Suara Hati Ayahku

Salam/ Good Morning every body.

Doing your masters/ PhD. Proposal stage


If you are thinking of doing masters and PhD and in the mean time you are working as a teacher , may be this column helps.

I am going to help only from two points of approach which is based on my personal experience.

1st is if you are already working for MOHE i.e., you are already a lecturer in polytechnic under DG41. So I am assuming that you are teaching without a masters qualification.
2nd is if you are going to work in a university after PhD.

The first approach.

++++++++++++++ usually there is a scholarship in the line for those teachers under scheme DG41, DG44, DG48 to pursue their study at masters level. Offer come from MOHE/MOE/JPA or sometimes the World Bank. Competition comes from officers from the ministry itself, lecturers from the teaching institutions, polytechnics, college communities etc etc. Sometimes Senior Teachers came in too in order to accompanying his wife (for example) who are reading her PhD abroad. So by looking at the scenario it is quite tough to get a scholarship if you are so young in the teaching line. Preferably they will prioritize those officers at the age ranging 38 to 42 years old. If you are so young, don’t worry. Just apply. Who knows the applicants age 38 to 42 years old , suddenly disappear from this world without us realizing them trying. Who knows? Laugh.

The topic you want to do must be parallel to your first degree + your main likings. The likings come from your years of experience in high schools, colleges or polytechnics MOHE. Short-courses that you had attended might some how influence your likings all this while. Rarely was there any case where we did IT degree in MMU but while teaching the principals ask us to go Tae Kwan Do training from Year 1 to Year 10 in the colleges during the holidays. By the way you do not qualify to do masters in PE/PJ at all if you do not have first degree in sports science/ physical education.
But don’t worry perhaps you can be a part time body guard for the D’Sultan of B.

Common lets continue. Lets say you did IT in the first degree and you have been teaching mathematics for the last 5 to 10 years. Then perhaps you can do something on IT plus mathematics education or IT plus computer education. Your proposal could be something like this : problem statement, scope of study, theory of education. Mathematical issues in the world and Malaysia currently, learning styles, Theory of learning mathematics on the computers, impact of IT and e-learning , impact of you tube, setting up experiments and choosing samples, qualitative or quantitative research approach and expected results from data analysis and SPSS. Discussion and recommendation. Conclusion. Usually a proposal at masters’ level is about 15 pages only.

Additional skills to have: English Language, IT Words 2007, Outlining, review tracking. UKM? Thesis in Bahasa Malaysia but most references are in English.

Mathematics topics are too vast. Fraction, Algebra, Calculus, Trigonometry, Technical drawings- front elevation, visualization. Go deeper on each topic you will see that there are many more sub-topics under each of them.

Usually at the ministry level, the panel of interviewers will check your first degree + your record of teaching and all the courses you had taken part – in human resource development. Usually if we are graduates in IT ..courses like Instructional Design, e-learning is very appropriate for applying the masters. If you do IT as your degree and u are so interested to do masters in English/ communication .. I don’t think they will let you do masters in English in Australia, New Zealand. Why? You got no basic in English at the degree levels. So watch out mates. I was one of those 20 years back. Even though I taught English for exam classes for 10 years and an examiner for 8 years .. I still did not get the offer to do masters English in Australia because my basic degree was in computer science in Leeds. They told me bluntly stick to IT.

But if you do the first approach you are going to end up working for the schools, polytechnics for the rest of your life. Pension 60 years of age. That is very boring isn’t it? Life is all about travel and meeting new friends isn’t it?

Second Approach

A better one is to do a pure computer science or pure IT masters or try pure mathematics masters in Discrete Maths like Set Theory, rough set and/or Soft Set. Read thesis by Tutut Herawan PhD in soft set UTHM 2010 or Ewan MIT 2010 soft set, rough set. Why? If you get good grade at the masters’ level you can try and work in the university. Many lucky guys managed to do this. But usually if the university hire him as a tutor after the masters , the candidate has to pursue his phd under the same topic but at a much deeper level. But this option is quite difficult as compared to the masters in mathematics education in NUS, UKM, USM or UM. Why did I say so? I saw few of my friends gone mad while doing masters in abstract mathematics in Leeds / Brunel University. He failed in Leeds and then moved on to Brunel, London the next year. One day .. (my pal) he was talking about set theory all by himself while cutting the meat into pieces. Wow! That’s not what I want. One more - you must be mad to do pure mathematics abroad. Try doing it in India or China. I can bet with my life. Who knows you end up singing the song of Dosti – Hindustani film after the masters in mathematics. Try and look at the current issues in calculus. Current issues in
In algebra. Pre-algebra. Google it and you can see how much the knowledge of God has to offer you at this masters degree level. I read many papers .. not many scholars wanted to do Phd in mathematics. Reason? It is such a dry subject. In other words it is so BORING. He..he..

Masters education full time will take you at least 1.5 to 2 years full time.
In England by taught couses it is 10 months only. Check School of Education, University of Birmingham. England. If part time it can go for 5 years. Try plz. Many old warriors quit in the 3rd to 5th year. Excuse? I am afraid, there are too many to put here.

To read masters/ PHD please find the right supervisor. A word of warning. Don’t get a supervisor who is too old about to retire in 2 months time. Perhaps by the time you are about to sit for the VIVA s/he might have gone to the next world. He..he.. and don’t go for famous mathematician. He will be too busy supervising you. What more if your supervisor is a Dean, Assistant Dean in a very new university. They will be too busy going for meetings all over the country in the week ends. So? Little supervision is not good for a masters/ phd student. So get a 40 year old PhD lecturer to be your supervisor. That’s very cool indeed. Or in other words a smarter option.

To see whether s/he is a good supervisor , try google his/her name. See the track record. It won’t be good to see your supervisor with 20 phd students but none of them has graduated yet in spite of the web site putting his record of supervision for 7 years. In short no body is successful yet under his/her supervision.

Another good thing is to read your supervisor’s strong areas like Prof Dr Mustafa Mat Deris is very good in rough set , soft set theory. Check his list of proceedings and journal writings. Try and read few of his papers where he is the first author. If you can understand clearly what he wrote then get him to be your mentor else move on to another supervisor perhaps from the different university. The good one is to pay him a visit. Go and discuss your field of interest and may be from the discussion he can recommend you Prof Dr Jamal from Deakins Universiti or Prof Dr Wasata from Japan.

There is a very good book about ‘ How to get a phd?’ by Phillips and Pugh (2003) 3rd Edition. That is a good book to refer about 5 important pillars of research. They are introduction and problem statement, literature review or related issues, methodology , results and analysis and finally conclusion and recommendations.

I think I better leave you here. Wishing you all the best in your masters and phd studies. Don’t worry. Out of 100 students doing masters and phd , very few failed in the process once they got the above steps correct once and for all.

Wallah hu aklam. GOD KNOWS BEST.



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PhD study
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Try and work in the university first. Then there is more plus points of doing so i.e, PHD study abroad. If you come from the polytechnics MOHE, after PhD may be you are taken in into the Curriculum Division, Technical Education Department, Ministry of Higher Education, Putrajaya.Selangor. Malaysia. Congratulations.




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Just for sharing my little experience. Hope it helps you Malaysians.