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FOR two generations, Wikipedia has stood as the default authority for factual information.

Students, journalists, professionals and ordinary readers have turned to it for geography, science, medicine, economics, history and politics.

It became the first stop, often the only stop, in the digital age as a reference.

What began as an open, collaborative project to democratise knowledge has, according to its own co-founder Larry Sanger, been quietly reshaped into something far less neutral.

Sanger has often spoken about this issue. Between 2006 and 2007, tools such as WikiScanner revealed edits originating from computers at CIA headquarters in Langley and other intelligence agencies.

These were not isolated incidents. Wikipedia’s open editing model, combined with layers of anonymous administrators, created an environment ripe for systematic influence.

Sanger has described the platform as a “gold mine” for intelligence agencies worldwide.

Wikipedia has become a one-stop shop where narratives can be adjusted and presented as settled fact.

Sanger has been careful to say he does not claim a single set of puppet masters, yet the evidence of agency involvement and the subsequent ideological hardening are hard to dismiss.

This can also be evidenced in Malaysia. Many sections within Wikipedia give a pro-government or opposition version written on the subject.

Wikipedia is a political battlefield here, too.

The integrity issues run deeper than state actors.

Biographical pages have long been vulnerable to sockpuppet accounts, where editors are paid or motivated to present subjects in the most flattering light.

Just look in the Wikipedia Bahasa Malaysia version.

Organised groups of editors, sometimes labelled Wikitrolls, have pushed particular political lines while suppressing others.

A parallel industry of paid consultants and self-styled volunteers has approached individuals and corporations offering to craft or defend favourable entries, the writer included.

Over time, these practices, layered on top of heavy-handed administrative control that has pushed out many conservative and libertarian voices, have eroded the original commitment to a neutral point of view.

This was particularly seen during the COVID-19 era, where a US government agency “propaganda” on the source of COVID, the lethality, and potential treatments was run through Wikipedia, at the cost of the truth.

Sanger argues that the result of this is an encyclopedia that too often functions as an organ of establishment narrative rather than a reliable record.

Russian critics have gone further, framing it as a Western imperial tool.

Whether one accepts that stronger characterisation or not, the practical consequence is the same: a resource once trusted across the world now carries a credibility deficit on so many contested topics.

This matters because Wikipedia has shaped how two generations’ understanding of the world.

Its articles feed search engines, classroom assignments, media backgrounders and, increasingly, the training data of large language models.

When the base layer is skewed, the distortions travel further.

The original Wikipedia vision of a free, open store of human knowledge was powerful back in the 2000s.

What has emerged instead is a platform that still contains vast amounts of useful material, yet can no longer be treated as an unexamined authority.

Readers must approach it with the same critical eye once reserved for government press releases or corporate public relations, which many news portals carry today as their own journalism.

In that sense, the age of the unquestioned digital encyclopedia is ending.

Yet the cyber-information landscape is already shifting.

Artificial intelligence is moving into the space Wikipedia once dominated.

Tools such as ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Grok and other similar systems can summarise, cross-reference and present information with far less of the institutional guardrails, taboos and activist gatekeeping that now characterise the encyclopedia.

They are not perfect; they inherit biases present in their training data.

But they offer a practical alternative for those who have grown wary of Wikipedia’s editorial culture.

As a result, Malaysians are now noticing long-winding AI-produced political analysis appearing in chat groups as someone’s own opinion. – August 10, 2026

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AI can be partly described as a thinking model using a mammoth reservoir of information accessible to it within cyberspace.

Teachers, researchers, and writers, mostly on a freelance basis are employed to nurture AI ‘intelligence’ through extending knowledge parameters by feeding into the system old books and literature not online, and teaching writing styles. They are also teaching AI how to think in different ways.

AI intends to emulate human thinking. However, human thinking is influenced by many vague variables that exist within real life, but not easily replicated within machine reckoning and calculation (someone please correct me if I am wrong here).

Computers can emulate the analysis and rationalization of knowledge. AI can even think with emotion, based upon the material it references from the internet (its actually just repeating peoples opinions). AI looks up OpEds on the subject in question.

AI can also be programmed with heuristics humans use within their thinking processes.

However, cognitive insights through the ‘fuzzy’ thought processes humans actually use in what is often described as ‘Eureka moments’ is more difficult.

AI finds it difficult to think in areas there is no knowledge and no ‘mental templates’ to utilize. Insights from imagination will no doubt come to AI in a new level soon. There will be a new blend of AI integrated with actual human thought emerging very soon.

To review the various types of human thinking, I have taken a piece out of one of my books as a summary below.

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The human brain has evolved over many millions of years. Our brain cells, neurotransmitters, synapses, and processes are not much different from other animals. However through evolution the brain has developed into a number of different functioning areas all playing vital roles in the management and regulation of our senses, organs, and other body parts. This architecture allows us to think in an array of different manners. As we have evolved as a species our brain has also developed allowing thinking in more sophisticated ways. In addition as we personally develop during our life we learn to utilize these various ways of thinking to make meaning, solve problems, and develop ideas.

Basically we utilize five different ways of thinking which are briefly summarized below.

1. Emotional based decision making

Our predecessors the Hominids millions of years ago had brains that were only one third the size of human brains today, relied upon emotions to guide their thinking. This was very important in their role as hunter/gatherers. The basic emotions (particularly the unpleasant ones) also generate physiological responses such as needed in the fight/flight mode when we came in proximity of a threatening animal. The brain would release adrenaline and noradrenaline into the bloodstream to enable faster thinking and actions. The brain would drastically increase its activity. The body would freeze with all senses focused on the perceived threat. The heart would beat faster, ready for a quick getaway. Blood is diverted from the skin to the limbs to enable quick and powerful movement. Blood pressure rises and respiration increases. The muscles are tensed and sweating increases to cool the body. Appetite is suppressed and the bowels relaxed so that a person will be lighter for a getaway. These emotions are involuntary and often experienced without recourse to our consciousness or intervening thought processes[1].

Today, most lower level human thinking is based upon our emotions which originate from our limbic system at the base of the brain. Many of these emotional responses are hardwired into our thinking system and concerned with our primal needs and survival, as well as mateship. We answer specific situations based upon the emotions embedded within out mental schema and upon subsequent appraisal of the situation determine the intensity we will respond to the situation with our emotions[2]. Learned ‘core related themes’ are believed to influence this automatic appraisal process[3]. Therefore higher order emotions are social constructs. To be angry, disgusted, humiliated and proud are moral positions[4]. These social emotional positions are coded into memory schemata and they become automatic responses[5]. These socially related emotions will also have some relationship to the basic core emotions[6]. Without our specific awareness of the play these emotions make upon our judgments, decision making will tend to be emotionally based. Sometimes this becomes difficult to determine as these basic emotions mix with other emotions to produce very complex social emotions[7]. They become our responses to meaning, which we confuse for meaning itself.

Most of us are locked into emotional thinking biases due to the influence the limbic system has over the rest of the brain. We cannot and maybe should not eliminate emotions, but should be at least aware of them.

2. Analysis and rationalization of knowledge

We live in a rational society where the world is run by time, logic, reason, and “objectivity”. Everything is measured and designated within the spirit of Weber’s rational bureaucracy and Frederick Taylor’s scientific management. Our education system is based upon rationalism, promoting specialized disciplines and critical thinking. Therefore people tend to approach problems through the paradigm of reason and rationality. Facts are required before “informed decisions” are made. Facts and knowledge are paramount prerequisites to decision making. Within the rational society, ethics are the based on codified laws and religious dogma with penalties attached to certain types of behaviours as a deterrent. Therefore in the rational society one acts out of fear and “logic” within a heavily socialized and cultural framework. Thus all solutions are “culturally based” solutions.

Rationalist tools like mathematics and geometry have great difficulty in explaining everyday occurrences like the operation of a steam value, a tennis game, riding a bicycle, and catching a ball as there is the element of chaos (not to be confused with crisis) and unpredictability in any phenomenon. One can develop complex wave equations but never really know exactly what is going to happen. Reductionism relies upon linear perfectionism which doesn’t exist. Even the earth’s rotation is not exact. Our perfectionist time systems must be regularly adjusted to account for nature’s imperfection[8]. We try to think about the world in a linear way where the world really behaves in non-linear ways. Most events need to unfold along particular paths, something that cannot be controlled. Evolution is an unplanned process.

Many massive engineering developments like the building of the Hoover Dam, the development of the atomic bomb, and the space program were not based on science as much as they have been based upon engineering reductionism, requiring the rationalization of knowledge[9]. Potential new breakthroughs in specific domains are often resisted by discipline centered experts committed to established reductionist views based on the models they work from. Some discipline premises were totally incorrect. For example, economics preached individualism and decentralized markets, yet our security and prosperity has been largely the result of collective action to eradicate disease, promote science, develop critical infrastructure and, provide widespread education[10]. The tools of trade are usually too selective to allow the big picture to be seen, becoming the ‘rose colored glasses’ of perceptual and discipline-centric domain imprisonment[11].


3. Higher intuition (with biases)

To handle the enormous amounts of incoming information and perform the decisions that have to be made requires some form of mechanisms that can ‘short-cut’ the interpretive and decision processes[12]. Heuristics and biases are a means to achieving this and as a consequence have an influence on our perception and reasoning. Heuristics assist decision making under uncertainty because of insufficient information from the environment. Heuristics and other biases compensate and thus assist people in solving problems, developing new ideas, and seeing potential opportunities that others don’t[13]. They also influence how we look at ethical problems ethics and how we develop strategies[14].

Heuristics are ‘short-cuts’, ‘rules of thumb’, decision rules or templates that aid quick judgments and decisions. Heuristics become embedded within our belief system. They can also be influenced by our deep motivations and reflect our social conditioning. Heuristics and other biases become intertwined within our knowledge structures and become a factor of influence in the assessments, judgments and decisions we make involving opportunity evaluation[15]. These basic assumptions include views about time, space, human nature, the nature of relationships, and what is the truth[16]. They are part of the decision making process[17]. In effect heuristics are our programmed system of ‘common sense’.

Heuristics have the potential to assist the decision making process by cutting down on the person’s information load[18]. They allow a person to make quick decisions about problems and opportunities without undertaking formal analysis which would tend to highlight problems, thus preventing its exploitation[19]. Heuristics are important when windows of opportunity are very short[20]. They also help in making quick strategy choices, saving time and adding to flexibility. Heuristics make up for lack of experience[21] and drive intuition, which is independent of inputs from the cognitive perception process[22]. This will trigger off the creativity process by imposing an alternative reality to what is perceived through the senses.

The downside of heuristics is that it allows our biases to interpret what is going on in the world around us. Heuristics create stereotyping and tend to suppress the ability to comprehend new meanings through the application of cognitive biases that maintain our current perceived ideas about the world. Of course our beliefs formed through rationalism make up many, if not most of our cognitive biases we use in life.

4. Creative insights

Creativity and in particular creative insights are an extremely important aspect of our thinking styles. Without creativity, very little would develop, function and contribute to the wellbeing of the humanity. The concept of creativity is elusive, cannot be observed directly, measured or even acknowledged until sometime after the creative act has taken place[23]. Relatively little research has been undertaken on creativity until the 1960s[24]. However within the last three decades there has been a massive serge in research, new theories and the development of many creative tools.

When a sub-conscious connection between two bits of information fit a problem, a realization that brings a feeling of insight occurs. This illumination is often described as the ‘aha’ or the ‘eureka’ moment. This insight may not bring the whole solution of the problem but perhaps provide a key piece of information that enables the problem to be restructured, reorganized, reframed, reconstructed or reconsidered in some now light, where a solution comes forward with relative ease. In hindsight the solution will normally be a simplistic and logical one, ironic given the difficulty in arriving at the insight. A simple block or misplaced assumption that was removed during the incubation and sub-conscious contemplation process made way for the insight to occur[25]. Accepted prior knowledge of a domain and field can sometimes block an insight, especially where knowledge is accepted as a given and not previously questioned.

Insight is the example of a product produced through our brain’s self organizing system which begins to associate external information from the environment, our domain and field knowledge and our prior experience held in the long term memory. This may operate in a similar manner to the way we combine words into phrases, phrases into sentences and sentences into ideas and stories to create meaning. Imagination may also play some role in creating vision and imagery and assisting in drawing analogies during this process[26]. The insight is the product of the connection between these bits of information in some sort of semantic, conceptual or visual form, which assists the advancement of the problem solving process[27]. Any meaningful connection of ideas will immediately flash into our conscious memory as an insight previously not considered in regards to the problem.

Recent research has shown when individuals are left undisturbed the brain is not idle, where there is actually increased activity, localized in the pre-frontal cortex[28]. The brain during any resting period is actually quite vigorous, where without any stimulation the mind freely wanders through past recollections, envisioning future plans, and other thoughts and experiences[29]. This phenomenon was termed the ‘default network’ to describe the brain activity at rest[30]. The significance of the ‘default network’ to the creative insight is that continued underlying processes still occur that are unrelated to conscious thought occur, something described in the incubation process mode of the creativity process[31]. Research has shown that mindfulness can activate the ‘default network’[32]. The ‘default network’ deactivates is active when an individual is at rest and shuts down when an individual becomes active and is focused on the outside world.

Most decisions that lead us on emergent paths like the vocation of entrepreneurship, art, music, opera, and even sport require creative decision making. Thus creativity rather than general intelligence is the means by which the majority of people get things done. Fortunately creativity can be taught and enlightened education systems today have switched the balance from critical to creative thinking as the major thinking skill to develop. Creative insight is the major means by which we make the decisions that lead to our emergence in life, vocation, and career.


5. Wisdom

At the top of the thinking hierarchy is wisdom, a thinking process that is only achieved by a small percentage of the population after many years of experiencing life (see figure 2.). A person’s awareness or mindfulness transcends the lower emotional influenced thinking, social interpretations, to a level where one thinks about issues and can develop new personal understandings. This comes from our emotional sensitivity which runs across a continuum from mindlessness to mindfulness[33]. Mindlessness numbs individuals’ senses to the outside environment and patterns them into seeing situations as absolutes[34]. Whereas mindfulness is a state of psychological freedom without any attachment to any point of view and being attentive to what is occurring at present[35]. Many peoples’ emotional sensitivity is inhibited by their past categorizations, rules and routines that cloud the ability to view any current situation with novel distinctions[36]. Therefore the more mindful a person is, the more open to the environment they will be.

Mindfulness allows a person access to environmental perceptions without schema blocking or altering the interpretation of events. The more mindfulness, the better the perception of opportunities, however other facets such as prior knowledge are still vitally important, which without any individual will not be able to perceive opportunity for new ventures, products, and services[37]. Langer proposed that mindfulness may enhance the ability to perceive and shape new opportunities through five components that have been empirically tested;

· Openness to novelty – the ability to reason with relatively novel forms of stimuli,

· Alertness to distinction – the ability to distinguish minute differences in the details of an object, action, or environment,

· Sensitivity to different contexts- tasks and abilities will differ according to the situational context,

· Awareness of multiple perspectives – the ability to think dialectically, and

· Orientation in the present- paying attention to here and now[38].


