Buletin Akademik Januari 2014 - Terengganu

PUBLICATION OF UPENA
UITM TERENGGANU
TERENGGANU
Kewajipan menuntut ilmu cukup jelas di dalam Islam, sebagaimana Nabi bersabda
“menuntut ilmu adalah wajib ke
atas setiap muslim” (H.R Bukhari). Ukuran ilmu bukan terletak
pada tingginya CGPA atau pada tingginya pangkat yang
disandang. Ketinggian ilmu seseorang adalah dilihat pada
mulia dan tingginya akhlak seseorang itu malah di tambah
lagi dalam firman Allah “ ilmu membuat seseorang itu mulia, baik
di hadapan Allah dan juga di hadapan manusia.” Ini bermaksud,
semakin tinggi ilmu seseorang itu, maka semakin dekatlah
dirinya kepada Allah.
Hari ini dapat kita perhatikan bahawa semua orang
yang berakal berlumba- lumba mencari ilmu, ilmu dunia mahupun akhirat. Tetapi,sedarkah kita bahawa dalam kita sibuk
mengutip ilmu-ilmu yang berterbangan di ruang langit dan
bumi, pernah kah kita terfikir tentang keberkatan ilmu yang
kita pelajari? Adakah tersimpan kemas ilmu yang di pelajari di
dada? Walhal, Islam memandang serius aspek keberkatan
dalam menuntut ilmu. Keberkatan ilmu ini sangat penting bagi
memastikan ilmu yang kita perolehi diredhai Allah SWT.
Alangkah indahnya jikalau kita berjaya dengan ilmu yang
diberkati Allah SWT. Ilmu yang berkat dapat membimbing kita
menjadi manusia yang berakhlak mulia. Bak kata pepatah
ilmuwan, ilmu yang berkat ibarat benih yang baik, jatuh ke
laut menjadi pulau.
Bagi seorang yang bergelar pelajar, keberkatan ilmu
adalah yang paling utama.Pernahkah kita mengalami situasi
tiba-tiba lupa ilmu yang kita pelajari semasa menjawab soalan peperiksaan sedangkan sebelum peperiksaan kita sudah
belajar bersungguh- sungguh? Kadangkala kita merasakan
sudah bertungkus-lumus mengulangkaji pelajaran dan
menghafal semua maklumat yang ada tetapi masih juga susah untuk difahami. Jika hal-hal seperti ini pernah berlaku
pada kita, semaklah kembali adab-adab kita sebagai
penuntut ilmu,adakah kita menjaga adab-adab dengan Allah
dan guru. Adakah sempurna solat lima waktu kita? Adakah
terjaga hubungan kita dengan Allah? Adakah kita menjaga
hubungan kita dengan kawan- kawan dan pernahkah terdetik
dihati kita bahawa hormatkah aku kepada guru-guru ku?
Tepuk dada tanya lah iman.Sedarilah bahawa ilmu tidak akan
berkat jikalau hubungan dengan Allah tidak sempurna. Ilmu
juga tidak berkat jika hilangnya rasa hormat kepada orang
yang menyampaikan ilmu. Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal berkata:
“Kami diperintahkan supaya tawadhu’ kepada sesiapa yang
kami pelajari ilmu daripadanya (guru atau ulama’).
Lebih mendukacitakan apabila pada hari ini masalah
keruntuhan moral saban tahun semakin ketara. Jenayah dan
maksiat semakin hari semakin buruk. Hal ini bukan sahaja
ditempat awam , malah di institusi pengajian tinggi seperti
kolej dan universiti juga memiliki pelajar yang rosak moral.
Walhal bila difikirkan secara logik akal, apabila seseorang itu
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semakin mencapai ketinggian ilmu maka semakin berakallah
mereka untuk menilai mana yang baik dan buruk, tetapi apa
yang berlaku adalah sebaliknya di mana mereka semakin
hari semakin hilang adab dan tatasusila. Mereka juga sudah
hilang rasa hormat kepada guru malah juga kepada ibubapa.
Inilah antara petanda bahawa pelajar sudah semakin hilang
keberkatan.
JANUARI 2014
Bila bercakap tentang kejayaan dan keberkatan,
ianya adalah dua elemen yang berbeza. Tidak dinafikan, ada
saja manusia yang berjaya walaupun adab pada guru tidak
dijaga. Ada saja yang cemerlang walaupun meninggalkan
solat, melanggar hukum-hukum Allah tetapi kerana tiada
keberkatan, ilmu yang dipelajari hanyalah sekadar di hujung
pen. Tidak mampu diamalkan dan langsung tidak membawa
manfaat buat dirinya. Hanya berjaya dalam peperiksaan tapi
tidak berjaya dalam hidup. Ianya adalah istidraj daripada Allah SWT, hanya berjaya mendapat kedudukan di dunia tapi
tidak di akhirat. Nauzubillah himinzalik semoga kita di jauhi
daripada golongan itu.
Sedarlah bahawa ilmu itu suci, takkan hadir pada
hati yang kotor dan penuh maksiat. Bangunlah wahai para
penuntut marilah sama-sama kita bangkit mencari keberkatan
kerana matlamat hidup kita adalah mencari redha Allah di
dunia dan akhirat. Matlamat tidak pernah menghalalkan cara.
Biarlah ilmu yang kita kutip sepanjang musafir kita di dunia ini
betul-betul bermanfaat kepada manusia sekeliling, baik dari
segi fizikal mahupun rohaninya. Tanamkan azam untuk
menjadi
sebagai seorang pelajar mukmin yang beriman
dan
bertakwa.
Sesungguhnya,
iman dan taqwalah yang dapat
memandu
kita

