The paper focused on the review of literature particularly in relation to rural education in the Malaysian context. This exposed the scarcity of research on effective leadership practices in rural context especially in Malaysia. This awareness is an impetus for future researchers to venture into this issue and subsequently contribute to the knowledge corpus of effective leadership practices in the rural context. The paper also put forth a review of a preliminary study conducted on an award winning Head Teacher as observed in a rural primary school in Sarawak who had elevated his school to a higher stratum by clinching an international award, the Commonwealth Education Good Practice Award. Unstructured observations and informal interviews had been conducted and the data collected had been analysed using open, axial and selective coding processes. The preliminary findings had been mapped onto five main settings namely human, interactional, physical, programme and emotional. The review of this preliminary study exemplified the value of investigating leadership practices particularly in their specific rural context as different contexts might entail different leadership practices.

The supervisor-supervisee relationship is an important relationship between two individuals; a relationship often fraught with conflict and tension. A successful relationship usually culminates in the finished product – the completed thesis; whilst a failed relationship results in the delay of the thesis or the abandonment of the research work altogether. Whilst one is usually trained in the field that one is teaching, lecturers typically become supervisors without any formal training; it is assumed that if one has done research, one can certainly supervise a research enterprise. This reflective paper recounts a senior professor’s evolution as a supervisor of the masters’ and doctoral theses. In this, she asked pertinent questions regarding how she learned to be a supervisor, her actions as a supervisor, her expectations and requirements, and the challenges she faced as a supervisor. She became a supervisor through an apprenticeship of sorts – learning at the feet of her own supervisor. This apprenticeship only shows one side of the equation, the side the student sees, but not the backstage work that comes with it. She discovers that she learns a lot more about supervising thesis through the act of supervising, having conversations with colleagues, reading about the area, and most importantly, reflecting deeply into the enterprise. A conscious, critical, and mindful reflection of one’s actions as a supervisor can help one improve practice and better serve the student whose relationship to a supervisor is very critical to their success.

The main purpose of this research is to verify the relevancy of knowledge and skills acquired by engineering graduates from university to automotive industry in Malaysia. Hence, this paper aims to identify to what extent the knowledge and skills acquired by the new engineers in the university have equipped them with job competency in the automotive industry. This study adopts a qualitative case study method to analyze and compare data collected from a private engineering college, a public university and an automotive manufacturing industry. The identified target groups are one human resource manager, six new engineering graduates, and 4 university lecturers. The findings of this study suggested that the stakeholders, university, students as well as industries are aware that it is not easy for new engineers to fit into industries right after graduation. The study emphasizes the important role of the stakeholders namely; university, new engineer and industry, to enhance the acquisition of knowledge and skills for better job competency of new engineers at the beginning of their career at industry. The results revealed certain attributes showing strong linkage between university education and job performance. In particular, students’ attitude, interpersonal skills, lack of manufacturing knowledge, lecturers’ industrial exposure, collaboration between university and industry, poor execution of internship, poor training needs analysis and incompetent coach at industry were among the attributes that have high influence on the ability of new engineers coping with the job challenges. The study has contributed to a better understanding of job competency and the challenges faced by new engineers at the chosen automotive industry.

Studies related to school mathematics have shown that students who scored well on standardized tests often are unable to successfully use memorized facts and formulae in real-life application outside the classroom. The outcome of TIMSS and PISA studies further emphasizes the importance of mathematics teaching and learning in the Malaysian education system. Various measures have been taken by the Ministry of Education to enhance the teaching and learning of mathematics in schools. However, issues related to college mathematics have yet to be addressed.In the past decade, universities have been bogged down with ranking systems(such as Times Higher Education University Rankings, QS ranking) and Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching related to issues such as studentsgraduating on time (GOT). In this paper, we investigate the finer points of mathematics teaching and learning. Our premise is that practical knowledge (common sense) and mathematics knowledge are closely related in the learning of mathematics in college.Three case studies are discussed in this paper to highlight this premise. These studies revealed that college students gradually practices rote learning and their final grades do not reflect the development of mathematical thinking. Furthermore, the teaching approach that focuses on computation deters students from fully developing their understanding of why or when they should be applied. Teaching instructions should shift from learning the rules for operations to understanding mathematical concepts which promotes the development of mathematical thinking. Students should be equipped with “problem solving tools” that would allow them to be accommodative to changing needs (Treffinger, 2008). It involves the acquisition and application of mathematics concepts and skills in a wide range of situations, including non-routine and real world problems to provide learning opportunities for problem solving. Hence we strongly propose mathematical problem solving as a new course central in the development of mathematical thinking at the tertiary level.

Current debates on higher education graduates seem to address graduates’ quality and their employability. Since industries’ role as future employers become central in the preparation of graduates, issues on graduate employability (GE) have become one of the heated discussion topics with the inclusion of smart partnerships and collaborations between higher education institutes and industries. As students generally spend between three and five years in higher education institutes prior to graduating, students’ graduate employability relies quite heavily on the preparation for the world of work during their time in the institutions. The Ministry of Higher Education has called for academics to collaborate with the industries as a measure to enhance GE. Needless to say, academics’ diversification has always directed them to be multi-taskers. Four main professional tracks inevitable amongst the academics namely; teaching, research (and publication), community service and academic leadership have made the academic profession a diversed one. While this is easy to comprehend, the task to establish and maintain linkages with industries in enhancing GE remains an issue yet to be championed by the academics who are already swamped by various academic tasks, let alone collaborating with the industries to specifically promote graduate employability. This paper examines the issues of graduate employability alongside the diversed tasks of the academics. Based on Boyer’s scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL), this paper aims to address how GE could be enhanced amidst the academics’ diversification. The proposed framework is hoped to pave the way forward for the academics to play their parts in enhancing GE amidst their diversification in order to achieve the Ministry of Higher Education aspiration of ‘soaring upwards’.