I thought I'd share some good news about Malaysia's achievement at the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) 2026, which was held in Shanghai, China.

Team Malaysia achieved:

1 Gold Medal

3 Silver Medals

1 Bronze Medal

1 Honorable Mention

The team finished 19th overall among all participating countries. This is the first time Malaysia has ever broken into the top 20 at the IMO.

This year's result also saw Malaysia win its 7th ever IMO Gold Medal, while the team's total score of 142 points surpassed our previous national record of 139 points, set just last year.

The six students who represented Malaysia were:

Ho Janson — Gold Medal

Tan Rui Xuen — Silver Medal

Yeoh Yi Shuen — Silver Medal

Chia Ming Han — Silver Medal

Ivan Chan Guan Yu — Bronze Medal

Cheng You Seng — Honorable Mention

For Tan Rui Xuen and Chia Ming Han, this was their first ever IMO, and both came home with Silver Medals.

As someone involved in Malaysia's IMO programme, I am incredibly proud of the students and everyone who contributed to this journey, including their trainers, parents, teachers, schools and the many organisations supporting mathematics education and talent development in Malaysia.

The students deserve the spotlight for this one. They worked incredibly hard, and they have now written themselves into Malaysian IMO history.

Congratulations to Team Malaysia. You have made the country proud.

Visited the national library to borrow a few books on Malaysian history (likely place for them to be, right?)

To my disappointment, the shelves were largely empty. The previous extensive selection of books spanning languages and genres was missing. The only books in abundance? Religious ones. (second picture are books which cannot be borrowed)

According to a worker there (which took some effort to contact, as there were no workers in sight), most of the books had been disposed of/relocated, and the only history books remaining were not open for public borrowing. They were under some kelompok programme where agencies (?) borrowed them for other libraries, or something of the sort.

What made things worse was the children's section, a place which i frequented in childhood to borrow books every couple of weeks was 'closed until further notice'. I, and many others have fond memories of borrowing encyclopaedias, comics and enid blyton books which were in abundance, and it makes me sad to think of children who no longer are able to indulge in that joy.

What is the point of having a national library if the shelves are empty, with even the most basic books missing, and other books not open to public borrowing? So incredibly disappointing and upsetting to look at the dismal and quite frankly, disgusting state of our library. They used to have so many books you could spend hours browsing, looking for the book you wanted, but it seems this is a pipe dream now.

Our libraries are in this state, and yet we wonder why our children dont like to read anymore. The government needs to do better and make libraries a place for reading and learning again. What is the point of having a library if there are no books to be found? This is an embarrassment to all of us.

Hi brothers and sisters! Need your advise, am in the wrong here ? I applied for multiple jobs, from sites indeed/JobStreet/Maukerja! I've been going to interviews but based on this chat am I rude to ask which company from his from ?

So yeah… I’m officially leaving Korea and flying to Malaysia for the first time. Gonna be studying there for the next few years and honestly, it still doesn’t feel real.

It’s a mix of excitement and lowkey panic 😂 Never lived away from home this long, and now I’m about to start a whole new chapter in a completely different country.

Any tips for a Korean student starting uni life in Malaysia? Stuff I should know? Culture shock moments I should prepare for?

Also, random question — I’m flying AirAsia (cheap flight lol) — and when I looked at the duty-free catalog, I was shocked to see that they actually have Malaysian local brands too?! I didn’t even know Malaysia has its own perfumes. I always thought it was just international stuff. Would love to pick up something Malaysian if possible!

Would love to hear from anyone who’s been through something similar 🙏

I attended a Chinese independent school up to Form 6. Looking back and trying to be as objective as possible, I think Chinese independent schools aren't good for the nation on the whole, due to the following reasons:

1. Since near 100% of the students and teachers are Chinese, we don't have the opportunity to make friends with Malays and Indians, possibly skewing our viewpoints on racial relations.

2. Our BM isn't very good, and our English is even worse. I don't think this is a worthy trade-off for being more proficient in Chinese.

3. It seems to foster a sort of "Chinese community before nation" sort of mindset. I don't have hard facts to back this up but this is the general feel I get.

Honestly I don't think I'd send my kid to one if I had a kid.

“Tell uncle you want to be a LOSER!”

