Being pragmatic in management

A friend forwarded to me the following about Microsoft in India:

Subject: WHAT AN IDEA

(29th Sep 2008) Microsoft started bus service for employees at Bangalore & Employees can start work from the bus itself and their office hour's counts from the time they start work in the bus. Traffic jam in Bangalore is quite normal and the company does not want to waste the time of the employees during travel.




It made me wonder about our increasingly low standards in English among our students in national schools, with some exceptions. Some even suggested that we should revert back to having English medium schools like before! But there is no point if there are some who are dead against any suggestion of widening the use of English, to the extent of suing Penang state government for using 3 additional languages in road signs in a world heritage area called George Town.

Almost every morning, I am with a group of retired teachers who speak excellent English. Some have tried to teach again under a certain scheme but were put off by bureaucracy and being asked to go to some other towns far away from home. If only the education ministry can be more flexible in their rules to suit them instead.