Enhance, not review language switch

M Bakri Musa

Minister of Education Muhyiddin Yassin is doing our nation a great disservice in further delaying the critical decision on the teaching of science and mathematics in English (TSME, or its Malay acronym, PPSMI – Pengajaran dan Pembelajaran Sains dan Matematik Dalam Bahasa Inggeris) in our schools. His indecision merely compounds the uncertainty, especially among educators, parents and students. MCPX What he should be doing instead is to explore ways of enhancing the implementation of the policy, not review it. He should be focusing on finding ways to get more competent teachers, explore innovative teaching techniques, and provide inexpensive textbooks. He should also be busy eliminating such expensive but ineffective teaching gimmicks as the “computerized teaching modules” with their laptops and LCDs that our teachers are unable to handle. Those machines are now either stolen or crashed because of viruses and dust. The conditions of our students today have not changed from 2003 when the policy was first introduced. If any they are worse. Whatever the rationale was for adopting the policy back in 2003, it is still very much valid today. Today's many critics of the policy are latecomers. Where were they when the policy was first mooted six years ago? These critics have yet to answer the basic question on whether the policy itself is flawed or that the deficiencies are with its implementation. They are unable to answer this important question as they are entirely confused over the issue. Their opposition is based more on emotions rather than rational thinking. Laureates' misguided concerns Consider the joint statement of our five living National Laureates in Literature. First, the facts they cited were clearly erroneous. Stating that most Nobel Prize winners are from non-English-speaking countries is not only incorrect but missed the essential point that most of those luminaries are English literate. Similarly our National Laureates’ plea that we should emulate the Scandinavian countries missed the important point that their students and citizens are all fluently bilingual if not multilingual, with English being the most common second language. Indeed we should emulate the Scandinavian countries and ensure that our students are truly bilingual. The Laureates’s concerns are grossly misguided. No one is questioning the status of the Malay language, or its importance in nation building. We all subscribe to that. It is unclear from their statement whether they are against our students learning a second language or against English as that second language. They went on to make the totally irrelevant point that Mandarin would soon replace English as the most widely spoken language. Having made that observation, they failed to follow up on it. That is, even the Chinese government is now encouraging, no, forcing their students to learn English. These laureates and other critics missed the essence of the current policy, which is to enhance our students’ ability to read and understand English. It is not the policy’s intention that we should learn English at the expense of Malay. In short, the policy aims to expand our students’ intellectual horizon, not curtail it. The laureates' muddled thinking only produces only muddled conclusions. In truth, it is too early to pass any judgment on the wisdom of the policy. Any policy, especially one pertaining to education and social matters, takes time to discern its effects. To evaluate this policy credibly, one would need to let at least three to five cohorts of students finish the program. Meaning, a time period of about 15 years! Consider that we are only now recognizing the damaging effects of our educational reforms that were introduced back in the 1970s! Yet we have “researchers” from the Universiti Perguruan Sultan Idris (UPSI) confidently declaring the policy “ineffective” barely four years after the policy was implemented. Earlier, just a few months after the policy’s adoption, a Ministry of Education’s “study” pronounced the remarkable “improvement” in test scores of our students taught under the new programme. Who do these folks think they are kidding? I could not get a copy of the Ministry’s paper, but I have the UPSI professors’. Suffice to say that it would never appear in the pages of refereed journals, except perhaps the Ulu Langat Bulletin of Education. Frankly if I had been an academic, I would be embarrassed to append my name to