An interaction i will never forget. I hope you guys are better parents than this. I hope you know what is said to a child will shape them for decades to come. I hope you know the impact behind those words. To you it may be a passing remark. Maybe even just “joking only lah”, but to a child hearing this, it will shape.

I hope this is insight. I hope he turns out alright.

This post is about the lecturer that claimed about the Rome ships origins from IIUM, Ms Solehah Yaacob.

I am genuinely concerned that the University is still "investigating" the case of the lecturer when she had previously published a journal article comparing the Bible and Quran using fake sources back in 2018.

Does the University genuinely not backrgound check their lecturers before hiring them? A simple Google Scholar search and you can see her article on it with sources from "The Onion".

For those who don't know, The Onion is a fake news company creating obviously sarcastic news. Example, she used their news article that claimed Ancient Greek was entirely made up by researchers during 1971-1974 as a genuine citation. Note that this was used IN HER ACTUAL PUBLISHED SCHOLAR ARTICLE.

The fact that she believed Ancient Greek history was created in 4 years is one thing. The fact that she can write and publish using that citation for her article is another concern.

Her article criticising the Bible also failed to specify which version of the Bible each quotation was used. It is important to note that various Bible versions exist and academic journal article REQUIRES to cite which exact version was quoted from. As some are direct translations from Hebrew to English, thus more linguistically complex, while others are paraphrased for ease of modern understanding. Thus, grammar, flow, and wordings may differ with different versions when compared directly side-by-side.

This criticism is similar to arguing that Harry Potter is inconsistent because one sentence uses “colour” while another uses “color” without stating that you had taken these sentences from different editions.

This is the exact reason why academic writing requires a citation of the exact version used. To avoid such situations.

HER BEHAVIOUR IS NOT NEW, HER PUBLISHED ARTICLE WAS ON 2018.

This is not just a student in the University, she is an educator. Please, share this concern, whoever is a student or connected to the university. This is not public shaming, it's genuinely concerning as an educator to spread fake education IN A UNIVERSITY LEVEL!

Link to her article: http://ajba.um.edu.my/index.php/JAT/article/download/11954/7915

Link to the Onion news article: https://theonion.com/historians-admit-to-inventing-ancient-greeks-1819571808/

This isn't supposed to be normal, this is downright petty and evil.

Hi, I’m looking for advice from anyone familiar with JPA scholarship repayment.

I was previously a JPA scholar, but my scholarship was terminated after I got withdrew from the school because I failed to meet the academic requirements. I’m still continuing my studies elsewhere.

I recently received a letter from JPA asking me to repay almost RM450k. I’m still a student and obviously have nowhere near that kind of money.

I’m planning to appeal, but I’m really lost about what happens next. I’m honestly out of my wits here. Has anyone here gone through JPA scholarship repayment/termination before?
Is it possible to get the repayment deferred, reduced, or paid through a long-term instalment plan? Any advice on what I should do would be really appreciated.

"The US administration’s move to bar Harvard University from enrolling international students is regressive, says Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Dr Zambry Abd Kadir."

Lol

A Malaysian student who achieved a perfect cumulative grade point average (CGPA) of 4.0 was allegedly treated dismissively during an interview for Universiti Malaya’s (UM) medicine programme, with him ultimately not offered a place in the programme.

Sumber: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FA85VRgQq7LNaXJsZGv-z-gTAyCqW8HW/view?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3iCyASqHYY2-b6pKyzqdjRi1KJTVygdxndElpqlsgswhuAvB4TLe4nJwI_aem_XKNP9Bbf-0eY1iri8B5K9A

Im a bit late on this trend but I've been on and off about this issue.

Please educate me on why do people suddenly (or why it is more common now) to hate on Rohingyas. I'd cgpt it but I don't like using AI to feed me news.

If you want to do medicine read this.

Im a senior medical student with a mentor who is a cardiothoracic surgeon. Ive shadowed many surgeons and networked extensively in my dream specialty which is cardiothoracic surgery. Below are the things which i wished someone told me before i entered medicine as a career rather than just enter its not so bad or dont enter doctors cant make money. Below i will list down the facts and leave it for you to decide.