Thus through wisdom one can foresee and truly understand the potential consequences of taking potential courses of action, seeing above and beyond the influence of emotions, and solutions based on rationalizations that may miss out on certain sets of consequences.

One would assume that the degree of mindfulness an individual possesses will also influence the depth of meaning that can be derived from the environment. New discoveries may occur because of emotional sensitivity and mindfulness described above in what could be called a ‘passive search’[39], where an individual is receptive but not engaged in any formal systematic search.

Thich Nhat Hanh stated that every feeling whether good or bad, powerful or light should be paid attention to with mindfulness that can be used as a force to protect the psych. This has two important implications[40]. The first is to be aware of our own biases and distortive tendencies in our perception of objects. The second implication is that we protect ourselves from harmful influences and ‘emotionally’ learn. Psychotherapy advocates a healthy ego which requires some ‘healthy attachment’ like identification in the creation of a sense of self[41]. Das expands on identity as being something we experience spiritually, sexually, sensually, intellectually, economically, philosophically, and so on[42]. Identity is situationally dependent upon the role one plays as a mother, father, worker, student, etc. However this can lead to an ego produced out of mistaken identity, based on anxiety and confusion about ‘who I am’[43].

John Bowlby’s seminal work on attachment theory (our emotional dependence upon people, objects and events) defines attachment as one of the prime motivational systems with its own workings and interfaces with other motivational systems[44]. What may be important is understanding desire as a driver of motivation[45]. Thus some emotional attachment is considered to be a healthy part of a person’s psychological make-up, a driver for action. However it should be noted that the motivation behind our actions is usually desire, which unchecked can develop into many abnormal pathologies like depression, anxiety, aggression, etc[46]. It is not the desire that causes the suffering, but what we do with our desire. People need to feel secure and have loving relationships to provide a base for life exploration, which requires some attachment. Michael Porter also recognized that emotional attachment can influence rationality of strategic decision making where one may be committed to a business, have a sense of pride, be concerned about the stigma attached to a decision, identify with the program or venture, etc[47].

Thinking is too often equated with intelligence, where there is no agreed definition but an understanding that it involves; abstract thinking, reasoning, problem solving ability, capacity to acquire knowledge, memory, and adoption. However intelligence does not equate with general success in life. There are so many examples of dropouts becoming entrepreneurs and having very successful careers.

Perhaps the key is wisdom in making decisions based on experience, how we process information, problem solving skills we utilize, and personal competencies we posses rather than intelligence. People must be able to pass through their emotions, collect what information they can and think about the issues rather than act on social interpretations. The ability to acquire new methods of thinking appears to be related to our personal development as figure 2 shows. Our basic emotions of like, dislike, happy, sad, extrovert, introvert, and depressed, etc., influence our decision making from infancy well into our adolescence. As we reach early adulthood we learn to interpret social situations in our decision making. Our schooling teaches us how to collect information and process this rationally and logically in solving problems and making decisions. We also become able to utilize existing knowledge as a means of creating new knowledge through the means of creativity. Finally a small proportion of the population is able to develop a sense of wisdom based on experience and the ability to see over their biases.

Figure 2. The continuum of wisdom.
Published in Orbus July 2012

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Notes and References

[1] What is interesting is that Charles Darwin (1872) postulated that emotional expressions are not cultural and part of our global genetic makeup.

[2] Lazarus, R. & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, Appraisal and Coping, New York, Springer-Veriag.

[3] Smith, C. & Lazarus, R. (1993). Appraisal Components, Core Relational Themes, and the Emotions, Cognition and Emotion, Vol. 7, pp. 233-269.

[4] Harré, R. (1991). Physical Being: A Theory of Corporeal Psychology, Blackwell, Oxford.

[5] Leventhal, H. (1982). The integration of emotions and cognition: A view from the perceptual-motor theory of emotion, In: Clark, M. S. and Fiske, S. T. (Eds.). Affect and Cognition: The 17th Annual Carnegie Symposium on Cognition, Hillsdale, NJ., Eribaum.

[6] Greenberg, L. S. and Safran, J. D. (1989). Emotion in Psychotherapy, American Psychologist, Vol. 44, No. 1., pp. 19-29.

[7] Hunter, M., (2012),” Opportunity, Strategy, & Entrepreneurship Vol. 1”, A Meta-Theory, New York, Nova Scientific Publishers, P. 251.

[8] Connelly, C. (2012). Time keepers to introduce leap second June 30 to keep in synch with mother earth, HeraldSun.com, January 6th, http://www.heraldsun.com.au/technology/time-keepers-to-introduce-leap-second-june-30-to-keep-in-sync-with-mother-earth/story-fn7celvh-1226238221924

[9] Lovelock, J. (2005). Gaia: Medicine for an ailing planet, London, Gaia Books, P. 15.

[10] Sachs, J., (2005), The End of poverty: How we can make it happen in our lifetime, London, Penguin, pp. 2-3.

[11] Most models only utilize a couple of variables to examine cause and effect. For example Weber’s models were concerned with power, Lakoff’s models were concerned with the social generation of truth, and Porter’s models with external structural forces, where on the other hand Mintzberg ignores the role of structural constraints upon management. These models correlated with certain actions or behaviors in retrospect, but could not predict accurately in future scenarios.

[12] Finucane, M. L., Alhakami, A., Slovic, P., and Johnson, S. M. (2000). The affect heuristic in judgments of risks and benefits, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, Vol. 13, No. 1., pp. 1-17.

[13] Gaglio, C. M, Katz, T. A. (2001). The psychological basis of opportunity identification: entrepreneurial alertness, Small Business Economics, Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 95-111.

[14] Busenitz, L. W, and Barney, J. B, (1997). Differences between entrepreneurs and managers in large organizations, Journal of Business Venturing, Vol. 12, pp. 9-30, Mitchell, R. K, Smith, J. B, Morse, E. A, Seawright, H. W, Perero, A. M, and Mckenzie, B, (2002). Are entrepreneurial cognitions universal? Assessing entrepreneurial cognition across cultures, Entrepreneurial Theory and Practice, Vol. 26, No. 4, pp. 9-32, Alvarez, S. A, and Busenitz, L. W, (2001). The Entrepreneurship of resource based theory, Journal of Management, Vol. 27, pp. 755-775.

[15] Mitchell, R. K, Busenitz, L, Lant, J, McDougall, P. P, Morse, E. A, and Smith, B. (2004). The distinctive and inclusive domain of entrepreneurial cognition research, Entrepreneurship, Theory and Practice, Vol. 28, No. 6, pp. 505-518.

[16] Schein, E., (2010), Organization Culture and Leadership, 4th Edition, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, see: Chapters 7,8,9.

[17] Wright, M., Hoskisson, R. E., Busenitiz, L. W. and Dial, J. (2000). Entrepreneurial Growth through Privatization: The Upside of Management Buyouts, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 591-601.

[18] Gowda, M. V. R., (1999). Heuristics, biases and the regulation of risk, Policy Science, Vol. 32, pp. 59-78.

[19] This is one area where entrepreneurial thinking may be very different from management thinking. An entrepreneur without perfect information will act on intuition and hunch. Any analysis will be mental rather than through the formal processes which managers in a company situation will tend to follow. Management analysis of new ideas will tend to frame the question; what is wrong with this idea?, why should it not be exploited?, what will be the potential problems?, etc. Thus analysis can become a very negative paradigm in management preventing new ideas emerging into new strategies.

[20] Tversky, A. and Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases, Science, Vol. 185, pp. 251-284.

[21] Alvarez, S. A, and Busenitz, L. W, (2001). “The Entrepreneurship of resource based theory”.

[22] Gowda, M. V. R., (1999). “Heuristics, biases and the regulation of risk”.

[23] For example a painting or piece of art may not be recognized by the art community as being creative until many years after it has been created. This leads to the situation where many pieces of art only accumulate value after the artist has passed away and the act of creativity is only realized as such long after the event.

[24] Sternberg, R. J. and Lubart, T. I. (1996). Investing in Creativity, American Psychologist, Vol. 51, No. 7, pp. 677 688.

[25] Robertson-Riegler, G., and Robertson-Riegler, B. (2008). Cognitive Psychology: Applying the Science of the Mind, 2nd Edition, Boston, Pearson Education, Inc., pp. 472-3

[26] Imagination plays a number of roles within our thinking processes. The eight types of imagination that we may use include; 1. “Effectuative Imagination which combines information together to synergize new concepts and ideas.”, 2. “Intellectual (or Constructive) Imagination which is utilized when considering and developing hypotheses from different pieces of information or pondering over various issues of meaning say in the areas of philosophy, management, or politics, etc.”,
3. “Imaginative Fantasy Imagination which creates and develops stories, pictures, poems, stage-plays, and the building of the esoteric, etc.”,
4. “Empathy Imagination which helps a person know emotionally what others are experiencing from their frame and reference.”,
5. “Strategic Imagination which is concerned about vision of ‘what could be’, the ability to recognize and evaluate opportunities by turning them into mental scenarios…”,
6. “Emotional Imagination which is concerned with manifesting emotional dispositions and extending them into emotional scenarios.”, 7. “
Dreams which are an unconscious form of imagination made up of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur during certain stages of sleep.”, and
8. “Memory Reconstruction which is the process of retrieving our memory of people, objects, and events.” See: Hunter, M., (2012), Imagination may be more important than knowlwdge: The eight types of imagination we use, Orbus, http://www.orbus.be/info/important_news_april_extra_004.htm.

[27] There are also a number of creative tools that can enhance the ability to do this.

[28] Ingvar, G.H. (1974). Patterns of brain activity revealed by measurements of regional cerebral blood flow, Alfred Benzon Symposium VIII, Copenhagen.

[29] Andreasan, N.C, O’Leary, D.S., Cizacho, T., Arndt, S., Rezai, K. (1995). Remembering the past: two facets of episodic memory explored with position emission tomography, American Journal of Psychiatry, Vol. 152, pp. 1575-1585, Buckner, R. & Carroll, D.C. (2007). Self-projection and the brain, Trends Cogn. Sci., Vol. 11, pp. 49-57.

[30] Gusnard, D.A., Akbudak, E., Shulman, G.L., & Raichle, M.E. (2001). Medial prefrontal cortex and self-referential mental activity relation to a default mode of brain function, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., Vol. 98, pp. 4259-4264, Gusnard, D.A. & Raichie, M.E. (2001). Searching for a baseline: Functional imaging and the resting human brain, Nat. Rev. Neuosci, Vol. 2, pp. 685-694.

[31] Buckner, R.L., Andrews-Hanna, J.R., & Schacter, D.L., (2008). The brains default network: Anatomy, Function, and Relevance to Disease, Annals of the New York Academy of Science, Vol. 1114, pp. 1-38.

[32] Jang, J.H., Jung, W.H., Kang, D-H, Byun, M.S., Kwan, D-H, Choi, C-H, & Kwan, J.S. (2011). Increased default mode network connectivity associated with meditation, Neuroscience Letters, Vol. 487, No. 3, pp. 358-362.

[33] Mindfulness is a state of open acceptance of one’s own perceptions and sensibilities that helps our experience of being calm, relaxed and alert state of mind and be aware of our thoughts without identifying with them Ladner, L. (2005). Bringing Mindfulness to Your Practice, Psychology Networker, July/August, P. 19.

[34] Corbett, A.C. & McMullen, J.S. (2007), Perceiving and Shaping New Venture Opportunities through Mindful Practice, In: Zacharakis, A. & Spinelli, S., (Eds.). Entrepreneurship: The Engine of Growth, Volume 2, Process, Westport CN, Praeger Perspectives, P. 48.

[35] Martin, J.R. (1997). Mindfulness: A proposed common factor, Journal of Psychotherapy Integration, Vol. 7, pp. 291-312, Brown, K.W. & Ryan, R.M. (2003), The benefits of being present: Mindfulness and its role in psychological well-being, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 84, No. 4, pp. 822-848.

[36] Langer, E. J., & Moldoveanu, M. (2000). The construct of mindfulness, Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 56, No. 1, pp. 1-9.

[37] Corbett, A.C. & McMullen, J.S. (2007), “Perceiving and Shaping New Venture Opportunities through Mindful Practice”.

[38] Langer, E.J. (1997), The Power of Mindful Learning, Reading, MA, Addison Wesley.

[39] Ardichvili, A., Cardozo, R., & Ray, S. (2003). A theory of entrepreneurial opportunity identification and development, Journal of Business Venturing, Vol. 18, pp. 105-123.

[40] Hanh, T, N. (1976). The Miracle of Mindfulness, Boston, Beacon Press, P. 38.

[41] Winnicott, D. W. (1965). The maturational processes and the facilitating environment, New York, International University Press, Winnicott, D. W. (1971). Mirror-role of mother and family in child development, London, Tavistock Publications.

[42] Das, L. S. (2003). Letting Go of the Person You Used to Be, London, Bantam Books.

[43] Engler, J. (2003). Being somebody and being nobody: a reexamination of the understanding of self in psychoanalysis and Buddhism, In Safran, J. D, (Ed.), Psychoanalysis and Buddhism: An unfolding dialogue, Boston, Wisdom Publications, P. 36.

[44] Bowlby, J. (1980). Attachment and Loss, New York, Basic Books.

[45] Smith, M. (1987). The Huemean Theory of Motivation, Mind, Vol. 96, No. 381, pp. 36-61

[46] Epstein, M. (2007). Psychotherapy without the self – a Buddhist perspective, London, Yale University Press.

[47] Porter, M. E. (1980). Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors, New York, Free Press, P. 267.

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After having the opportunity to sit down with a person who was involved in the editing and creation of the Green Book, I was very curious about its relevance today.

Muammar Gaddafi’s The Green Book, first published in 1975, remains a provocative text that critiques dominant political and economic systems while proposing an alternative rooted in direct democracy, Islamic socialism, and communal organization. Though often dismissed as idiosyncratic or a justification for authoritarian rule, it emerges from a specific historical moment in the post-colonial Global South and offers lenses for viewing contemporary challenges like eroding trust in representative democracy, economic inequality, and shifting global power dynamics. Examining it does not require endorsement but invites reflection on the aspirations of an era marked by anti-imperialism and experiments in popular sovereignty.

The Era and Civilization The Green Book Came From

The Green Book arose in the turbulent decades following World War II, amid decolonization, Arab nationalism, and the Cold War. Libya gained independence in 1951 under King Idris I, a monarchy backed by Western powers with significant U.S. and British military presence. The discovery of oil transformed the economy but exacerbated inequalities and perceptions of foreign exploitation.