such a shoddy paper. This policy would not have triggered its many belated critics had the leadership showed more resolve and greater commitment. They became vociferous and assertive only when former Minister of Education Hishamuddin Hussein misguidedly re-opened the issue. Why he did it is best left for him to answer, but I venture that the then looming Umno leadership contest had plenty to do with it. Old Hishamuddin needed to display his nationalistic manhood once again, especially after the spectacular flop of his earlier unsheathing the keris. Flawed implementation I have not seen any change in the Ministry of Education operations since or in response to the adoption of the policy. I would have thought that at least there would be a dozen English-medium teachers’ training colleges by now to provide for the necessary trained teachers. Likewise our universities should be expanding the number of classes in science and mathematics taught in English so there would be an ample supply of graduate teachers competent to implement the new policy. Similarly, the ministry should have by now commissioned textbook writers and publishers. Failing that, I would have expected these officials to be contracting with established foreign publishers to buy their texts. The fact that none of these measures have been undertaken reflects incompetence or lack of commitment to the new policy, or both. The fault then lies not with the policy but with those entrusted with the awesome responsibilities of carrying it out. Those Malay language nationalists and other strident critics of TSME fail to recognise one glaring reality. That is, our current educational policy is failing our students and our nation. Those who can or have other options for their children have already abandoned our system. We see this especially among the non-Malays. Increasingly, more and more Malays are also following suit. This leaves those poor village folks who have no other choice; they are trapped in the current system. And they are almost all Malays. They are the ones left out, victimised by their own kind, the language nationalists on one side and the incompetent education bureaucrats on the other. If not for the public sector and the various GLCs acting as employers of last resort, graduates of our current educational system would simply be without jobs. There is however, a limit to the government’s capacity as employer, and we are already way beyond that point. For a society to advance, it must first come to terms with itself. A major part of that exercise involves recognising our own weaknesses, for unless we acknowledge that we cannot even begin to overcome them. Malays must recognise that a major problem with our community is that we are not competitive, not even in our native land let alone the global arena. A major contributor to this sorry state of affairs is our defective education system that continues to produce graduates who have abysmal language and mathematical skills, as well as being science illiterate. 'Zero-sum mentality' We have completely indoctrinated our young and ourselves with a "zero-sum mentality," that learning another language could only come at the expense of our own. Worse, we have gone further and mentally programmed our young that fluency in another language is not an asset but an expression of hatred for one’s own. In so doing, we exposed our own collective limited intellectual capacity, and an inability to expand it. That is the sorry part. We are only deluding our young by appealing to their base emotions. Exhortations of Ketuanan Melayu will never make them competitive or guarantee them a place under the sun, not even the sun in our Tanah Melayu. Unless we are competitive, we cannot survive, let alone be Tuan. On the other hand when we are competitive, we would be Tuan even in lands other than Tanah Melayu. The other part of the exercise involves our willingness to learn from others, especially those more advanced. The ancient Arabs learned from the Greeks, the medieval Europeans from the Arabs, and the Japanese from the West. It saddens me that our luminaries by their actions and words are sending precisely the wrong message to our young. That is, we have nothing to learn from others. Our political leaders are too preoccupied with their own short-term political survival and gamesmanship instead of leading the way forward. Unfortunately our children’s children will bear the burden of our current leaders’ stupidities. Malaysiakini

