talent Corporation, is expected to provide the way forward in developing, retaining and attracting highly skilled young talents to contribute to our national economic development.

Malaysia’s Sputnik moment

The political will embodied in the NEM and the initiatives outlined above constitute the building blocks of Malaysia’s own Sputnik moment.

In his State of the Union address on Jan 25 this year, United States President Barack Obama evoked Cold War memories when he called recognition of challenges posed by the East’s ascendant economic powerhouses a new “Sputnik moment” for America.

The original Sputnik moment was the Oct 4, 1957 announcement that the Soviet Union had launched Sputnik 1, the first man-made object ever sent into space. This created a space race between the United States and the Soviet Union that was won by the former only after it managed to better the Soviets in launching the first ever man to the moon.

Today, despite remaining the world’s most technologically advanced and wealthiest country, America feels insecure. Unemployment is stubbornly high at nine per cent and many American multinational companies have relocated their bases of operation to more cost-effective places in developing countries.

Although Americans have been hoarding the Nobel Prize in every category since the end of World War 2, the performance of American children in Mathematics and Science is quite dismal compared with that of children in China and South Korea.

Noting the emerging economic strength of China and India, Obama’s “Sputnik moment” comparison expresses a worry about the prospect of America losing its economic leadership in the not-too-distant future.

Driving Malaysians to their Sputnik Moment

Indeed, such a statement rings a bell for Malaysians, too.

A Sputnik moment is a trigger mechanism, an event that makes people collectively say that they need to do something, and this sets a course in another direction. What could be such a driver – a trigger mechanism – for Malaysia be?

It is my belief that Malaysia faces its own Sputnik moment today in the crisis brought about by gradual deterioration of its economic competitiveness. Our economy runs the risk of lying in the doldrums, caught in what is known as the “middle income trap”.

Malaysia's Sputnik Moment: There is growing concern that Malaysia Growth is Stalling and it may end up being trapped in the "Middle Income Gap"

There are some fundamental challenges that Malaysia must address in this. The days of cheap labour is gone and cheaper labour found elsewhere in the neighbourhood e.g. Indo-China and China, for example, has resulted in the re-direction of FDI which was once a forte of Malaysia. The country’s own labor force is by and large underskilled (almost 80% of them do not have a university degree). We need to re-invent ourselves. The target is to become a high-income country underpinned by a knowledge-based economy.

This is one of the main reasons for the launching of the New Economic Model by the Prime Minister. A number of instruments are being put in place: starting from a New Economic Policy which sets a target of the country to be a high-income nation by 2020, several strategies were outlined in its National Key Economic Areas (NKEA) which among others, include palm oil; oil and gas; electrical and electronics and ecotourism. Embedded in the NKEAs is the need to upgrade the skills of the younger generation and to utilize STI as a driver to promote socio-economic development.

Together these challenges – and the downside of the inability to meet them – represents a Sputnik Moment for Malaysian Science. The scientific enterprise and the scientific community in this country should be ready and willing to respond to it.

The writer is Science Adviser to the prime minister and holder of the Tuanku Chancellor Chair at Universiti Sains Malaysia

Zakri Abdul Hamid, Science Advisor to PM Najib Tun Razak

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