Muammar Muhammad Abu Minyar al-Gaddafi, born around 1942 into a Bedouin family in the desert near Sirte, absorbed Arab nationalist ideals influenced by Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser. He joined the military and formed the Free Officers Movement. On September 1, 1969, he led a bloodless coup against the monarchy, establishing the Libyan Arab Republic. This occurred in a broader context of Third World assertiveness: the Non-Aligned Movement, the 1955 Bandung Conference, and waves of nationalizations in oil-producing states.

The Libyan civilization was deeply rooted in Islamic traditions, tribal structures, and Bedouin values of communal solidarity, alongside exposure to modern Arab socialism and anti-colonial thought. Gaddafi drew from Nasserism, Islamic modernism, and elements reminiscent of Mao’s Little Red Book, while rejecting both Western capitalism and Soviet-style Marxism.

The text promotes a “Third Universal Theory” as an alternative for developing nations, emphasizing Islam, nationalism, and direct popular rule over imported ideologies. Published in three parts between 1975 and 1981, it reflected optimism about oil wealth funding social transformation in a resource-rich but historically marginalized society.

Libya’s Jamahiriya (“state of the masses”) experiment, formalized in 1977, attempted to institutionalize these ideas through People’s Congresses and Committees, amid a cultural revolution that sought to dismantle old elites.

Gaddafi the Man and Politician Under U.S. Threat

Gaddafi was a charismatic, populist figure, who was very often theatrical on the world stage. He positioned himself as a revolutionary leader. From a humble background, he rose rapidly, ruling Libya for over four decades while maintaining a cult of personality. He nationalized oil, expelled foreign bases, and used revenues for ambitious social programs in housing, education, and healthcare, significantly improving living standards for many Libyans in the early decades.

His anti-imperialist stance quickly put him at odds with the United States. Libya closed U.S. and British bases shortly after the coup. Gaddafi’s support for various liberation movements, his pan-Arab (and later pan-African) ambitions, and alleged ties to militant groups led to escalating tensions. In the 1980s, the Reagan administration imposed sanctions, accused Libya of terrorism (including the 1986 Berlin disco bombing), and launched airstrikes on Tripoli and Benghazi in Operation El Dorado Canyon, which killed civilians including Gaddafi’s adopted daughter.

Gaddafi survived assassination attempts, sanctions, and isolation. He framed these as bullying by hegemonic powers protecting interests in the region, akin to interventions elsewhere. While his regime faced credible accusations of repression, human rights abuses, and erratic foreign policy, including support for terrorism, Gaddafi consistently portrayed himself as a defender of sovereignty against neo-colonial pressures. His survival until the 2011 NATO-backed uprising underscored the personal risks he took in challenging the status quo.

His Leadership of the South

Gaddafi emerged as a vocal leader of the Global South, evolving from pan-Arabism to pan-Africanism. He championed anti-imperialism, funded development projects across Africa, and pushed for a United States of Africa with a single currency and military. He served as Chairperson of the African Union (2009–2010) and advocated for greater Southern solidarity against Western dominance.

In the Non-Aligned Movement tradition extending from Bandung (1955), Gaddafi critiqued both superpowers and sought a distinct path. He used Libya’s oil wealth to support causes from sub-Saharan Africa to Latin America, positioning himself as a champion of the marginalized. Critics noted inconsistencies such as brutality at home and adventurism abroad, but supporters saw a rare leader willing to challenge unipolarity. His vision emphasized resource sovereignty, South-South cooperation, and resistance to economic exploitation, themes resonant amid today’s multipolar shifts involving China, BRICS, and debates over the U.S. role in regions like the South China Sea or the Arabian Gulf.

A Summary of the Third Universal Theory

The Third Universal Theory, detailed in The Green Book, rejects representative democracy as a form of dictatorship (where parties, parliaments, or classes usurp popular will) and capitalism as exploitative. It also distances itself from atheistic Marxism, grounding itself in Islamic values and natural social units like family, tribe, and nation.

Democracy (“The Authority of the People”): True democracy is direct participation via Basic People’s Congresses and Committees, culminating in a General People’s Congress. No parties, no representation, where every citizen engages directly. Plebiscites and parliaments are dismissed as inadequate. Freedom of expression is affirmed, but media should be publicly owned.

Economics (Socialism): Wage labor is akin to slavery. Workers become partners sharing production. Private ownership of land, housing (beyond personal need), and key means of production is curtailed to prevent exploitation. Needs are met through communal distribution; surplus serves society. It envisions a stage where money might wither away in a fully productive society.

Social Basis: Society rests on natural bonds, including the family, tribe, and nation, rather than artificial states. It discusses women’s roles (equal but “naturally” different due to biology), minorities, education, and culture. Controversial claims include predictions about Black people’s demographic future. The theory promotes nationalism alongside universal human solidarity.

In practice, Libya’s system blended these ideals with centralized control under Gaddafi and the Revolutionary Committees, leading to inefficiencies and authoritarian outcomes despite the rhetoric of mass rule.

Questions The Green Book Brings Up For Today

In an era of challenged U.S. hegemony, EU centralization critiques, rising inequality under capitalism, and evolving post-Marxist systems, The Green Book invites reevaluation of core issues.

Democracy: With declining trust in parliaments and parties worldwide, does direct participation (e.g., via digital tools or assemblies) offer viable alternatives, or does it risk chaos and manipulation? Libya’s experience highlights implementation challenges.

Economics and Distribution: Amid “neo-poverty,” gig economies, and wealth concentration, ideas of partnership over wages, limits on private property, and need-based allocation echo debates on universal basic services, wealth taxes, or cooperative models. Can fair distribution occur without stifling innovation?

Geo-politics and Sovereignty: Gaddafi’s resistance to external pressure parallels concerns over blockades (e.g., South China Sea) or resource politics in the Gulf. What balance exists between sovereignty and international norms? His pan-South vision resonates with multipolarity and calls for reformed global institutions.

Secularization, Ethics, and Society: The text’s blend of Islam, tradition, and progress raises questions on cultural authenticity versus modernization. How do we reconcile ethics, family structures, and gender roles in diverse societies? Issues like education beyond formal schooling or cultural preservation amid globalization remain pertinent.

Aspiration vs. Reality: The book’s utopian elements about eradicating exploitation while empowering masses, deeply clashed with Libya’s authoritarian drift and post-2011 instability. This underscores a timeless tension: grand theories often falter in execution due to power dynamics and human nature.

Critics rightly note the Green Book’s rambling style, contradictions, and role in justifying one-man rule. Yet its espoused aspirations for genuine popular sovereignty, economic justice, and Southern agency speak to enduring dissatisfactions with the liberal order.

As globalization strains and new powers rise, revisiting such texts fosters critical thinking about alternatives, without romanticizing flawed implementations. The Green Book is a product of its time as a Bedouin revolutionary’s attempt to chart a third path amid Cold War binaries and colonial legacies.

The Green Book’s relevance today lies not in blueprints but in prompting questions about power, community, and fairness in a fracturing world. Understanding these aspirations enriches discourse on democracy’s deficits, economic inequities, and the Global South’s ongoing search for autonomy.

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CHINA’S latest five-year national action plan marks a decisive step in reshaping its education system for the AI era.

The plan issued by the State Council mandates the integration of artificial intelligence across all educational stages from primary schools to universities.

Students will not only learn about AI but will be trained to use it as a tool for understanding, problem-solving, and innovation.

The plan also pushes for greater emphasis on science, critical thinking, industry linkages, and the ethical deployment of AI in assessments and school management.

This is not incremental reform; it is a strategic overhaul designed to produce a generation fluent in the technologies that will dominate the 21st century.

Similar signals are emerging elsewhere.

Russia is preparing a national AI deployment plan across sectors, including education, while expanding dedicated AI faculties and exploring AI as a “sparring partner” for students.

These moves by major powers underscore a global race that Malaysia cannot afford to sit out.

AI has already moved from science fiction to everyday reality.

Tools like large language models, image generators, and predictive analytics are reshaping how we work, learn, and create.

In Malaysia, sectors ranging from manufacturing and finance to agriculture and healthcare are adopting AI-driven solutions.

Yet our education system remains largely anchored in pre-digital pedagogies.

Without urgent reform, we risk producing graduates who are spectators rather than participants in the AI economy.

The labour market consequences are already visible.

Routine cognitive tasks such as data entry, basic analysis, translation, and even aspects of content creation are being automated.

The workers who thrive will not be those who simply know more facts, but those who possess broad domain knowledge across disciplines and can intelligently direct AI to synthesise information, generate novel ideas, and solve complex problems.

Creativity, critical evaluation of AI outputs, ethical reasoning, and interdisciplinary thinking have become premium human skills.

A student who can harness AI to explore biology, economics, and design simultaneously will be far more valuable than one who has memorised isolated textbook chapters.

Malaysia’s current trajectory shows promising but insufficient progress. Initiatives such as the National AI Roadmap and some university-level programmes exist, yet AI literacy is not systematically embedded from primary level.

Many students still encounter technology primarily as consumers of social media rather than as creators and critical users of intelligent tools. Teachers, often overburdened, receive limited training in AI-assisted pedagogy.

If China is preparing millions of AI-fluent graduates while Malaysia debates pilot projects, the productivity and innovation gap will widen dangerously.

The risks of inaction are stark. Malaysia aspires to become a high-income nation and a regional technology hub.

We want to attract investment in semiconductors, green technology, and digital services. Investors and multinational companies will increasingly favour locations with workforces already trained in AI collaboration.

An education system that falls behind will produce graduates who require expensive retraining or, worse, remain underemployed.

Entire cohorts could face obsolescence, exacerbating inequality and social tensions.

In a world where AI reshapes entire industries every few years, incremental policy tweaks are no longer adequate.

(Image from https://www.classpoint.io/blog/ai-in-education-guide)

A bold curriculum overhaul is needed

Malaysia should develop a national AI-in-Education strategy with clear milestones.

At the primary level, students can begin with age-appropriate tools that teach basic prompting, logical thinking, and data literacy through play.

Secondary education should integrate AI across subjects using it for historical analysis, scientific experimentation, language practice, and mathematical modelling. Universities must expand interdisciplinary AI programmes while ensuring every graduate, regardless of major, achieves functional AI competence.

Teacher training is critical. Professional development must equip educators to use AI for personalised learning, automated assessment, and lesson planning, freeing them to focus on mentorship and higher-order guidance.

We also need strong ethical frameworks addressing data privacy, bias, academic integrity, and digital well-being and areas that China’s plan rightly highlights.

Infrastructure gaps must be closed. Reliable internet, devices, and access to sovereign or regionally appropriate AI models are essential, especially in rural areas, to prevent a two-tier education system.

Public-private partnerships with local tech firms and international players can accelerate this.

This could greatly enhance the benefits to Malaysians from the high rates of IT-based FDI going on today.

Critics may warn of job displacement for teachers or over-reliance on technology.

These concerns are valid but manageable.

AI will not replace good teachers. It will amplify them and their value to the education system in general.

The goal is augmentation, not substitution.

Malaysia’s multicultural context and values can also shape an AI approach that prioritises harmony, sustainability, and human-centred innovation, differentiating us in the global landscape.

This will assist Malaysia in becoming globally competitive tomorrow.

The window of opportunity is narrowing.

China’s systematic push, together with Russia’s ambitions demonstrate that leading nations view AI education as a strategic imperative.

Malaysia has strengths, which include a relatively young population, a growing digital economy, and policy ambition through initiatives like Malaysia Digital.

Now is the time to translate ambition into classroom reality.

By embedding AI literacy at every level, we can cultivate a workforce that is not only competitive but capable of creating new opportunities for itself and future generations.

The alternative of watching others surge ahead while our education system grows obsolete is totally unacceptable.

Policymakers, educators, industry leaders, and parents must now engage in serious, sustained dialogue.

Malaysia’s future prosperity depends on acting decisively before the AI tide leaves us behind. – July 2, 2026

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The issue of racism in Malaysian higher education has long been vigorously debated. The application of the New Economic Policy (NEP) to the university sector introduced positive discrimination in favour of Bumiputeras. This policy also extended to staff recruitment. Based on my own observations over more than a decade in Malaysian higher education, foreign academics have often been preferred over equally qualified non-Malay Malaysian citizens. Such practices were frequently justified on the grounds that they would help improve the international rankings of public universities.

Just yesterday, Kedah Executive Councillor Dr Haim Hilman Abdullah, a former Vice-Chancellor of Universiti Utara Malaysia, was criminally charged for suggesting that certain elites enjoy easy access to higher education. His case is likely to open a Pandora’s box of issues that will emerge during the trial.

I was once told in confidence by a public university Vice-Chancellor that Vice-Chancellors were previously selected by higher education ministers largely for their ability to advance the “Malay agenda” in public universities. Similarly, during the Pakatan Harapan 1.0 administration, former Higher Education Minister Maszlee Malik was criticised for appointing senior IKRAM-linked academics to top positions in public universities between 2018 and 2020.

The cumulative effect of these policies has been the creation of a form of elitism in public universities, characterised by a particular mindset that fosters a culture of ignorance and disdain towards ideas and perspectives outside its narrow worldview on higher education.

Over many decades, this has contributed to a strong culture of racism and bigotry. I have personally seen documentary evidence of resulting discrimination against foreign academics in Malaysia. As a consequence, their numbers are declining, with many leaving for higher education systems that are not burdened by this skewed culture.

One striking example is a SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) suit filed by a major Malaysian university against a former employee. The academic described to me the intense bigotry she faced, which ultimately made her position at the university untenable.

Bigotry Now Spilling Over to Social Media

This toxic culture is now spreading onto social media, often perpetuated by members of the so-called educational elite themselves. Dr Razali Mahfar, Executive Director of the International Institute of Public Policy and a board member of Universiti Malaya, publicly clashed with Dr Geoffrey Williams over the latter’s article titled “If Malaysia Has World-Class Universities, Why Are There So Many Underemployed Graduates?”

In a LinkedIn comment on the article, Dr Razali threatened Dr Williams, stating that he “should be deported back to the UK.”

Such comments are demeaning to the standards of higher education and set a very poor example for younger academics working in the Malaysian system.

These incidents point to deep cultural problems within Malaysian universities — problems that undermine not only freedom of speech and academic freedom, but the very foundational principles of education itself. Such mentalities stifle critical thinking, creativity and suppress innovation. From personal experience, I can attest that a toxic culture exists within many Malaysian universities that is fundamentally counter-productive to the core mission of higher education.

This issue deserves serious attention, open debate, and concrete solutions from all stakeholders in the higher education sector.

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In the world of business, certain books have achieved almost mythical status. They have dominated airport bookstores, corporate reading lists, and executive seminars for years.

In Search of Excellence (1982), Blue Ocean Strategy (2005), and a long line of successors promise transformative insights that will revolutionize how organizations are run. Yet a closer look reveals a pattern: many of these blockbuster “hits” rely more on compelling narratives, selective storytelling, and memorable metaphors than on rigorous, replicable science. Management, it seems, is far more art than hard science.