meraih
keberkatan sepanjang

perjalanan
menuntut
ilmu

yang panjang ini.
Wahai
Tuhan
kami, berkatilah
ilmu dan ke
hidupan kami.
Editor BOARD




1
I Think
that the sun, moon and stars
orbit around me
that the wind whispers sweet
music when my heart so desires
that the waves will leap over
the trees and hills upon my
command
do i not control every steps of
my journey
am i not the centre of the
universe
it is the arrogance of me
it is the illusion of we
for even the pet cat ignores
me
the school of tiny ants laugh
at me
the flora and fauna mock me
and even every heart beat of
me
is beyond me
3
Sayonara 2013.. Bye bye.. The past is always the
past. Definitely, bygones will never come back.
It will remain as fruitful experiences and history
which will always be kept in our minds. But,
most importantly, it is the future that must be
faced, if we are still alive, Insha Allah. When
discussing the challenges of the future, I would
like to delve on the economic perspective, as it is
a key performer as to what and how we are going to handle the challenges that await us. Although I am serving the public as an economic
lecturer, it does not mean that I am an expert in
the area. This is just my personal opinion, which
is open for further discussion.
the past as to why the New Economic Policy
(NEP) failed. Individuals and households that
receive such an aid may use it for other purposes instead of reducing their financial burden.
Besides, it creates a “subsidy mentality” among
the citizens. Consistent with the Confucian
proverb, “Teach the person to fish rather than
feed him with fish”, the government is now
aware of this problem due to criticism received
from various quarters. Recently, the government has announced to substitute the BR1M
with some other method which is said to be
better compared to the cash aid (Nurul Fathihah, 2013). Such a method is more agreeable as
reported by economists and various nonAs an opening remark, various incidents have government organizations (NGOs). Let’s wait
occurred in Malaysia which lead to the increase and see. Whatever it is, I personally will support
in the cost of living in Malaysia. Among these such measures for the betterment of the society.
are the rationalization of the subsidies, as well
as the increase in the rates of electricity, tolls in That is my opinion about Malaysians in general.
15 highways and transportation costs and incre- On the problems faced by the industries, let’s
ment of rates for LRT and monorail users. To- look at the Small and Medium Enterprises
gether with the implementation of GST (Goods (SMEs) and ignore the bigger firms as they are
and Service Tax) in 2015, such actions
sure to be domimay definitely increase the cost of living.
nant in their fields.
Luckily, we live in Dungun with no LRT,
Th e
mini mum
monorail and tolls. At least, we are less
wage policy comaffected compared to those who live in
bined with the
increase in various
Kuala Lumpur and the Klang Valley.
costs such as transThe rationalization of subsidies is conportation,
tolls,
ducted by the government as a measure
taxes, fuels and
to overcome its deficit. Subsidies on
sugars will severely
sugar and fuel have been reduced even
hurt their enterthough these two goods are considered
prises. Their proas necessities. In the near future, don’t
duction costs will
be surprised if the price of major goods
be forced to sharpand services increase too. The reasons
ly increase due to
are merely due to the increase in the
the
abovecosts of transportation, electricity tariff, toll mentioned reasons. They have to pay more for
hikes, reduction in subsidies for sugar and fuel labor as well as operating costs. In line with the
as well as GST that need to be paid by all par- statement made by the National Wages Consulties, from manufacturers to the consumers. tative Council, there were 4,500 applications
Fortunately, most of the necessities have been from the SMEs to postpone the implementation
exempted from GST. However, the question that of the minimum wage rate policy due to their
arises here is... Why the government is decreas- unwillingness to absorb higher operational costs
ing subsidies and allowing the increase in the (Cecillia, 2012). In order to solve this problem,
cost of living of Malaysians? The reason is due there are two options available - either to into a high deficit faced by the federal govern- crease the end-products’ price or reduce the