Bila nak habis teka teki politik Perak ni???

No Anifah apology for Anwar

May 17, 09 5:42pm Malaysiakini

Foreign Minister Anifah Aman said today he will not apologise to opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim for claiming that he had been offered the deputy prime minister’s post as an incentive to join Anwar’s Pakatan Rakyat. MCPX Anifah said this at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport upon his return from the United States, adding that he had no time to worry about Anwar or his threat to file a defamation suit against him. On Thursday, at a joint press conference after meeting with United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington DC, Anifah was asked about the fresh sodomy charge against Anwar, which the US State Department had earlier said was politically motivated. As part of his response, Anifah was also reported to have said: “And I was personally offered to jump into the opposition and offered a very lucrative position - it’s like a deputy prime minister (post in the Pakatan government). And this is not known to the world at large.” Anwar has denied making such an offer and plans a defamation (libel) suit against Anifah. Lawyer Sankara Nair, who is representing the opposition leader said: “At no time were any such offers made to Anifah by Anwar. The allegations made in the said story are baseless, untrue, defamatory and made with malicious intent to tarnish Anwar’s reputation.” “We have instructions to file a defamation (libel) suit against Anifah if he does not retract and make an apology within 24 hours,” said Sankara on Saturday.

The internet is killing newspapers and giving birth to a new sort of news business

The rebirth of news

THE race is crowded, but San Francisco stands a fair chance of becoming the first major American city without a daily newspaper. The San Francisco Chronicle, founded in 1865, is trimming its already pared-down staff in an attempt to avoid closure. And if it does disappear? “People under 30 won’t even notice,” says Gavin Newsom, the city’s mayor.

Most industries are suffering at present, but few are doing as badly as the news business. Things are worst in America, where many papers used to enjoy comfortable local monopolies, but in Britain around 70 local papers have shut down since the beginning of 2008. Among the survivors, advertising is dwindling, editorial is thinning and journalists are being laid off. The crisis is most advanced in the Anglo-Saxon countries, but it is happening all over the rich world: the impact of the internet, exacerbated by the advertising slump, is killing the daily newspaper.

Does that matter? Technological change has destroyed all sorts of once-popular products, from the handloom to the Walkman, and the world has mostly been better for it. But news is not just a product: the press is the fourth estate, a pillar of the polity. Journalists investigate and criticise governments, thus helping voters decide whether to keep them or sack them. Autocracies can function perfectly well without news, but democracies cannot. Will the death of the daily newspaper—the main source of information for most educated people for at least the past century, the scourge of corrupt politicians, the conscience of nations—damage democracy?

Picked apart

A newspaper is a package of content—politics, sport, share prices, weather and so forth—which exists to attract eyeballs to advertisements. Unfortunately for newspapers, the internet is better at delivering some of that than paper is. It is easier to search through job and property listings on the web, so classified advertising and its associated revenue is migrating onto the internet. Some content, too, works better on the internet—news and share prices can be more frequently updated, weather can be more geographically specific—so readers are migrating too. The package is thus being picked apart.

The newspaper’s decline is both cause and effect of the worrying finding by the Pew Centre that the number of Americans aged 18-24 who got any news at all the previous day has dropped from 34% to 25% over the past ten years. But that figure may be less troubling than it looks. Because newspapers pack together all sorts of different content, many of those who claimed in the past to have seen some news probably did so for a few seconds before turning the page to the sports scores. Acquaintance as shallow as that with the news is probably no great loss to society; Pew surveys of general knowledge suggest that young people are about as well (or badly) informed as they used to be.

And the newspaper companies’ tribulations do not necessarily presage the demise of the news business, for they stem in part from the tumultuous and expensive transition from paper to electronic distribution. News organisations are currently bearing two sets of costs—those of printing and distributing their product for the old world, and providing digital versions for the new—even though they have yet to find a business model that works online.

Up to now, most have been offering their content free online, but that is unsustainable, because there isn’t enough advertising revenue online to pay for it. So either the amount of news produced must shrink, or readers must pay more. Some publications, such as the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal, which has more than 1m online subscribers and has just promised to develop a new system of micropayments for articles, already charge for content. Others will follow: Rupert Murdoch, the Journal’s owner, has said he expects his other titles to start charging too. With news available free on Google and Yahoo!, readers may, of course, not be prepared to pay even for deeper or more specialised stuff; but since they do in the paper world, where free-sheets and paid-for publications coexist, there seems no reason why they wouldn’t online.

Better mobile devices may encourage them to do so. Apple’s iPhone is the first reader-friendly mobile phone, and the latest update to its software, due shortly, will enable news providers that currently give away content on the iPhone to start charging for it. Amazon has just unveiled a new, larger version of the Kindle, its e-book reader, better suited to displaying newspapers. Similar devices are available from other firms, with many more on the way. Better technology coupled with new payment systems will not solve the acute problems faced by newspapers today, but should eventually provide new models to enable news to flourish in the digital age.

And already, there are signs that it will (see article). New sources of news are proliferating online. Many, it is true, are unreliable. Most are badly funded. Some are the rantings of deranged extremists. But some—like Muckety, an American site which enriches news stories with interactive maps of the protagonists’ networks of influence, and NightJack, the revealing and depressing blog of an anonymous British policeman, which won the Orwell prize last month—enhance society’s understanding of itself, and could not have existed in the old world.