The Storytelling Machine

Consider In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman. The book analyzed “America’s best-run companies” and distilled their success into eight memorable attributes, such as “a bias for action,” “staying close to the customer,” and “management by walking around.” It sold millions of copies and shaped a generation of managers.

Critics, however, pointed to serious methodological weaknesses. The authors started with a list of high-performing McKinsey clients and applied criteria that have been described as unorthodox and largely unscientific. Many of the “excellent” companies later stumbled or declined, raising questions about survivorship bias and the durability of the lessons. Peters himself later reflected on the project in self-deprecating terms, with one infamous Fast Company article (which he approved) containing the line about having “faked the data”, though the phrase was more rhetorical flourish than literal admission.

The book’s enduring appeal lay not in ironclad empirical proof but in its engaging stories and practical-sounding principles. It turned complex organizational realities into digestible, actionable wisdom, a classic hallmark of effective business storytelling.

Blue Oceans or Recycled Ideas?

Blue Ocean Strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne became another must-read. It urged companies to stop competing in bloody “red oceans” of cutthroat rivalry and instead create uncontested “blue oceans” of new market space through value innovation. Tools like the strategy canvas and the four actions framework (eliminate-reduce-raise-create) gave it a practical sheen.

The ideas were built explicitly on earlier strategy thinking. It positioned itself against Michael Porter’s classic frameworks, particularly the notion of strategic trade-offs (e.g., cost leadership versus differentiation), where Porter emphasized choosing a position within existing industry structures. Kim and Mauborgne advocated breaking out of them.

Critics have noted that while the metaphors were fresh and powerful, the core concept of creating new demand or innovating on value-cost frontiers drew from longstanding ideas in innovation, entrepreneurship, and competitive strategy. It was only repacked into a great storytelling metaphor.

The book’s success came from its elegant framing and vivid imagery like oceans, canvases, and uncontested space, rather than groundbreaking new data. Many real-world “blue oceans” eventually attract competitors and turn red, as Porter and others predicted.

Why Narratives Win Over Data?

This pattern repeats across decades of management literature. Why? Complexity demands simplification: Organizations are messy, influenced by culture, timing, luck, regulation, and unpredictable human behavior. Rigorous academic research (with controls, large samples, and statistical validation) often yields nuanced, contingent findings that don’t sell as well as bold prescriptions.

Metaphors and stories are memorable. “Blue ocean,” “bias for action,” “disruptive innovation,” or “good to great” flywheel, become mental heuristic shortcuts. They travel easily from boardroom to boardroom.

Promotion and timing matter. Many hits emerge from consultants or academics with strong platforms (McKinsey alumni in the case of In Search of Excellence). A well-timed narrative that resonates with current anxieties. Japanese competition in the 1980s, globalization and commoditization in the 2000s are great examples and gain traction.

Values and opinions are at the core. Management inherently involves judgment calls about what “good” leadership, culture, or strategy looks like. These are not value-free scientific facts but normative choices. One leader’s empowering culture is another’s chaotic lack of accountability.

Art, Not Science

This doesn’t mean management books are worthless. Great ones provide inspiration, frameworks for thinking, and motivation to try new approaches. They synthesize experience and spark creativity. That’s these books innovation.

However, treating these books as proven scientific theories is a mistake.

True sciences like physics or biology rely on falsifiability, replication, and predictive power. Management research struggles here because context matters enormously, and controlled experiments are rare. What works at one company in one era often fails elsewhere. The best managers blend evidence (where it exists) with creativity, ethical judgment, and situational awareness. In short, they practice an art inspired by craft and experience.

The next time a shiny new management hit promises to solve your problems, approach it like a discerning patron of the arts. Enjoy the performance, extract useful techniques, but don’t mistake the fable for universal law. The real test is not whether the book topped the charts, but whether its ideas survive contact with the messy, unpredictable reality of your own organization. Management will always be more art than science. That’s what makes it endlessly fascinating and why storytelling will continue to outsell dry data.

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In the latter half of the 20th century, a remarkable constellation of thinkers reshaped how the world understood organizations, leadership, competition, and human enterprise.

Peter Drucker evolved Management by Objectives (MBO), knowledge workers, innovation and the general practice of management until the 1980s. Douglas McGregor developed Theory X and Y, W. Edwards Deming Total Quality Management (TQM), and Igor Ansoff developed the matrix of strategy. Michael Porter dissected competitive advantage, while Henry Mintzberg evolved management. Edgar Schein illuminated the hidden depths of organizational culture, showing how assumptions, artifacts, and values shape collective behavior in profound, often unconscious ways.

This is not to forget management thinkers like C.K. Prahalad, Gary Hamel, Peter Senge, Chris Argyris, John Kotter, Philip Kotler, Kenichi Ohmae, Steven Covey, and Charles Handy, just to name a few.

The above group were not mere consultants peddling the latest fad. They were intellectual architects whose ideas carried weight because they emerged from deep observation, rigorous analysis, and a humanistic concern for both performance and people.

Their frameworks like Porter’s Five Forces, Drucker’s management by objectives and innovation principles, and Schein’s cultural diagnostics, became foundational not just in business schools but in the actual practice of running enterprises across continents.

Yet as we sit well into the 21st century, one cannot help but notice a curious void. Where are the new giants of management? Why has the wellspring of truly transformative management thought seemingly slowed to a trickle since the turn of the millennium?

The Golden Age of Management Has Passed

The post-war era through to the 1990s was fertile ground for new big ideas. An environment where rapid industrialization, the rise of multinational corporations, the information revolution, and the shift from manufacturing to services created urgent, large-scale problems that demanded fresh conceptual lenses.

Thinkers of the time had the luxury and necessity of synthesizing economics, psychology, sociology, and systems thinking into coherent paradigms management is still using today.

However, today’s environment is different. Hyper-specialization within academia has fragmented knowledge. Business schools, increasingly run as profit centers themselves, reward narrow, quantifiable research published in top-tier journals over bold, integrative, and risky conceptual work.

The incentive structure favors incrementalism

One more regression analysis on executive compensation or digital transformation metrics, rather than sweeping theories that challenge fundamental assumptions about organizations and society is favoured in academia.

Globalization and financialization have also played their part. When shareholder value maximization became the dominant ideology, which have incidentally been fueled in part by earlier strategy concepts, management thought itself began to tilt toward tools that served the messy realities of human enterprise.

Strategy morphed into financial engineering. Leadership discourse often reduced to charisma, emotional intelligence checklists, or the latest neuroscientific fad imported are into boardrooms. The digital age brought another shift. The most influential “thought leaders” of the last two decades have largely come from the technology sector. These include Eric Ries with The Lean Startup, and Peter Thiel’s contrarian Zero to One, rather than traditional management academia.

Their contributions are valuable, particularly around agility, innovation under uncertainty, and monopoly power, but they tend to be practitioner-derived frameworks rather than deep, humanistic philosophies of management. Many are tactical methodologies suited to Silicon Valley’s venture-backed ecosystem, not universal principles for enduring institutions.

The Rise of DEI

The rise of DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) initiatives and broader “woke” cultural pressures has contributed to the stagnation of management thought by shifting focus from rigorous, integrative inquiry into organizations, strategy, and purpose toward ideological conformity and risk-averse identity politics.

Where earlier management giants like Drucker, Porter, or Schein pursued deep syntheses grounded in psychology, economics, systems thinking, and empirical observation of human enterprise, contemporary discourse in business schools and corporate strategy often prioritizes equity outcomes, representation metrics, and performative commitments to social justice.

This has narrowed permissible questions such as merit-based selection, cultural cohesion, competitive strategy, or the corporation’s primary purpose as value creation risk being framed as suspect or insufficiently “inclusive,” discouraging bold challenges to assumptions.

Critics argue this has fostered a chilling effect, where viewpoints of homogeneity masquerading as diversity, backlash against perceived reverse discrimination or tokenism, and a pivot from universal principles of leadership and organization to compliance-driven checklists and ESG scoring.

The result is more incremental HBR articles on “inclusive leadership” or unconscious bias training than paradigm-shifting frameworks for navigating complexity, human motivation, or institutional endurance. Philosophy and evidence-based critique of organizations as social institutions yield to technique and moral signaling, leaving management thought less fertile for the kind of courageous, outsider synthesis that defined its golden age. While diversity of perspectives can enrich decision-making when pursued meritocratically, the politicized form has often crowded out deeper inquiry into what truly drives performance, innovation, and purposeful enterprise.

The Rise of the Guru-Industrial Complex

Compounding this is the commercialization of management ideas. The modern “guru” circuit made up of TED Talks, LinkedIn thought leadership, executive coaching empires, and airport bookstore bestsellers all incentivized simplicity, memorability, and marketability over depth and durability.

Concepts fitted into 18-minute slots or catchy two-by-two matrices. Blue Ocean Strategy (2005) was perhaps one of the last books to achieve genuine paradigm-shifting status precisely because it offered both a compelling metaphor and analytical tools, that looked great with case studies.

Its authors’ later works, along with titles like Good Strategy Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt or Playing to Win by A.G. Lafley and Roger Martin, represent strong contributions, but they tended to only refine or operationalize existing ideas rather than breaking entirely new intellectual ground.

Today, we have abundant “content” in podcasts, frameworks, HBR articles, and annual lists of trending buzzwords like agility, purpose, ESG, and AI ethics. But genuine intellectual breakthroughs that redefine how we see the corporation as a social institution remain scarce. The corporation itself has, in many ways, become “soulless”, optimized for quarterly earnings, algorithmic decision-making, and talent as interchangeable human capital rather than as a community of purpose.

Structural and Cultural Factors Several deeper forces may explain this intellectual drought:

1. Complexity without synthesis: The problems organizations face today such as geopolitical turbulence, climate imperatives, technological disruption, generational value shifts are all made to appear interconnected. Few individuals possess the breadth or courage to attempt grand syntheses in the manner of Drucker. These cannot be seen inside the deep forest of new management ideas and concepts that may be developed.

2. Institutional capture: Business schools and consultancies have become too embedded within the system they should critique. True originality often requires a degree of outsider perspective or contrarianism that is risky in today’s cancel-prone, compliance-heavy environment.

3. The triumph of technique over philosophy: Modern management emphasizes tools, metrics, and data science. While powerful, this leaves less room for the philosophical inquiry that animated earlier giants, where questions about human nature, ethics, the purpose of enterprise, and the role of business in society.

4. Pace of change: In an era of rapid disruption, there is pressure for immediate applicability. The slow, reflective gestation period that produced enduring classics is out of fashion.

5. Commercialism: Most of all, management ideas and concepts packaged into products require expansive marketing campaigns, which promoters are unwilling to back, due to a crowded market and ease of others to copy.

A Call for Renaissance

This is not to diminish the many capable researchers and practitioners are doing excellent work today. However, the absence of towering figures whose ideas dominate discourse for decades should concern us.

Management is too important as it shapes how millions spend their working lives, how value is created or destroyed, and how power is exercised in society. It’s easier to settle for a steady diet of incrementalism and repackaged wisdom.

Perhaps the next great thinkers will emerge not from traditional Western business schools but from the dynamic, hybrid contexts of Asia, where rapid development, cultural pluralism, and different conceptions of harmony and hierarchy offer fresh philosophical soil. Or perhaps they will be iconoclasts working outside the academy altogether.

The giants of the past did not merely give us tools. They offered new ways of seeing. Until we rediscover the value of bold, integrative, and courageously humanistic inquiry into the nature of organizations in the 21st century, we may remain in this quiet stagnation, competent in execution, yet adrift without deeper purpose.

The question is not whether new ideas are possible. They always are. The question is whether our institutions, incentives, and collective imagination are fertile enough to nurture them. Then these ideas must be commercialized so society can find and make use of them.

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FOR decades, universities have sold themselves as the indispensable gateways to knowledge, status, and prosperity.

Brick-and-mortar temples of higher learning, sprawling campuses, and tenured professors in tweed jackets formed the sacred infrastructure of modern society.

However, China has just delivered a blunt verdict on this model.

Over 12,200 undergraduate programs were cut or suspended between 2021 and 2025, representing more than 30 per cent of the nation’s degree offerings.

In their place, roughly 10,200 new programs focused on artificial intelligence, embodied intelligence, brain-computer interfaces, agricultural robotics, carbon neutrality, and other frontier technologies.

This is not mere curriculum tinkering. It is a recognition that the university as we know it is rapidly losing its monopoly on education and relevance in the age of exponential technological change.

The Illusion of Eternal Relevance

Traditional higher education has long operated on a comforting but increasingly fragile assumption.

A student spends four years absorbing specialised knowledge in management, marketing, public administration, foreign languages, arts, or humanities, and a stable career will follow.

Governments, parents, and students worldwide still largely buy into this bargain. Degrees in these fields remain prestigious items globally, funnelling millions into lecture halls every year.

However, China is calling the bluff.

Many of these disciplines are now viewed as oversupplied, vulnerable to automation, or misaligned with the ruthless demands of a rapidly evolving economy.

Product design programs are being shuttered because AI handles modelling and rendering with superhuman efficiency. Translation and media programs are consolidating as tools reshape the creative and communicative landscapes. Management and administration courses that once promised entry into comfortable bureaucratic or corporate roles now look like tickets to obsolescence.

While the West and much of the Global South continue romanticising broad liberal arts education and churning out graduates for jobs that AI and automation are already eroding, Beijing is executing a cold, strategic pivot.

The message is clear: education must serve national technological self-reliance and labour market realities, not perpetuate institutional inertia.

Waning Institutional Authority

Universities are losing their gatekeeper status for several converging reasons.

First, the half-life of knowledge has collapsed.

What a student learns in their freshman year may be outdated or commoditised by graduation.

Second, AI and digital platforms democratize access to high-quality learning far beyond what any single campus can offer.

Third, the credential itself is devaluing as employers prioritise demonstrable skills, adaptability, and continuous learning over parchment.

China’s Reforms Expose The Emperor’s New Clothes

With over 12 million graduates entering the market annually and youth unemployment hovering in troubling territory, the old model of mass-producing degree holders for saturated fields is economically and socially unsustainable.

By slashing programs in oversupplied areas and seeding new ones in strategic technologies, China is forcing alignment between education and future economic power.

This pragmatism stands in stark contrast to many Western institutions still mired in debates over diversity quotas, administrative bloat, and the sanctity of traditional disciplines.

While some countries tinker at the edges with “digital literacy” add-ons, China is rebuilding the academic core around embodied AI, smart grids, and advanced manufacturing.

The Necessary Paradigm Shift

The deeper lesson here is that education itself must undergo a profound transformation.

The university-centric model—four years of residential, lecture-based, siloed specialisation- is becoming an anachronism. What replaces it will be more fluid, lifelong, outcome-oriented, and technology-augmented.

Today’s education needs to move toward systems emphasising:

Competence over credentials: Portfolios, projects, and real-time skill validation will matter more than GPA or institutional prestige.

Interdisciplinarity and adaptability: Rigid majors give way to modular, stackable learning pathways that evolve with technological and market shifts.