ment. If such actions are not taken, it may lead operational cost. The first option may cause
to an increase in the already critical national them to receive lower profit margin since condebt.
sumers will be wise enough to choose the best
Even though there is an increase in the cost of product offered in the market at an affordable
living, various measures have been taken by the price. However, if they choose the second opgovernment to help the poor and the needy in tion, they might have to do away with certain
Malaysia. Besides the implementation of a min- labor, which seems to be redundant, underperimum wage rate of RM 900 per month, the gov- forming or unproductive. Such an option may
ernment has also given financial aid to deserv- further aggravate the already critical unemploying citizens in the form of Bantuan Rakyat 1 ment problem in the country.
Malaysia (BR1M) which is valued at RM 650
per household (Cecilia, 2012). But then another
question arises - is this amount sufficient? Defi- These are among the problems that need to be
nitely it is insufficient for the poor people to faced due to the government’s bid to implement
cope, considering the current high cost of living. the current economic transformation. The ecoHowever, the amount received can be used to nomic transformation which was initiated since
tide over their basic necessities. But personally, 2010 was meant to transform Malaysia’s econoI quite disagree with such a move since giving my to be a high income country. In other words,
instant cash may not solve any economic prob- we are striving for a developed nation status
lem. The government should have learnt from with a high standard of living. However, it
comes at a cost and many sacrifices. Subscribing
to one of the macroeconomic theories, it is quite
impossible for a country to achieve high economic growth without having to face these three
problems, namely, inflation, unemployment and
unequal income distribution. This discipline
tries to explain that if the economy is in a booming condition, these three problems will exist
automatically due to the market interaction. For
instance, the second Finance Minister, Datuk
Seri Ahmad Husni Mohamad Hanadzlah
claimed that the level of income inequality
which is measured by the Gini coefficient index
is still high compared to neighboring countries
(The Star, 2013). For your information, the Gini
index ranges from 0 to 1. The higher the number, the higher the gap between the rich and the
poor. In 2012, the Gini index in Malaysia was
recorded to be 0.431 compared to Thailand
(0.4), Indonesia (0.37) and India (0.33). The
Gini index of 0.431 is proof that there is still a
high income inequality among Malaysians.Therefore, the poor and medium income
groups will suffer the most if the cost of living
becomes even higher in the future. But, that is
the opportunity cost that need to be faced by the
citizens since the government is striving for a
high income nation by 2020.
A higher standard of living followed by an increase in the wage rate is still tolerable. However, in the case of Malaysia, not all jobs are experiencing a wage increment. As example, the
government has announced that the wage rate
for 81 government servants’ schemes in the
public sector will increase starting from January
2014. It gives hope to almost 600,000 workers
throughout Malaysia (Cuepacs, 2013). Unfortunately, for the lecturers, only those who are
working in medical and dentistry fields will
receive such an increment. For record, there are
249 schemes all together. Cuepacs, the umbrella
organisation for all unions in Malaysia, is currently negotiating with the government to make
improvements to the remaining 168 schemes by
increasing the wage rate, consistent to the higher cost of living. So, what should we do now?
Plan all expenditures wisely and start saving
more money for the future. If you have the capability to do a part-time job in order to earn extra
income, do it, since it may help you later on. We
do not know what awaits us.
References:
Cecilia, K. (2012). The effects of rising wages.
The Star, December 8, 2012.
Ceupacs (2013). Penjawat awam terlibat 81
skim ditambah baik akan terima
opsyen bulan ini. Retrieved from
http://www.cuepacs.org.my on 27
December 2013.
Nurul Fathihah, Z. (2013). Pakar ekonomi,
NGO sokong kaedah baru ganti
BR1M. Berita Harian, December 21,
2013.
The Star (2013). Malaysia’s income distribution
inequality ‘still high’. The Star, Au-
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