Softly Speaking: National Transformation in a Developing Country

Softly Speaking: National Transformation in a Developing Country

Chun Kwong Han
Copyright: © 2012 |Pages: 11
DOI: 10.4018/ijpop.2012070104
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Abstract

The Malaysian Government has been taking a radically new approach to national transformation in the past three years. The Government Transformation Programme was initiated in 2009, followed by the New Economic Model and Economic Transformation Programme in 2010, and subsequently political and rural transformation. The “Transformation Budget 2012” announced the “National Transformation Policy”. Presently, transformation can be perceived as the inception stage, as the various programmes will be undergoing a long continuous implementation journey into 2020. In order to make a real significant change to the country, the transformation needs to be driven from a synthesis of economic, managerial, organizational, social and technological dimensions at the multiple levels of the individual, organization, industry, government, society and nation. The author offers another way of seeing and doing transformation using a “theory of everything” based on simplicity and sophistication. The extant national transformation model of “Doing and Being” or Yin Yang is a simplicity model. As Malaysian academicians, we have a significant role to provide thought leadership by combining the “Doing and Being” with a sophisticated model based on an understanding the complexity of human behaviour. The author combines the Pemandu’s model with a model of sophistication based on an enhanced framework of critical practice. The author defines critical practice as an iterative reflexive process, firstly by developing knowledge-for-understanding from a sophisticated model of reality. Secondly, the author provides a critique of underpinning assumptions and presumptions whereby the constraining conditions of the status quo and emancipation become knowable and explicit, that is, knowledge-for-evaluation. Thirdly, the author re-creates, re-defines, re-designs, re-imagines, re-invents and re-visions the pragmatic, doable and implementable programmes from knowledge-for-action. This theory of everything provides a new vigorous theoretical model to review and redesign the practical methodology for implementation success of the national transformation programmes.
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National Transformation Policy And Transformation Model

The Prime Minister’s vision is “Transforming Malaysia” and Figure 1 below captures the key components of the transformation initiative. By 2010, Malaysia had reformulated an entirely new model for economic, government, political, rural and social transformation. The Malaysian Budget 2012, also known as the “Transformation Budget”, emphasized efforts to transform the nation into a developed and high-income economy with inclusive and sustainable development, spearheaded by the private sector. The Budget 2012’s theme is “Transformation Towards a Developed and High-Income Nation” with a focus on the following four key strategies: reinvigorating private investment; intensifying human capital development; enhancing quality of life of Malaysians; and strengthening public service delivery. A new policy is embedded in the theme, that is, “National Transformation Policy: Welfare For The People, Well Being For The Nation”.

Figure 1.

National transformation model

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