Integration of AI as co-educator: Not just teaching “about” AI, but learning with and through AI, where students master augmentation rather than compete against it.

Decentralised and experiential models: Apprenticeships, industry-embedded training, online micro-credentials, and problem-based learning communities will proliferate. China’s new programs in areas like intelligent audiovisual engineering and digital finance hint at this fusion.

Focus on uniquely human capabilities: While technical skills are crucial, the future belongs to those who excel in creativity, ethical judgment, systems thinking, and emotional intelligence. These are areas where AI remains a tool, not a replacement.

Critics will decry China’s approach as overly utilitarian, fearing a loss of cultural depth and critical thinking.

There is legitimate concern that an exclusive focus on economic utility could impoverish intellectual life.

Yet the alternative of clinging to outdated programs that leave graduates unemployed or underemployed is far more damaging to human potential and societal stability.

China’s move is a wake-up call. Other nations, still proudly offering the same menu of degrees that dominated the 20th century, risk producing generations mismatched to the 21st.

Rwanda and others tilting toward STEM are moving in a similar direction, but many remain trapped in legacy thinking.

The university is not dying, but its unchallenged dominance is.

The institutions that thrive will be those that reinvent themselves as agile nodes in lifelong learning ecosystems rather than static degree factories.

Governments must stop subsidising oversupply in vulnerable fields and incentivise alignment with emerging realities.

Individuals must embrace continuous reskilling as the new normal.

China has made its choice: prioritise the technologies shaping the future over comforting traditions of the past.

The rest of the world can follow, adapt creatively, or watch its graduates compete in a world that has already moved on.

The paradigm has shifted. Education must now catch up or become another obsolete institution consigned to history. – June 16, 2026

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Sophie under the cover of royalty

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The Chartered Management Institute (CMI), a UK registered charity with a Royal Charter and HRH Princess Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh as its Royal Patron, faces serious questions about whether it is involved in tax evasion running into millions of pounds over many years.

Sophie’s charity enjoys significant tax exemptions and reliefs under UK law. These include relief from corporation tax and tax on income and gains used for charitable purposes, mandatory 80% business rates relief, Stamp Duty exemptions and Gift Aid reclaims.

These benefits are intended to support the charitable purpose of Sophie’s charity from genuine public benefit work. Instead, income of Sophie’s charity, especially from its international operations, appears to be from predominantly commercial activities. Part of these commercial activities are through trading relationships with universities and private training providers in the UK and an increasing part is from large-scale commercial trading through a network of overseas franchises.

Commercial Reality vs. Charitable Status

The primary revenue of Sophie’s charity comes from selling memberships, certificates and diplomas, often through an extensive network of around 140 commercial franchises in about 39 countries outside the UK.

This trading activity is only tax-exempt if it aligns with the charity’s “primary purpose” or falls under the limited “small trading” exemption (below £80,000 for an organization of Sophie’s charity’s size). For substantial non-primary trading, charities typically require separate for-profit subsidiaries.

Sophie’s charity operates two such companies, but most revenue does not appear to flow through them. Instead, the organization directly benefits from commercial international franchise operations and sales that observers argue constitute commercial trading rather than charitable work.

In particular, the overseas income raises questions about tax-exempt status, compliance with overseas tax laws and compliance with the CMI Royal Charter..

Public disclosures show inconsistencies. While Sophie’s charity reports revenues such as £5.34 million from membership and £26.54 million from qualifications in its 2025 Annual Report, estimates based on declared member/learner numbers (over 230,000 total “membership community”) and typical commercial fees suggest significantly higher figures, potentially up to £19 million and £40.5 million respectively in these categories.

This creates a potential revenue gap of tens of millions of pounds over recent years, estimated at around £79 million across the last four years, with £27 million in the latest year alone. The gap has reportedly widened and there is limited transparency on breakdowns between UK and overseas revenue, franchise fees, agent commissions or the exact nature of “CMI Approved” centres.

Royal Patronage and Accountability

Princess Sophie assumed patronage of CMI from her father-in-law Prince Philip in 2019. Her involvement lends the organization considerable prestige and credibility, which has reportedly helped expand its international franchise network. Sophie’s charity promotes its offerings globally, competing with private providers while enjoying royal patronage and charitable tax advantages.

Further concerns include allegations that many certificates and “accreditations” sold by Sophie’s charity through third-party partners lack proper regulatory backing from bodies such as Ofqual or local authorities in key markets, primarily the Middle East and Southeast Asia. This has raised issues of potential qualifications fraud. The CMI Royal Charter prohibits Sophie’s charity from selling certificates without proper accreditation.

According to reports, Princess Sophie was informed in March 2026 with supporting documentation about these operational and regulatory issues, including ongoing investigations, civil and criminal cases and complaints from stakeholders. However, consistent with the reported royal approach of “never explain, never apologize,” no public acknowledgment or statement has been provided by her office.

Calls for Investigation

These discrepancies and structures have prompted calls for the UK tax authorities, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC), to examine Sophie’s charity’s activities more closely. Of particular concern is the classification of income, use of charitable status for commercial trading and whether the organization is fulfilling its public benefit obligations.

The growth in CMI activities from around £12.5 million in revenue with around 70,000 members at the time of its Royal Charter in the early 2000s to over £30 million with 260,000 members today, alongside questions about average revenue per member and the proportion derived from learners/students via commercial partners, underscores the need for greater transparency.

As a high-profile royal charity with royal patronage, Sophie’s charity operations carry added public interest concerns and high expectations of integrity. The combination of tax advantages, international commercial expansion, anomalies in revenue reporting and limited disclosure raises legitimate questions about whether the public and tax system are being fairly served.

Full transparency from Sophie’s charity and clarity from Sophie herself as its royal patron would help address these concerns. Until then, the issues of potential tax avoidance through misuse of the charitable status and the broader governance of such royal-linked organizations remain open.

Many are eagerly awaiting the CMI financial data in their upcoming annual report due at the end of this month.

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My latest column in The Vibes

VERY often, children with dyslexia are just considered ‘stupid kids’ or diagnosed as slightly autistic.

Both ‘diagnoses’ are incorrect, leaving the problem basically unaddressed in Malaysian schools.

As a result, many people go through life completely undiagnosed with the condition, which often leading to deep depression. This is confirmed with statistics.

According to the Ministry of Education’s Special Education database, 314,000, or 17 per cent of the students enrolled in primary schools, have some form of dyslexia.

Studies in the United Kingdom indicate that at least 80 per cent of students with dyslexia in the UK are never diagnosed.

Dyslexia is a general learning disorder that involves difficulty in reading and writing, due to not being able to listen and identify speech sounds and relate them to the written word, and make the necessary sounds to communicate back.

Dyslexia is neurological, and as such, can’t be cured. However, the condition can be adjusted.

The general signs of dyslexia are difficult to recognise before a child attends school.

The only tell-tale sign is that the child may be very slow to pick up speech as an infant.

At pre-school and early primary school, the child will be observed as a slow learner.

The varying severity of dyslexia often makes it very difficult to spot and diagnose, especially by untrained teachers.

The first obvious signs may only appear in the early primary grades, where a child has difficulty in learning new words, reading and repeating nursery rhymes.

As the child’s education continues, he or she will have trouble understanding and grasping new concepts presented in class.

Thus, in the class situation, a child will start falling behind the rest of the students, where social problems will begin to manifest.

This will lead to loss of self-esteem, lack of confidence, and possible depression at an early age, particularly if the child is not diagnosed. Often, they are targeted by other students for bullying, just because they are different.

During these years, the child will struggle with English comprehension, doing mathematics, solving mathematical problems, and learning a foreign language.

Dyslexia does not correlate with intelligence. This is a mistake many make in assessing these children.

Dyslexia is sometimes associated with other learning disorders, such as dyspraxia, the difficulty of performing coordinated movements, dyscalculia, the difficulty in dealing with numbers, dysgraphia, the difficulty of turning thoughts into the written word, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a hyperactive behavioural disorder.

In addition, dyslexia may be associated with prosopagnosia, a condition where a person has difficulties recognising people’s faces.

This will often be accompanied by a form of anomic aphasia, where a person has difficulty remembering names.

Like dyslexia, all the above are neurological disorders. There is a probability that these conditions may accompany dyslexia.

Due to the complexity of these disorders, differing extremities along a spectrum, and differing sets of symptoms, they are extremely difficult to diagnose, outside a clinical situation, where cognitive tests are done.

When dyslexia is associated with other disorders, the child may find great difficulty in learning.

This can lead to social integration problems, where on occasion they withdraw from parents, teachers and friends.

With the addition of ADHD, students may be seen as class disrupters, being anxious and/or aggressive in the classroom.

Without any assistance, these students are likely to eventually just drop out of the education system, with low self-confidence and self-esteem.

This often leads to delinquency.

If students can be diagnosed early, they can be assisted in the early years.

This may require one-to-one speech therapy, and specialists assisting the child in finding the best ways to learn.

The key with dyslexic students is teaching them how to learn alongside others.

This is most desirable as it assists these students in socially integrating with people around them. Being segregated into any “special needs” classes may lead to social isolation in future years.

If dyslexia is not discovered and diagnosed, the child will go through school life continually struggling to understand new work.

Children not knowing and understanding their disability may just go on living with low self-esteem, because they will continue to compare themselves with others through life.

In most cases, this leads to stress, anxiety and depression in life, where they will be incorrectly treated with drugs.

For example, they may be medically treated for depression when the real problem is learning to live with their cognitive disadvantages due to dyslexia. In addition, they may continue through life having trouble with relationships.

Dyslexia is of concern to about one in ten people. Undiagnosed, they may have trouble progressing in any career within regimented organisations, most of which are.

However, if they know how to compensate for their cognitive weakness, chances are they can go on and have a fulfilling career.

There is a strong positive correlation between ADHD and successful entrepreneurs.

Several studies have shown that people with ADHD can become high achievers with the energy, motivation, and give them a propensity towards action.

However, ADHD may also bring impulsiveness, which could lead to recklessness.

Once again, diagnosis is the key, so those who have ADHD know how to cope with the behavioural traits it brings.

One can build new strengths by understanding one’s weaknesses.

Dyslexia is a massive challenge for an already overloaded and under-resourced education system.

Putting the responsibility of finding and diagnosing dyslexic people on the teacher is grossly insufficient. Special and compulsory training needs to be incorporated within the teacher training curriculum as a minimum.

To support teachers, there must be a sufficient special education infrastructure behind them. This is made even more difficult, as the types and degrees of the dyslexic grouping require more art than science to assist students in learning how to learn and overcome their weaknesses.

There are no textbook remedies, where solutions are found through deductive problem solving.

This is especially the case when these conditions are mixed at different intensities require creative solutions.

Such an approach will assist many people to live fulfilling lives. This can turn many people who might be dismissed as losers into high achievers.

Now it’s time for you to re-examine yourself if you can relate to any of what is said above.

You may have some form of dyslexia, where you can learn how to cope and manage this condition. – May 25, 2026

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Many British legacy universities are now in a rapid decline due to misreading structural developments in the higher education environment, changes in management conceptions of their institutional role in education and repeated poor decision-making at the most senior levels. One such example is Nottingham University.

The University of Nottingham traces its origins to an adult education school founded in 1798 and Cambridge University Extension Lectures that began in Nottingham in 1873. The institution’s formal foundation is dated to 1881 with the establishment of University College Nottingham, which prepared students for University of London examinations.

An anonymous £10,000 donation in 1875 enabled permanent operations, leading to the laying of the foundation stone in 1877 by Prime Minister William Gladstone, whose father was a wealthy slave owner. The official opening of its neo-Gothic building on Shakespeare Street was inaugurated by Prince Leopold in 1881. Early departments in literature, physics, chemistry and natural sciences expanded rapidly to include engineering, classics, French, education and others. The college remained tied to the city until gaining greater independence through a royal charter in 1903.

Significant growth followed, including a move in the 1920s to the new University Park campus on land donated by local businessman Sir Jesse Boot (Lord Trent), and the Trent Building opened by King George V in 1928. High-profile visitors such as Einstein, H.G. Wells and Gandhi spoke there during this era. After rejecting a federal East Midlands university proposal, University College Nottingham received its own royal charter in 1948, becoming the University of Nottingham with degree-awarding powers.

Subsequent developments included the merger with the School of Agriculture, the UK’s first new 20th-century medical school in 1970, the opening of Jubilee Campus, purchase of the King’s Meadow campus and major expansion into international campuses in Malaysia and China. In recent years the university has faced controversies including the 2008 “Nottingham Two” Islamic terrorism case and a 2021 chaplain appointment which raised concerns about views on abortion and assisted suicide. The University’s achievements include an Athena SWAN Gold Award in 2023 for gender equality.

However, by 2025–2026 Nottingham University announced major financial pressures, leading to the planned suspension of 16 courses, which included all modern languages and music, where over 600 job cuts through redundancies.

Over the last 45 years, the British government have cut around 25 percent funding to public universities. These cuts had to be covered through increasing education fees where rises were restricted for British citizens. Hence, many British universities like Nottingham faced with low domestic birth rates in the UK source international students to increase revenue.

While this move raised university revenues it also meant that teaching standards had to be reduced to cater for students whose English was a second language. Over the last 3 decades, Nottingham University was forced to go through a metamorphous, where education in most faculties was turned into ‘factory’ like teaching, with pastoral care and responsibility on the part of educators reduced. Many tenured people were replaced with contract staff when they retired.

Over the past two decades the University made substantial capital investments to develop and expand its multi-campus model. This includes acquiring and refurbishing the King’s Meadow Campus in 2005 on a former television studio site and more recently purchasing the 3.75-hectare Castle Meadow Campus below Nottingham Castle in 2021 for £37.5 million, followed by over £40 million in refurbishment costs to prepare it for opening from 2023.

The university also invested heavily in its international campuses, relocating the Malaysia campus to a purpose-built 101-acre (41 ha) site in Semenyih in 2005 and establishing a full campus in Ningbo, China in 2004–2006, complete with a replica of the iconic Trent Building. These developments, alongside ongoing maintenance of the large Sutton Bonington agricultural and veterinary campus (over 221 hectares plus additional farm sites), the Jubilee Campus opened in 1999 and major facilities such as the David Ross Sports Village, significantly increased the university’s fixed assets and operational footprint.

However, many of these investments have since contributed to financial strain, with the 2024/25 accounts recording a £74.8 million impairment on the Castle Meadow and King’s Meadow campuses amid plans to sell both sites.

Consequently, the University of Nottingham reported a significantly weakened financial position in 2024/25. The Group recorded a deficit of £76.8 million, compared to a £220.7 million surplus the previous year, while the University alone posted a deficit of £71.5 million (vs a £220.1 million surplus in 2023/24). Total Group income rose modestly to £863.1 million, but expenditure surged to £947.4 million, largely due to a £74.8 million impairment on the revaluation of the Castle Meadow and King’s Meadow campuses and £11.3 million in restructuring costs.