But the only certainty about the future of news is that it will be different from the past. It will no longer be dominated by a few big titles whose front pages determine the story of the day. Public opinion will, rather, be shaped by thousands of different voices, with as many different focuses and points of view. As a result, people will have less in common to chat about around the water-cooler. Those who are not interested in political or economic news will be less likely to come across it; but those who are will be better equipped to hold their rulers to account. Which is, after all, what society needs news for.

Astronauts plucks Hubble Space Telescope from orbit

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is seen in this March 9, 2002 NASA file photo with the Earth as a backdrop. REUTERS/NASA By Irene Klotz

HOUSTON - Space shuttle astronauts plucked the Hubble Space Telescope from orbit on Wednesday and tucked the observatory into their ship's cargo bay for a long-overdue overhaul.

Speeding through space, commander Scott Altman maneuvered the shuttle Atlantis to within about 35 feet of the telescope as crewmate Megan McArthur used the ship's robot arm to latch on to the telescope at 1:14 p.m. EDT (1714 GMT) as the spacecraft soared far above Australia.

"Houston, Atlantis. Hubble has arrived onboard Atlantis," Altman radioed to Mission Control.

NASA last visited Hubble in 2002 and had planned to return for a fifth servicing call a couple of years later, but the destruction of the shuttle Columbia as it re-entered the Earth's atmosphere in 2003 derailed those plans.

The mission was restored after engineers came up with a rescue plan in case Atlantis suffered damage during launch like that blamed for the Columbia disaster, which killed its seven crew members.

A second shuttle is poised for liftoff from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida in case the astronauts need another ride home, as Atlantis is flying too far from the International Space Station for the crew to seek refuge there in case of an emergency.

Atlantis sustained no serious damage during its launch on Monday. Scratches across four heat shield tiles on the right wing that were discovered during an in-flight inspection on Tuesday are not considered a danger.

NASA said no additional inspections of the area would be needed, freeing the seven-member Atlantis crew to focus on the primary goal of their mission -- fixing up Hubble.

Three of the telescope's five science instruments are broken and it is using its last set of positioning gyroscopes, a backup computer for formatting data to relay to the ground and 19-year-old batteries that can only hold half a charge.

Without an upgrade, NASA would be hard-pressed to justify continuing telescope operations, project scientist David Leckrone said.

Astronauts plan five consecutive days of spacewalks to outfit Hubble with new imagers and other gear and to fix two of its broken cameras. Telescope operators also hope to resurrect an infrared camera after Hubble is released back into orbit.

If the refurbishments are successful, Hubble should be back in service in two to three months with an observation program even more ambitious than what it has accomplished since its debut in 1990.

Hubble has provided evidence of how planets are formed and contributed to the still-unexplained realization that the universe is expanding at an increasingly faster rate.

It also gave astronomers a front-row seat for watching a comet smash into Jupiter and made the first measurements of gases in the atmosphere of a planet in another solar system.

NASA hopes the improvements will keep Hubble operational until at least 2014 so it can work in tandem with its replacement, the James Webb Space Telescope.

The first spacewalk is scheduled for Thursday.

