INDUSTRY AND NATIONAL BOUNDARIES

Industry and National boundaries

Industry and National boundaries

There is great scope for the expansion of Internet and IT in Malaysia. Currently, there are less than half a million Internet subscribers in Malaysia. With an average of four users per subscriber, this would mean only about two million people in Malaysia have access to Internet and email facilities. This is less than 10% of the entire population of Malaysia, which is currently estimated to be 22 million, are subscribed to Internet. Three bills known collectively as the cyber laws of Malaysia were passed by the Parliament. These laws provide for the orderly development and expansion of multimedia and information technology. (Rozman, 2008)

Primary and Secondary education

The opportunities that fall out of the smart school programme, with its flagship sponsored by Telekom Malaysia, are the developments of quality content. It is not just a case of offering packages that are currently used in the UK but rather should be in line with the needs of the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Malaysia. Invariably the MOE will request the material to be in Bahasa Malaysia as well as English to put the content onto the TSS platform. (Bernard 2008)

Apart from the content, there is a shortage of teachers in Malaysia who have necessary skills or experience to apply ICT learning materials effectively in the classroom. Proposals of how to train and develop Malaysian teachers to do this would also be sought after. Established content writers can also demonstrate how ICT can be applied in classrooms and the audience can be schoolteachers.

Aiming to nurture a progressive, harmonious and intelligent society with high moral values, the Government has taken drastic changes to the educational system. Implementation of single-session schools and emphasizing the use of software for teaching have created the opportunity for multi million business in terms of training of human resources (teachers), teaching and educational aids (such as notebooks & overhead projectors) and related materials, apart from basic facilities and physical infrastructure.

Integration of conventional and Islamic banking systems

The success of such integration is fast attracting interest from Western Europe, the Netherlands and Britain. Research has showed that demand for Islamic banking was increasing globally at an estimated compounded annual growth rate of 15%, which was "pretty impressive" in view of the global uncertainties. In addition, due to global political tensions such as the Iraq war, there was a strong desire to relocate the Arab ...