On an adjusted basis excluding pension changes and one-off gains/losses, the Group recorded an underlying deficit of £85.3 million. However, Vice-Chancellor Jane Norman stated that the university moved from an underlying deficit of £3.2 million in 2024 to a small underlying surplus of £0.8 million in 2025.

Tuition fees remain the largest income source at £453.1 million, followed by research grants (£140.4 million), funding body grants (£118.1 million), and other operating income (£145 million). Endowments stand at £82.5 million, while total net assets declined to £761 million (Group) and £713.9 million (University alone).

Overall, the university is under considerable financial pressure, reflected in planned campus sales, course closures and significant staff redundancies, despite claims of a marginally improved underlying operating performance.

Nottingham Malaysia

The Nottingham Malaysia campus was the first British university franchise campus in Malaysia established through an invitation from the then minister of education and Nottingham graduate, Najib Razak, to establish an overseas campus in partnership between arms manufacturer Boustead Holdings Berhad and YTL Corporation Berhad. Najib was later convicted of unrelated corruption charges and sentenced to 12 years imprisonment.

A major driver of the decision was the impact of the Asian Financial Crisis and a misplaced prediction that the decline in overseas students could be mitigated by building bricks-and-mortar operations in one of the major markets. However, the Malaysian market situation was misread, as the federal government had opened at least 8 new universities in the early 2000s which soaked up much local demand.

After three years of planning the Nottingham franchise began with only 89 students in September 2000 in Kuala Lumpur and in 2005, relocated to a virtually unpopulated campus in Semenyih 40 miles away in a plantation owned by Boustead. This was a very unattractive site for studying, particularly from the Chinese market, where students expected to be domiciled in urban areas.

Under its previous CEO, Graham Kendall, Boustead had attempted to sell the Nottingham franchise in 2021 for a reported sum of RM137 million, less than it had invested over more than two decades of ownership. The sale was withdrawn in 2022.

Professor Graham Kendall denied Nottingham’s problems

Since then, the stability of the Nottingham franchise in Malaysia has been repeatedly called into question. Earlier this year it was revealed that the Malaysia operations is deeply in debt. The UK university accounts stated that the amount owed to them by the Malaysian campus stood at £7.6 million (about RM40.1 million) as of July 2025, up from £5.6 million (about RM29.3 million) the year before.

In an astonishing attempt to defend itself the university issued a statement denying that it was about to close down.

The financial difficulties of the Malaysian campus arise in part from a 22% decline in students from 2021, when they reported around 5,200 students to only 4,064 students in 2024. Income to the UK campus decreased sharply to £1.8 million (RM9.5 million) recorded in 2024 from just over £2.8 million (about RM14.8 million) in 2022. Nottingham fell victim to the rapid rise in the number of new higher education institutions being set up in China to absorb local student demand.

With the Nottingham UK campus itself struggling with survival following the announcement that the university will run out of money by 2031 putting 2,700 jobs at risk and more than 600 employees are already expected to be terminated in the next three years unions have started strike action and a marking boycott which could stop students from graduating. This will also impact students in Malaysia if dual marking schemes hit a choke-point in the UK.

In addition, the shockwave from recent announcement that the British government has blocked ‘UK degrees’ from the Newcastle medical campus in Malaysia has rippled through the other UK franchise campuses. In a recent email to students, David FitzPatrick, CEO of the Nottingham Malaysia franchise said, “We continue to operate with stability, invest in your education and campus experience, and deliver the high-quality Nottingham degree you enrolled to receive.”

When asked whether this was convincing a recent graduate replied, “Nope but as long as my Malaysian employers are convinced … it’s a different story overseas.”

A major factor in the decline of Nottingham University has been the decay of the ‘deep learning and education culture’ with a business culture where students have become a commodity rather than a learning cohort. Not just students have fallen victims to this culture. Nottingham has failed to protect its staff’s financial security, through not honouring work contracts to geographical escape clauses. Nottingham staff relocated from the UK to Malaysia found themselves destitute from the management’s reckless employment contract approach. Several ongoing labour disputes with local and overseas staff are still ongoing.

Like many UK institutions, Nottingham faces pressure from rising Asian universities and challenges in funding and competition. Nottingham currently remains a respected research-intensive university with strong real-world outcomes. However, its current financial situation may weaken future outreach in Asia, leading to potential closure in Malaysia.

The Nottingham case provides an object lesson for other universities from the UK and elsewhere who may be considering or even undergoing international expansion. Overseas markets may not yield the fruits expected at their inception and troubles in the home campuses as well as policy changes can damage perceptions and stakeholder approvals. This impacts financial stability which ultimately places franchise campus at risk, without any guarantee of support from any source.

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A portion of the letter (see in attached article) and Ann Franke

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Evidence is mounting that in a desperate attempt to defend their discredited reputation the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) has stooped so low as to use a fake UK government letter to deceive stakeholders in Malaysia, including the Malaysian government into the false belief that they have support from the UK government.

Our investigations have shown that a purported letter of support for the CMI written by a British Department of Business and Trade (UKDBT) education leader Sarah Chidgey is not genuine.

A copy of this letter was forwarded to one of the writers, indicating the letter dated April 9^th 2026 has been circulated very widely among CMI stakeholders in Malaysia, including potential 6,000 CMI members and 21 universities.

The letter was even forwarded to the higher echelons of the Malaysian higher education leadership including YBhg. Datuk Dr. Anesee bin Ibrahim the Secretary General at the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) and Prof. Dato’ Dr. Mohammad Shatar Sabran, the Chief Executive Officer of the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA).

Through examination of the layout of the letter alone, there are several details that indicate this was not an official letter from the DBT. These include:

· The logo and address are not aligned at the top;

· The telephone number at the bottom is a personal mobile number not an official UKDBT contact;

· The telephone format is incorrect for UK mobile numbers and the signature format is also incorrect;

· The signature is electronic or even written with a standard MS Word font which can be easily fabricated;

· The letter itself does not have the recipients’ addresses, positions or proper salutations on it;

· It is not a proper protocol for a letter to be addressed to two very senior people in this way, especially when they hold different roles in different organisations;

· It appears that this is a stock letter with recipients’ names inserted at the top which has been provided to allow CMI to change the recipients and send to a mass audience without further reference to the UKDBT for approval of the mass emails, and

· The letter is already being shared from the CMI in the UK with members of the general public with the recipients Datuk Dr. Anesee and Prof. Dato’ Dr Mohd Shatar identified.

The strangest issue was the name of the file that contained the letter which is labelled “DBT-SUPPORT-LETTER-ANN-FRANKE.” The letter was prepared for the use of Ann Franke, the CEO of the CMI, who faces allegations of perjury and witness tampering in the Malaysian courts.

In addition, the alleged author, Sarah Chidgey, is a member of the CMI International Advisory Committee and appears to have family connections with the CMI senior leadership. As such there is a conflict of interest in her writing this letter on behalf of the UK government.

Third, the remarks made in the letter which claim that the CMI is fully compliant with UK regulatory bodies including Ofqual and that there are no investigations taking place are totally incorrect. Our communications with the UK accreditation agencies found that both Wales and Northern Irelead had requested that CMI stop using their logos on certificates issued overseas. Further, Ofqual is still in the process of carrying out an investigation.

In regard to the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA), Sarah Chidgey stated that CMI’s certificates are fully acceptable within the MQA framework. This is incorrect and the CMI have been selling unregulated certificates in Malaysia since 2017. Although Sarah mentioned that the CMI Level 7 qualification has an ‘equivalency assessment’, the Level 4 and Level 5 certificates have not received any regulatory endorsement from MQA.

Can the DBT be trusted?

Finally, the letter is defamatory against two unmanned individuals who are claimed to be making false accusations is conduct unbecoming for correspondence coming from a British government department.

The writers have contacted Sarah Chidgey and the media section of DBT twice. One of the writers was given a promise that a formal reply would be provided by May 18 2026 which has passed without any explanation or verification of the letter by DBT.

Consequently, the DBT has given no denial or confirmation as to whether the letter is legitimate.

We also note that all of Sarah Chidgey’s social media has completely disappeared around three days after DBT was contacted by the writers. This is standard procedure in cases where civil servants have been suspended or sacked. No confirmation has been received from DBT.

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I developed this hypothesis just after I wrote my books on entrepreneurship. The theory of 8 types of imagination is now used in education and writing. It has also been claimed as an introspection on cosplay.

Here is an application developed for writers by the Argumentative Penguin published in The Writing Cooperative.

Understanding your Creative Engine — the 8 types of Imagination

The real engine of creative writing is the imagination. The ability to create new people from scratch, to put them into scenarios and to tell stories. If you cannot imagine, you cannot write. It is the single most important thing for you to understand about your process.

There are 8 types of imagination. I’ll broadly explain them according to the psychological model. For those of you who enjoy additional research you can have a look for Hunter (2012). Then I’ll highlight how they might specifically apply to writing and your work as a writer.

The more you understand your thought processes, the more efficiently you can work.

According to Murray. The Eight subsections of imagination are:

1. Effectuative imagination

2. Intellectual or constructive imagination

3. Imaginative fantasy

4. Empathy

5. Strategic imagination

6. Emotional imagination

7. Dreams

8. Memory Reconstruction.

It’s important to note that there is some overlap between each of these types of imagination. They don’t function entirely independently from each other and many of them combine during the course of every day.

Effectuative imagination

This is what allows us to synthesise existing ideas together from existing information. If I were to offer you a penguin and dog-poop sandwich, you probably don’t have to try it to know that you won’t like it. You simply took the existing information (the ingredients) and made a brand new construct (the sandwich).

As a writer you can think of yourself as a conduit for creating new ideas from existing information already in the creative sphere. You’re creating something new from something that already exists across all of human history. You’re joining a canon of writers who already exist and who have set templates and genres.

It’s important that you read, the more you read, the more information you have to draw on for your imagination. When you’re an avid reader, you’re an avid imaginer, when you’re an avid imaginer then you’re much better prepared to be a true story wrangler. You can take existing things and you can make them into something new. This is the heart of good scriptwriting.

Intellectual Imagination

is when you’re able to work from an existing plan or a definite idea and is guided towards a distinct purpose. Intellectual imagination is a very conscious and deliberate process.

For those of us that have a dream about a great piece of work, the one thing that we’re determined to write over the course of our lives. We want it to be absolutely right. In order to do this, we have to imagine — we have to research and we have to create something spectacular consciously and with a lot of effort and care. We may spend more than a decade or two researching it and creating something that transcends the financial reward we may get for it. The book Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett is a great example of this.

Imaginative Fantasy

This is when you’re able to generate new ideas from scratch and can be guided or unguided. This is what most writers and artists are good at. We usually have a moment of inspiration and go off to explore wherever the fantasy may take us. Lots of my time spent as a writer is done walking. Walking and thinking and daydreaming. Letting my brain go off in it’s own direction and return with things that haven’t been thought of yet.

Any time you walk into a library, just take a moment to stand and bathe in the collected imagination of humanity. Stories have been created in thousands of genres, millions of characters (some of whom are more famous than any living person) and billions and billions of words. All simply to take the story from one person’s head and implant it into someone else’s. Imaginative fantasy is the soul of creativity.

Empathy

This is a capacity that human beings have to mentally detach from ourselves and experience what another person is experiencing from their point of view. It allows us to take an imaginative stroll in someone else’s shoes.

To be a good writer I think you must have a great deal of empathy. I think it’s important for all the characters you write that you’re able to see the world as they see it. How else would you be able to create rounded characters otherwise? There is nothing worse than characters that feel false, particularly characters who are written as two-dimensionally evil. Even the most evil person thinks they’re the good guy. To understand that, you’ve got to have empathy.

Without empathetic imagination working at a high level all your characters will invariably sound like you.

Strategic Imagination

This is primarily concerned with ‘what could be…’. It’s the ability to spot opportunities and visualise what might happen if you were to take them. People who have an excellent strategic imagination will have a realistic understanding of their own skills, and be able to spot opportunities to develop

For us as writers, we need to be able to think about the limits of our abilities and our development. I would never begin to write a fantasy novel, I don’t have the staying power. I’ve played out the scenario in my head and can see me getting paralysed by the different writing requirements. Perhaps as I become more confident in my writing — but at the moment my strategic imagination is giving that eventuality a big thumbs down.

If it helps you to give strategic imagination a catchy name, then you can call it ‘wisdom’.

Emotional Imagination

This is a slightly trickier one to define. It’s concerned with manifesting emotional dispositions and extending them into scenarios. We need imagination to fuel our emotional states, we need to imagine the monsters to feel fear, imagine the scenarios playing out in our lives to make us feel anxious.

As writers, we need to be aware of our emotions and the emotions of human beings more generally. If we know how we can create fear, how to create sadness, laughter and we have the ability to play on those emotions — then we can generate form and structure that plays into this facet of our audience’s mindsets. Any time you’re starting to feel a lump in your throat whilst watching fiction, give a round of applause to the writer. They just hacked your brain.

Dreams

These are an unconscious form of imagination that we do when we’re asleep. Scientists are still deciding what these crazy little night visions are all about — but for those of us that dream, it can be a fun and sometimes scary way to access our imagination.

Dreams are great for writers. And I mean genuinely great. I strongly recommend keeping a pad and pen by your bed. Some of the best dreams I’ve had make the short list for pitches to production companies.

As your unconscious mind often deals with conscious problems whilst you sleep — you may find that the answers to your scripting problems appear fully formed in the morning (please please please please let that be the case!)

Memory Reconstruction

When we retrieve our memories of people, objects and events we use our imagination to regenerate the images. Memories are subconscious stored bits of information dragged into our conscious brain and our imagination often fills the gaps where memory hasn’t been curated properly.

A large part of my writing is memory reconstruction. I write conversations that I’ve had, I write people that I’ve met, I write about my relationships with real people and I give them different names. A lot of who we are and what we do goes into our writing. Memories made flesh.

Conclusion

Imagination is key to writing. It’s the engine that drives creativity. Imagining is key to human existence, not just for writers but for all of us. Without an imagination we cannot function emotionally, our memories wouldn’t work, and we’d lack the capacity to travel forwards or backwards in time. The strength of our imagination may be what makes us unique as a species.

For those of us that make a living by monetising our imagination — it’s important to keep this engine well oiled and functional. This isn’t something passive that happens. You have to take active steps on how to keep it running.

There are techniques you can use.

But sharing those techniques is for another day and a different article. Today I have a fairly hectic schedule of writing to adhere to. I hope that you’ve found this article informative and useful and that you’re already connecting the dots and working out which bits of your own imagination you will need to work on.

The full details on the 8 types of imagination can be found here:

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Ask any corporate employer in Malaysia what they want from graduates and they will give you a list of skills lacking in the local cohort of graduates. In fact, they have been doing this for decades, graduates have never been good enough for seasoned managers. Perhaps that is why entry level salaries for graduates are only around RM2,000 per month, barely above the minimum wage.

