SHARIFAH HAPSAH SYED HASAN SHAHABUDIN likens the cultivation of wisdom in students to the growth of Chinese bamboo — both need constant nurturing

JULY is the time of year when new students enrol on public universities in Malaysia.

Students settle in at Kolej Datuk Onn

Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, they throng the halls of residence, lecture theatres in the faculties and recreational fields, meeting and interacting with lecturers, seniors and other new students.

The seniors, who are members of the orientation committee, are put on standby to give assistance to freshers who patiently wait in line to register themselves and secure their admission to the various programmes. The lucky ones have been placed in their courses of first choice (sometimes it is the parents’ choice!). Others settle for second or third best.

In some universities there may be students who are placed in programmes they may not have even chosen. It is thus a challenge for faculties to bring students to the same level of interest and motivation in the courses they are pursuing.

Now that the students are registered, much is expected of them. They represent the cream of the academic cohort — clever and intelligent. The selection method assures us of their ability to assimilate facts and new knowledge.
However life in the university is not just about gaining more knowledge and some practical skills. It is also about the personal growth of students and their ability to communicate and work with others to anticipate, create, pace and adapt to change, and to do so with wisdom and in a manner consistent with the values of society.

Society demands such graduates as part of the university’s accountability for the social contract in which the public pays for its upkeep.

Society’s demand is becoming more and more pressing in this age of globalisation and instantaneous Internet connectivity where knowledge is so easily accessible with the click of a mouse. One never knows whether knowledge will be used for creating or destroying wealth, state security, political stability, the environment, justice and social well-being.

The collapse of Enron Corporation in late 2001, for example, shows how professionals must learn how to identify and evaluate specific threats to their own independence or that of their firms and to adhere to the highest professional standards which are based on ethical principles rather than just rules.

In empowering students with the most advanced knowledge or the skills to secure it, universities have an obligation to guide them in the use of the knowledge for the common good and to make decisions based on intelligence and ethical principles.

Wisdom is said to grow with age. However, we cannot wait for age to endow wisdom because our graduates are expected to demonstrate maturity in judgment upon graduation.

How can universities help students make the transition from a relatively sheltered life in school to one which places a premium on self-reliance and responsibility for their own learning, independence of thought, creativity in bringing forth new ideas, ability to reason, argue and articulate, and to demonstrate discernment and actions based on ethical principles upon graduation?

If the university values wisdom as an attribute, it should be reflected in its educational philosophy and goals, and translated into the design of the teaching and learning activities as well as assessment strategies. All stakeholders — teachers, administrators, support staff, undergraduates and postgrads — must understand the aspiration and be committed to its implementation.

The days are gone when we accept students into a university and expect them somehow or other to imbibe the values and abilities that we expect of them during the course. Perhaps, in the old elite system where students are the selected few and professors are masters to the apprentice, many of these values would have been passed from generation to generation of students and scholars.

With the massification of education, universities have to be more purposeful about nurturing wisdom because there are far too many students to a teacher and personal contact is less.

The curriculum should not be filled with just the academic content of a discipline because knowledge is not acquired merely through accumulating facts.

The academic content of a programme should be adequately combined with ethics, logic, culture, politics and philosophy, among others. There should be discussions and serious reflection on the students’ own life experiences within and outside the campus, including in residential colleges, on the sports fields or other co-curricular activities.

Problem-solving, experiential learning, mentoring, evidence-based decision making and creative imagination are some of the approaches to encourage self-questioning which will lead to clarity and the discovery of deeper understanding, and the wider perception of those experiences as well as ability to provide answers.

The cultivation of answers and ideas through these methods intuitively nurture creativity and wisdom as students learn how to balance risks in the use of the ideas — especially in knowing how or when to use them in given situations and to recognise when they do not have the ability to solve a problem and seek the wisdom from another. Such wisdom is nurtured with humility, honesty and patience.

Such teaching and learning methods must start from day one of university life and continuously reinforced until students graduate. The underlying aim is to ensure that the graduates would have been equipped with the competencies to continue to engage in reflection and self-questioning in search of the truth and answers to future problems.

The cultivation of wisdom in students can be likened to the growth of Chinese bamboo. In the first four years the plant hardly grows even when watered and fertilised constantly. Then in the fifth year, as the plant continues to be watered and fertilised, it suddenly grows to 27m in about five weeks! The question is “Did the Chinese bamboo grow 27m in five weeks or five years? The answer is five years. If at any time the watering and fertilising were stopped, the tree would have died.

In Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) we demand that the academic staff become nurturers who are committed to these goals. We accept no excuses, only results. As we prepare to welcome new students, the teachers must not only talk about doing things but must actually do things.

Professor Sharifah Hapsah Shahabudin is Vice Chancellor of UKM.