First- contract system. Now kkm deems that u have to be employed on contract which they may or may not renew after a few years of service. Pay is stagnant compared to permanent colleagues who get raised every year. Selection for permanent also has no clear cut criteria making it frustrating. After 7 years contract ends you will get auto terminated with no good reason. Once terminated you have “left” government service and are not able to rejoin it. If you go to private you are UNABLE to specialize in private. Besides that contract system also makes it so you have lesser sick leaves, no maternity leaves if im not mistaken and stagnant pay grade. Itll only go up to a certain point before capping out unlike your permanent counterparts which can go up much higher compared to you as a contract doc. Read next point

Second- specialization. If ur on contract u can apply hlp(hadiah latihan persekutuan which is a government scholarship to specialize) but much lesser chance to get compared to permanent to specialize. And specialization can only be done if ur under the government scholarship in a kkm institution. 1k spots a year only for hlp so its too little. Certain specialties could take external papers known as parallel pathway(pediatrics,internal medicine, radiology, obgyn). Now however they made it so ur only recognized even if u take external papers if ur under their hlp. Besides that mmc is in a legal tussle and not recognizing parallel pathway grads. Namely fam med specialists and cardiothoracic and urologists. Dont get me wrong. Ctc and uro go thru rigorous training programmmes. Its just called parallel pathway but they do have a structured pathway which does not include just taking papers and training in a specific dept to be gazetted as a specialist like family med, OnG etc. but yeah they are refusing to recognize all of a sudden. The above is for cardiothoracic surgeons.Let me use the example of pediatirc cardiologists. First you have to become a pediatrician by taking mrcp and training under a pediatric dept for several years under scholarship by the government to get gazetted as pediatric specialist. Then you need to further bond yourself to government and go for a sub specialist course in pediatric cardiology which is another 2 years. Btw after each course you do you will have a bond of 5-7 years. So by the time you will be done specialising ull be over 40 and bonded to government till 50 almost. And obtaining governmental scholarship isnt easy. In fact nowadays kkm has rules set. The other day on hartal kontrak doctor fb page one doc spoke up that they were offered hlp on the conditions they cant sub specialise and maintain ud43 grade meaning new medical officer pay grade even tho they will be doing specialist jobs and hours. Note for surgery etc you do need to do also service in those depts before to be eligible to apply. Their programmes range from 4-6 years. 6 for ctc surgery neuro is 5 gen surg is 4. Bond is 5-7 years after graduation. U can only go private after early 40s into private.

Outline to specialize-basically only 4 years minimum after graduation can you apply for hlp and may take even longer due to placing issues. Read next point for detailed explanation. So itll be 24/25+4+3-6(post grad time)+5-10 years government bond= to over 40 before you can leave to private and make “money” as a specialist

Placing- now kkm doesnt let u choose where and what dept. Well u can choose which state but not hospital and what dept as a medical officer. Why does it matter? Its cuz to apply for masters under hlp, u need to serve in the dept you want to specialize in. So for general surgery for example u need to serve in a dept of gen surg for 1 year before u are eligible to apply. So how to do it if ur thrown to kk? U can apply yes to transfer but again no clear criteria and depends on pengarah timbalan.

Hence if you want to do neurosurgery you need a prerequisite of serving in a neurosurgery dept, general surgery in a gen surg dept and so on.

Shit work environment- nuff said.

Bond- also once u finish specialist studies u will be bonded to government for 5-10 years. Lmao. So yeah…..its not attractive. However this is the only way to specialize. There is no such thing as paying to specialize in a private uni. Thats what most commoners are misconceiving. Its not as simple as that.

Working abroad- sorry none of our malaysian degrees are recognized abroad except for um and ukm in sg. Monash and newcastle im not so sure if malaysian counterparts are recognized in home country so i wont comment on things im not sure about. However if you go to taylors or mahsa or uoc for mbbs ur only choice to go abroad would be to pay in aud/usd/pounds for papers to take and interviews for a CHANCE of a job overseas. Keep in mind in overseas countries we are considers “international medical graduates “ (IMGs) which means we will get lesser chances to specialize as they will protect their own people (understandably) for job security.

I know probably alot of people are gonna get offended i told the truth say “i presume too much or sound like a presumptuous asshole before graduating”. No. Im just telling you from what ive observed and seen shadowing my mentor, from my postings in government hospitals and reading the news. I wish i was told all these before i entered medicine to make a more informed decision. Leave any questions youd like down below.

Recent changes in the recognition of degrees offered by British university franchises overseas are leaving students stranded and crushing the reputation of UK universities.