Employers will talk about self-confidence, the ability to communicate concepts and ideas and basic creative and problem-solving as basic skills that are lacking. For Gen Z they now include an absence of loyalty to the company, a lack of soft skills, professional etiquette and in-person experience due to virtual relationships built on phone Apps.

This problem is not new to local management educators. Existing weaknesses within management qualifications today have been covered in a previous article. This rigidness has led to graduates that present lots of issues when they were placed in front of potential employers who want prospective employees to show what they have during interviews.

Many local universities added communication workshops in their courses, some adding short courses on creativity and problem solving. Then around seven years ago some universities and colleges outsourced this problem to the UK based Chartered Management Institute (CMI) awarding a ‘dual certificate’ at the end of the courses.

The intention was to develop management and leadership skills for individuals, showing them how to work in teams through coaching and mentoring. There was meant to be a large focus on building communication and stakeholder relations skills and improving approaches to planning so that students could be more innovative. This was all intended to have a practical focus.

In fact, very few of these programmes were delivered by the CMI with their local partners and what little was provided was often online, focused on low-cost ‘management style’ sharing sessions on diversity, equity and inclusion, empathy for other cultures, promoting women in leadership or focusing on sustainability or environmental, social and governance (ESG). This is agenda driven advocacy not practical management and leadership training.

As a result, the burden of practical management education was left to existing lecturers, who usually come from an academic background. Most have never had a job outside of a university and are poorly equipped to prepare students for the challenges of the new labour market as employees let alone as managers.

Almost all academics, even in business schools, have never set-up and run their own businesses and the outcomes for graduates show this huge gap. Around 90% of Malaysian graduates look for jobs in an over-supplied labour market, with almost two million winding up underemployed in non-graduate jobs. Almost half of graduates are unemployed, underemployed or outside of the labour market.

Only 10% of graduates set up their own businesses or micro-enterprises growing to local, regional or global business powerhouses.

To tackle this there were new train-the-trainer sessions for the academics, delivered by external ‘expert consultants’ with ‘industry experience’ but no academic credentials. In the end very little, if anything from the original management curricula was changed as academics returned to the classroom and opened their old textbooks and slides again. As a result, employers still have the same perceptions of the local cohort of graduates.

Moving to the future in management education

The first thing that must be done is to understand the difference between learning management theories and practices on the one hand and on the other, organizing, communicating and solving problems creatively and pragmatically in practice. Learning how to work in groups requires a lot of practice and mentoring. In essence, the theory of management and practicing as a manager are two separate fields of study.

Once this is understood, universities and colleges can then tackle the problem by creating a stream of practical education within their management courses. This should not be just an add-on group assignment and presentation but a whole semester project in tackling a business problem or even starting a simple business enterprise from scratch.

This will involve developing specific workstreams on how to organize and deal with the forces that promote and inhibit efficient organization, how to communicate and present ideas effectively and how to use creativity, and problem solving in practice.

Students must learn how use and integrate all these skills at the same time within a workplace. All this cannot be undertaken within classroom formats, special facilities must be prepared.

In fact, in large multinationals special learning spaces are available to train staff. For example, retail giants have mock stores where managers learn how to run customer and operations systems effectively. Global hotel chains have student-run facilities with restaurants, guest rooms and front-desk operations on-campus.

In the 1980s, Swinburne University of Technology developed a Management Behavioural Laboratory (MBL) that contained several meeting rooms and office sets, where students would run preset exercises without teacher interference for a day. The area is decked out with cameras and microphones and their activities recorded. The groups would then be given feedback at the end of the day as to positive and negative behaviours and results.

These are only a few examples of what can be done but moving into this practical management education realm will very quickly lead to very positive results for local student cohorts.

For the universities and colleges this requires both an intellectual and financial investment. It also requires a significant change in mindset and leadership, not just in Business Schools but across all subjects and student cohorts. However, such an approach would very quickly enhance the reputations of universities and colleges that went in that direction.

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My latest in The Vibes

MANY Malaysian students pursue some form of management studies at universities. These include BBAs, MBAs, DBAs, and qualifications regarding entrepreneurship.

The problem with such degrees is that they don’t necessarily lead to employment, where many graduates remain unemployed for longer periods than graduates in science-related courses.

There are a number of weaknesses within management qualifications in Malaysia. These problems range from the materials contained within the courses offered, the methods of teaching, and the experience of those who teach these qualifications.

Curriculum

Traditionally, a university faculty would spend a great deal of effort on developing a new curriculum. Most often, the process would take a year or more and cost the salaries of one or two senior academics.

However, in Malaysia, many, if not most, universities take shortcuts by ‘cutting and pasting’ bits and pieces of other university curricula with similar courses.

Sometimes, Malaysian academic staff recycle material from another university that is serving a market in a different culture and economy.

For example, curricula developed in the urban United States, UK, or Australia will be post-industrial rather than those of a developing economy like Malaysia. This will have a great effect on material content and may not be suitable for Malaysian cohorts.

In an overseas university, a new curriculum might be developed by very senior and experienced academics. In Malaysia, junior academics will be requested to undertake the task.

Within the entrepreneurship domain, there is more teaching about what entrepreneurship is rather than how to become an entrepreneur. Many of these courses will include standard management subjects to fill in the course.

Method of teaching

Business subjects tend to be taught in Malaysia through textbooks. A particular textbook is usually set for a course subject. So, students will most likely be obligated to buy many textbooks throughout their course of studies.

Exam questions are most often taken from textbook content, which restricts the scope of studies, discouraging students from seeking information further afield.

Management subjects tend to be restricted to classrooms where the educational support structure is minimal.

Facilities like management behavioural laboratories are absent, thus students tend to rely upon textbook-based structured teaching.

In entrepreneurship, start-up labs may exist. However, virtually none of them are connected to any group of practademics who can guide students to a start-up.

Those who teach management

In Malaysia, those who teach management subjects at universities tend to be full-time academics with no working business experience.

Making nasi lemak at home for sale at the pasar malam is excluded. In addition, there are many staff teaching changes within faculties, so lecturers are hindered from becoming experts in any field. One semester, a lecturer may teach human resources and the next semester transfer to marketing.

Coupled with textbook-based approaches to teaching led by inexperienced staff, a business subject may just become a chapter-by-chapter reading session based on textbook PowerPoint slides.

Other impediments

Staff have little time to immerse themselves in the depth of the subjects they teach. An academic is smothered by writing up things like staff attendance, confirmation of what was covered within the class,

Outcome-Based Education (OBE) requirements are based upon Bloom’s Taxonomy, which is not an evidence-based theory and may be outdated in online societies. Academics may also have to follow ISO guidelines if their faculty has accreditation.

Given the faculty requirements for academic staff to meet the above requirements, there is no room left for staff to prepare innovative classroom activities.

Such is the plight of Malaysian business education, where it needs to follow textbook theories, excluding useful local business theories.

Management education in Malaysia lacks the passion that academics need to exhibit and pass on to students in their classes. There is very little to inspire students today in business courses.

Business degrees tend to be an afterthought within many universities and are seen as a cash cow, due to low start-up and operating costs. Students today are the victims of this. – May 6, 2026

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By Murray Hunter and Geoffrey Williams

FOR decades, the British education sales pitch has been as seductive as it is simple: obtain a prestigious, “equivalent” British degree at a fraction of the cost without ever leaving Malaysia.

The British universities’ Transnational Education (TNE) model, enacted through twinning programmes and franchise campuses with private higher education institutions, has long been the crown jewel of Malaysia’s target to become an international higher education hub.

Last month, this vision was given a fresh coat of paint and relaunched through the UK Department for Business and Trade (DBT), backed by the British High Commission in Kuala Lumpur, which launched a new handbook designed to help UK universities expand their TNE footprint here.

With an estimated 43,000 Malaysians currently enrolled in UK-certified programmes, the business of British education is booming.

Education is already a major component of British service-based exports to Malaysia, making up at least 14 per cent of British exports to Malaysia.

Beneath the glossy brochures and high-level launches, the structural integrity of the “UK Degree” in Malaysia is beginning to crumble.

A recent legislative shift in the Home Office in London has exposed a disturbing reality for nearly 850 medical students at Newcastle University Medicine Malaysia (NUMed), leaving them in a state of limbo that threatens to turn their personal RM700,000 education investments into “stranded assets.”

The ‘Physical Presence’ Wall

The reason that led to the crisis is the Medical Training (Prioritisation) Act 2026, which became law on March 5.

This Act fundamentally rewrites the rules for the UK Foundation Programme (UKFP), which is required for medical graduates to achieve full General Medical Council (GMC) registration and practice in the UK.

While NUMed degrees in Malaysia are marketed as “equivalent” to those issued by Newcastle University in Britain, the new law introduces a “physical presence” requirement for study.

Priority for training posts is now reserved exclusively for those who physically studied within the UK.

For the 107 students in the current graduating cohort and the 750 following them, this means being relegated to a “reserve list.”

In a system where UK-based graduates consistently fill all available slots, the reserve list is, for most, leads to a career dead end after putting so much time and effort into obtaining the local degree.

For the international students who make up nearly half of NUMed’s body, the situation is even more cynical.

They face a “policy wall” at both ends. They are locked out of the UK by the 2026 Act, yet they remain barred from practising within the Malaysian healthcare system due to rigid citizenship requirements for housemanship.

This occurs despite a “vacancy paradox” in Malaysia, where over 5,000 housemanship spots sit empty while highly trained, locally-based talent is left to rot on the sidelines.

A Pattern of Devaluation: The CMI Factor

This is not an isolated incident of regulatory misalignment, but it is part of a widening pattern of “qualification fraud” and the watering down of accreditation integrity in the Malaysian private education sector.

The writers have previously highlighted that regarding the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) accreditations, there is now a growing disconnect between what is marketed to students and what is delivered on the ground.

Such qualifications may have the same name as the British counterparts, but the course content is very different.

In many instances, Malaysian private and some public universities dangle “dual certification” or “professional accreditation” from bodies like the CMI to justify premium fees, but this is totally incorrect due to local non-accreditation and the qualifications not being recognised in the UK.

However, much like the NUMed crisis, the value of these certificates often evaporates on closer inspection.

CMI certificates in Malaysia are sold through commercial agency arrangements with Malaysian universities and training centres without the rigorous oversight from UK accreditation agencies.

As such, the “equivalence” does not translate into professional recognition in the global market, where such certificates become little more than an expensive piece of wallpaper.

The NUMed case is simply the most terminal example of this trend, where the “British brand” is used as a marketing front for a product that has been functionally gutted by legislative or regulatory changes.

The Ethics of the “Equivalent” Product

While NUMed is not responsible for the whims of the British government, the institutional response raises serious ethical questions.

When students on the “reserve list” are reportedly told by the university to simply “look at different countries,” it represents a total collapse of the value proposition they were sold.

How can a university continue aggressive recruitment, ramping up batches to 170 students, while a legislative lockout is in full effect?

If a qualification no longer provides the professional access to the UK that it once did, the marketing narratives and, crucially, the fee structures must reflect that diminished utility.

To charge an international student RM700,000 for a degree marketed with a promise of UK GMC registration, while knowing that path is effectively sealed, borders on predatory marketing.

The higher education institutions that offer such qualifications must take responsibility towards their student cohorts and firstly raise the alarm, and secondly work towards finding some solutions for their graduates.

Students’ “profound sense of betrayal”

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a student representative shared the feelings of the NUMed students, “There is a profound sense of betrayal; we invested years and significant fees into a UK-accredited degree, only to be retroactively devalued and left professionally stranded.”

NUMed Response

A spokesperson for NUMed said: “We recognise that the UK Government’s recent changes to medical training prioritisation in the UK are deeply distressing and unsettling for our students, particularly those who had hoped to pursue their careers in the UK.

Currently, graduates from NUMed are placed on a reserve list, and while this reflects a change in prioritisation, they still retain an opportunity to be allocated a training post.”

“We have consistently been clear that access to postgraduate training is not guaranteed; however, we fully acknowledge that the ability of many graduates to progress into the UK Foundation Programme in recent years has understandably shaped student expectations.”

“Our immediate priority is to support our students by helping them explore all available options, including alternative routes to General Medical Council registration, such as a housemanship, which is only available to Malaysian students, alongside providing information on international medical career pathways and dedicated careers events.”

“The MBBS degree awarded by NUMed remains a General Medical Council-accredited Primary Medical Qualification. It continues to be recognised as a high-quality UK medical degree, enabling graduates to pursue medical registration and training opportunities in a wide range of countries.

“NUMed graduates have a strong track record of progressing into successful medical careers across the UK and globally, and we remain fully committed to supporting our current students to achieve the same outcomes.”

A Litmus Test for TNE

The NUMed crisis is a cautionary tale for the massive expansion of UK universities into markets like India and across ASEAN.

It reveals that “equivalence” is a fragile concept that can be revoked by a single change in regulation, leaving students as the ultimate losers in a high-stakes game of educational arbitrage.

The Malaysian government has a golden opportunity to solve its 5,000-post vacancy by creating specialised pathways for these locally-trained international graduates.

Simultaneously, the Ministry of Higher Education must demand greater transparency and follow-up on the position of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who said only last week that universities must stop “churning out certificates” and not become “certificate factories”.

We can no longer allow UK TNE providers, British franchise campuses and twinning partnerships to hide behind “institutional silence.” Regulatory transparency must be enforced.

If a UK degree from a Malaysian campus no longer opens the door to the UK, the brochure needs to say so on the front page before the student signs away nearly a million Ringgit for a dream that is no longer for sale. – May 4, 2026

Originally published in The Vibes

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My latest column in The Vibes

TODAY’S education is crucial for tomorrow’s society. Society’s culture is primarily framed through education that took place over the last generation.

In Malaysia, the issue of education is extremely controversial.

Yet, society is continuously changing, while the evolution of education is almost stagnant and lagging behind the needs of society and the people living within it.

What is needed within today’s education system goes far beyond science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), and the medium of instruction.

Somewhere between 48-52 per cent of secondary students don’t go on to tertiary education, going straight into ‘general’ society after secondary school.

Education should be a catalyst to nurture the youth of today in growing up, learning to not just survive, but prosper.

Education must fulfil these aims rather than just being a tool to ensure social conformity by conditioning students to accept their current place in society, as expected of them.

Education should prepare people for life challenges ahead.

Education should nurture students to be able to perform to their true potential in society. Their potential is certainly much higher than where most end up today.

The new needs of today’s education

Today’s education should not just be seen as a forerunner for tertiary education.

Secondary education must prepare Malaysians for the real world out there today.

The most important lesson that anybody can take away from school is how to learn.

So many students go to university and have never been taught how to actually learn.

This is a basic skill the education system doesn’t provide today.

Students must be taught how to solve problems.

This is an expansive area, as there are many different types of problems with different approaches needed to find solutions to different types of problems.

Solving problems often requires creativity. Creativity is a means to innovate, which is a means to add value and quality to what someone is doing.

Creativity and innovation are a necessary lifetime skill, that is not just required of those becoming an entrepreneur or small business operator, but the general community at large in seeking life satisfaction.

Critical thinking is another important skill that students are not taught in school.

Most subjects currently being taught lack this aspect, even though schools claim curricula are based upon Bloom’s Taxonomy, a widely used framework in education used for classifying learning objectives and skills.

Lessons should be aimed at teaching the above skills.

This should be permeating through school curricula.

History class should teach people how to go about research. Language comprehension should invoke critical thinking.

Assignments should be aimed at teaching people how to present their ideas to others throughout their life.

Secondary education lacks the framework to teach people how to find opportunities. This includes both opportunities for business and opportunities for life enhancement.

Then students should be able to utilise their critical thinking to evaluate opportunities they can see, and then creativity and innovation to set out paths they can use to pursue these opportunities.

In this paradigm, life is itself an entrepreneurial venture, so entrepreneurship should be part of all school curricula.

This would reflect the fact that only around 50 per cent of secondary school graduates go on to university or other higher education. Many students will disappear into what is called the ‘informal economy’.

Students must be taught to be able to generate ideas and develop the skills they need to fulfil them.

Consequently, business and home economics skills should be put into the curriculum once again.

Students must also be given an introduction to vocational or TVET activities. This will enable some to realise they have good aptitudes for ‘green collar’ activities, which, coupled with simple business skills, allow them to financially benefit.

TVET should be promoted as an attractive education path to students

Finally, students indeed have religion within their courses. However, this doesn’t necessarily translate to ethics.

There should also be ethics classes within schools. This is particularly needed to assist in steering future citizens away from corruption.

As mentioned at the beginning of this piece, education shapes society’s culture in the future.

Students must be taught to ask questions during their education and learn to be assertive.

The massively high power-distance, where subordinates never question superiors, is blocking creativity and innovation across workplaces.

This doesn’t mean that students should be overbearing and obnoxious. Rather, students should learn to be assertive enough to learn.

This approach will help to pull down the high power-distance that exists within Malaysian culture, which will hopefully lead to a more creative workforce in the future.

Today, technology is advancing very quickly and drastically affecting the workplace.

These issues must be tackled immediately, otherwise the education will be teaching people to participate in a workforce that they aren’t ready for in the future.

As students are learning skills which are no longer needed within a changing society.

This means integrating artificial intelligence (AI) and showing students how to be creative with it and master it as a tool, rather than allowing it to take away potential jobs.

The job market is rapidly changing, and the education system must follow suit rather than remain stagnant.

Today’s organisations and corporations are becoming ‘soulless’ because people cannot critically think, solve problems and adequately present new ideas.

Humans are now operating as ‘zombies’ in many industries today.

The advice above would revolutionise the education systems. It’s not about allocating more resources, but using existing resources to fulfil the above objectives.

This can be done almost immediately. It just needs the will to do it. – May 2, 2026

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Purported author of slanderous letter Sarah Chidgey (see letter below)

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In a throwback to the colonial era, a letter purportedly written by a British civil servant in London, Sarah Chidgey, Head of International Education in the British government’s Department for Business and Trade (DBT), is circulating in the Malaysian higher education system.

Ms. Chidgey’s missive rehearses several false pretences made in support of their client the Chartered Management Institute (CMI), which is embroiled in a legal and reputational battle related to the selling of unaccredited certificates through commercial agency arrangements with Malaysian universities and training companies.

The UK government dispatch from a lower middle-ranking bureaucrat is addressed to the most senior people in the Malaysian higher education system including Dr Anessee Ibrahim the Secretary General of the Malaysian Higher Education Ministry (MOHE) and Dr Mohammad Shatar Sabran the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA).

The objective of the letter, which has so far not been verified as authentic by the DBT, appears to be to insist that CMI certificates sold in Malaysia meet all accreditation regulations in the United Kingdom (UK).

The implication is that Malaysia, as a former colony, should accept the authority of its erstwhile colonial masters, notwithstanding its own sovereign law and regulations with which CMI does not comply.

Despite ongoing litigation and regulatory investigations Ms. Chidgey’s letter further claims that, “CMI are now being specifically targeted with accusations of wrong-doing and demonstrably false claims about the legitimacy of the Dual Award model.”

The letter has come amid several other revelations about the accreditation and recognition of so-called “UK degrees” offered at British franchise universities in Malaysia. One example of this is the medical degree at Newcastle University in Malaysia (NUMed), which the British do not recognize for direct entry into medical training in the UK.

Claims by the Department of Business and Trade concerning CMI

Ms. Chidgey, claiming to act for the DBT, insists that the UK government is not aware of any compliance issues relating to CMI global operations. This is despite multiple UK government investigations and public domain coverage in local and regional media of compliance concerns related to the commercial sales of CMI certificates.

She claims falsely that the Malaysian MOHE investigation into CMI exonerated them, but she left out the MOHE conclusion that CMI must contact the MQA for formal regulatory compliance.

Following that meeting, MQA advised CMI to complete a formal equivalency assessment of their certificates and issued a public statement that universities should stop selling unaccredited certificates such as those sold by CMI.

In support of CMI Sarah insisted that one CMI Level 7 certificate had achieved Malaysian Qualifications Framework (MQF) equivalency status as a TVET certificate in December 2025.

She failed to mention that this is not an accreditation status, nor that the CMI has been selling unregulated certificates since 2017 and currently has many Level 4 and Level 5 certificates sold through Malaysian universities that are not regulated by the MQA.

In the opening paragraphs of her letter Sarah mentions the UK certification bodies including Ofqual, Qualifications Wales, CCEA Regulation, and the Scottish Qualifications Authority. After a thorough investigation by the writer, all these UK authorities have confirmed that no CMI certificates or diplomas offered outside the UK are accredited by them. Local accreditation outside the UK is solely a matter for local accreditation agencies, in the CMI case this is local accreditation is absent.

Personalization, defamation and conflict of interest

In an extraordinary departure from professional, intergovernmental etiquette, Sarah Chidgey personalizes her defence of CMI by attacking, “… individuals [who] continue to undermine and disparage the operating models of UK Professional Bodies in Malaysia, specifically the Chartered

Management Institute and the Dual Award model.”

She goes on to solicit and importune the Malaysian government for help to protect the CMI and to attack the “individuals” by jointly condemning them in public and officially denouncing the evidence of malpractice at CMI. This borders on defamation and is wholly inappropriate for a civil servant.

Ms. Chidgey is less forthcoming about her own personal interests in the CMI. There is reason to believe that she has at least one family member in a senior position in the CMI.

She is also a member of the CMI International Advisory Committee, despite there being no public record of official UK government approval for that appointment. This membership allows her access to networks of senior business leaders and royalty in the UK and comes with remuneration for attendance expenses, time off work and travel and accommodation for meetings.

The letter was provided to the CMI CEO Ann Franke which shows a close relationship with the CMI and its senior officers which breaches the standards of civil service independence.

Examination of Sarah Chidgey’s letter can lead to only two conclusions. First, she has gone rogue by using an official DBT letter for fraudulent purposes to help and support her friends and family.

Second, if the letter is an official correspondence, then it appears to be the official policy of DBT to lie to foreign governments about the UK products and services they are promoting for export around the world.

The DBT have been contacted for comment on the fact of Sarah Chidgey’s letter and its contents and also to comment on whether it is authentic and represents official UK government policy. In addition, Sarah Chidgey has been contacted directly. At the time of writing, they have not replied.

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This is my latest column in The Vibes

QUALIFICATIONS fraud is quite easy to understand, it is passing off certificates as being genuine, accredited and regulated when they are not.

For a country like Malaysia, having a reputation for fake certificates or slack regulation of qualifications is a direct threat to the aims of the Malaysian Higher Education Blueprint (MHEB) 2026-2035.

It also leaves students who have borrowed money to attend universities and colleges victims receiving certificates and diplomas that have no accreditation status in Malaysia.

Simply put, qualification fraud means misrepresenting non-regulated certificates and diplomas as being regulated by a national accreditation authority such as the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA).

Historically, Malaysia has been very susceptible to qualifications fraud due to the proliferation of British and other overseas degrees touted by private education institutes around the country. This went unregulated until the MQA was formed back in 2007.

However, even with the assistance of the MQA there are several unaccredited foreign qualifications still on offer from both public and private higher education institutions in Malaysia.

Some institutions offer UK degrees and qualifications promoting them as being “British Accredited.”

However, investigations with the UK authorities found a different story. The UK accreditation agencies made it clear that any UK qualification offered outside of the UK by an overseas higher education institution is not regulated by the UK authorities.

In November 2024, the MQA CEO Datuk Professor Dr. Mohammad Shatar Sabran issued a stern warning.

No qualifications should be issued by local higher education institutions unless they are accredited in Malaysia by the MQA.

The latest case to gain attention are the Level 4 and 5 certificates issued by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) from the UK.

Unaccredited CMI certificates are offered through as many as 21 local higher education institutions.

It is apparent that in most cases the universities involved were not aware of the accreditation issues when they offered CMI certificates as ‘Dual Accredited’ degrees, packaging them with their own valid certificates.

Fortunately, as a direct response to the controversy, several universities have already taken decisive action.

Asia Pacific University (APU) has stopped advertising CMI certificates, the Malaysia University of Science and Technology (MUST) has reportedly ended its contact with CMI.

It is also understood that UiTM is also reviewing their position in offering CMI certificates through their campuses.

A number of other universities are also in the process of reviewing CMI certificates following the lead of APU and MUST.

Even though the MQA has stressed that higher education institutions issuing unaccredited qualifications erodes public trust in the higher education system and may cause students to invest time and resources in credentials that lack legal and professional standing, the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) has been lax in enforcing the issue of accreditation.

The ministry has been contacted several times by the writer but has so far not provided any reply or public clarification.

The ministry’s current silence is raising concerns among stakeholders who are calling for more robust regulatory enforcement to protect students and the reputation and integrity of Malaysian higher education.

Questions are also being raised about Malaysian higher education institutions relying on additional endorsement of local degrees by foreign organizations rather than emphasizing the quality of MQA regulation alone.

The dangers of qualification fraud extend beyond individual cases, posing systemic risks.

The circulation of unregulated certificates undermines confidence in Malaysian graduates and diminishes the national reputation for academic excellence.

Employers struggle to distinguish genuine qualifications from fraudulent ones, leading to unfair hiring practices and lost opportunities for deserving candidates.

Moreover, students who unknowingly pursue such credentials may face setbacks in their career progression, unable to secure jobs or further study due to invalid certification.

Some Malaysian universities are now taking the matter into their own hands by adopting blockchain-powered “Zero Fake Certificates” credentialing through a system called BlockchainCert by a local organisation called MasChain.

Such tamperproof and instantly accessible and verifiable digital certificate systems are adding integrity to Malaysian higher education.

To safeguard the future of higher education in Malaysia, stakeholders must prioritise transparency and regulation.

The MQA’s guidance highlights the importance of verifying programme accreditation and ensuring that qualifications are recognised both locally and internationally.

By addressing qualification fraud proactively, Malaysia can protect its students, uphold the integrity of its educational institutions, and maintain its standing as a centre of academic excellence in the region. – April 22, 2026

The observations reflect the writer’s personal insights and do not necessarily represent the official stance of The Vibes.com

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Qualifications fraud is an escalating threat to the integrity and credibility of Malaysia’s higher education sector with senior figures promoting unaccredited courses and the higher education minister remaining silent.

The ongoing controversy surrounding the Chartered Management Institute (CMI) has brought to light concerns about the legitimacy of certificates issued without proper regulation in Malaysia, sparking robust debate among students, educators, and employers about the authenticity of qualifications and their impact on career prospects.

In November 2024, the Malaysian Qualifications Agency (MQA) CEO, Dato’ Prof. Dr. Mohammad Shatar bin Sabran, issued a stern warning: certificates should not be issued for courses or qualifications unregulated within Malaysia.

The MQA stressed that such practices erode public trust in the higher education system and may cause students to invest time and resources in credentials that lack legal and professional standing. This warning is a crucial reminder for institutions to adhere strictly to national accreditation standards and for students to remain vigilant when selecting their courses.

As a direct response to the controversy, several universities have taken decisive action. Asia Pacific University (APU) has stopped advertising CMI certificates, while Malaysia University of Science and Technology (MUST) has reportedly ended its contract with CMI. These moves underscore the seriousness of the issue and the commitment of some Malaysian universities to uphold academic integrity.

Elsewhere the former higher education director general Dato’ Seri Dr. Mohamed Mustafa Ishak is actively promoting the CMI as chair of its regional board and his successor as Vice-Chancellor of Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM), Professor Dr. Ahmad Martadha Mohamed sells unaccredited certificates from the CMI in the Othman Yeop Abdullah Graduate School of Business (OYAGSB) at UUM.

Former higher education director general Mohamed Mustafa Ishak (left) is actively promoting the CMI as chair of its regional board and his successor as Vice-Chancellor of Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM), Professor Dr. Ahmad Martadha Mohamed (centre) is selling unaccredited CMI certificates at UUM, meanwhile the Malaysian higher education minister Zambry Abdul Kadir (right) remains silent

Malaysia’s largest university, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) is also actively supporting and celebrating issuing unaccredited certificates from the CMI.

Despite the active involvement of leading public universities in selling unaccredited CMI certificates, the warning from MQA remains unenforced and although the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE), led by its minister Datuk Seri Diraja Dr. Zambry Abdul Kadir and secretary general Datuk Dr. Anesee bin Ibrahim, is aware of the issue, so far no public action has been taken.

The ministry’s current silence has raised concerns among stakeholders who are calling for more robust regulatory intervention to protect students and the reputation of Malaysian higher education.

Questions are also being raised about the undignified reliance of Malaysian universities on endorsement by foreign organisations embroiled in legal action in Malaysia and concerns about misrepresentation of their accreditation around the world.

This contradicts the MOHE position while preparing the new Higher Education Plan 2025-2035 when Zambry repeatedly reminded Malaysians that no foreign consultants were used in dictating the future of Malaysia’s higher education.

The dangers of qualification fraud extend beyond individual cases, posing systemic risks. The circulation of unregulated certificates undermines confidence in Malaysian graduates and diminishes the national reputation for academic excellence.

Employers struggle to distinguish genuine qualifications from fraudulent ones, leading to unfair hiring practices and lost opportunities for deserving candidates. Moreover, students who unknowingly pursue such credentials may face setbacks in their career progression, unable to secure jobs or further study due to invalid certification.

To safeguard the future of Malaysian higher education, stakeholders must prioritise transparency and regulation. The MQA’s guidance highlights the importance of verifying programme accreditation and ensuring that qualifications are recognised both locally and internationally.

By addressing qualification fraud proactively, Malaysia can protect its students, uphold the integrity of its educational institutions, and maintain its standing as a centre of academic excellence in the region.

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