© REUTERS 2009

Ganesan Says he is the legitimate Speaker

Andrew Ong | May 13, 09 5:55pm

In a proceeding that would have put wrestling bouts to shame, MIC's R Ganesan was elected as the new speaker for the Perak state legislative assembly. MCPX At a press conference in Ipoh today, the 57-year-old former state assemblyperson explained why he is the legitimate speaker and sheds a little light on the dark episode of May 7, when the state assembly convened for the first time since Barisan Nasional seized control of the state. According to him, Pakatan Rakyat Speaker V Sivakumar, who was literally dragged out of the House, could not chair the motion to sack him (Sivakumar) because he was an interested party. "We brought a motion to remove him. When we do that, he cannot table the motion because he is an interested party. It is against the rules of natural justice," he said. Ganesan said deputy speaker Hee Yit Fong then took over the proceedings from Sivakumar and allowed the motion moved by BN Menteri Besar Zambry Abdul Kadir to be passed, based on Article 36A of the state constitution. "Naturally, the deputy speaker has to take the place of the speaker. This has been done correctly," he said, adding that the motion was seconded by Hamidah Osman (Sungai Rapat) and supported by 29 state assemblypersons. This was followed by the taking of oath and donning of the speaker's regalia, said the two-term (1999-2008) Sungkai assemblyperson. "So, 31 (state assemblypersons) elected me. How can you say I'm not the legitimate speaker? It was legally done. I have no doubts about it," said the lawyer by training. 'Sivakumar ignored my warnings' On Sivakumar's unceremonious ejection, Ganesan said he sought the help of the police to remove the Pakatan speaker after he refused to budge from the coveted seat. He said that he had given Sivakumar ample warning before asking the sargent-at-arms to take action. But when the sargent-at-arms was unable to break the Pakatan state reps' human shield around Sivakumar, the police were called after Ganesan invoked his "residual powers" under Standing Order 90. "Strangers can be allowed in the house. The Standing Orders (even) allow me let them speak during debates," he said.

Khir Toyo faces suspension

By V Shankar Ganesh

SHAH ALAM, Tues:

Former Selangor Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Mohd Khir Toyo may be suspended without pay as a state assemblymen for breaking the assembly’s rules.

Selangor Assembly Speaker Teng Chang Khim said this was one of the options available to the Privilege Committee after Dr Khir and four other Barisan Nasional assemblymen were hauled up for allegedly criticising the assembly’s integrity.

Dr Khir and the assemblymen faced the committee for about 30 minutes this morning to answer the charges against them.

The other assemblymen are Datuk Warno Dogol ( Sabak), Mohd Isa Abu Kasim (Batang Kali), Datuk Marsum Paing (Dengkil) and Datuk Mohamed Idris Abu Bakar (Hulu Bernam).

The five came with a team of seven lawyers, who were allowed to accompany them in the closed-door hearing.
However, all five members of the committee were tight-lipped about what transpired during the hearing, saying it was an offence to reveal anything about the deliberations.

Among the charges Dr Khir faced are disrespecting the Select Committee on Competency, Accountability and Transparency by not attending its hearing and questioning its validity.

The other assemblymen are accused of issuing statements criticising the committee.

Teng said the committee would now deliberate on the matter and a decision would be reached by next Tuesday, and it would be tabled for approval in the next State assembly sitting.

He said among the punishments that can be meted out if they were found guilty were suspension without pay, a warning or asking them to apologise to the House.

He said the charges against the five were brought to the committee under Section 70 of the Standing Orders.

On whether there was a conflict of interest as he sat in both committees, Teng said as the Speaker, he had been vested with a lot of power.

“I can punish anyone. I can be the complainant, the prosecutor and also the judge in this case. All this is allowed according to the law.”

However, he said they could appeal any decision by moving a motion for review in the assembly and the Speaker had to allow it.

Teng said a police report had also been lodged against Dr Khir wife, Datin Seri Zaharah Kechik for not attending the committee’s hearing.

He said police can act against her under the Contempt of House Enactment 2008, which provides a jail sentence up to three years or RM10,000 fine.

Warno Dogol is one of two BN lawmakers in the privilege committee, but he will not be allowed to exercise his right to vote in this case.
The other is Kuala Kubu Baharu assemblyman Wong Koon Mun.

The other members are speaker Teng Chang Khim, deputy speaker Haniza Mohamed Talha, Subang Jaya assemblyman Hannah Yeoh, Rawang assemblyman Gan Peh Nei and Bangi Assemblyman Dr Shafie Abu Bakar.

Perak MB claims unfair reporting by media

TAIPING, Sun:

Perak Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Zambry Abdul Kadir today expressed regret over what he claimed as unfair reporting by some local media with regard to the ruckus at the Perak State Assembly sitting on Thursday.

"Reports and pictures published in the media did not portray who actually started the fiasco...I urge the media to be objective and fair in their reporting.

"Some pictures published, portrayed as if Barisan Nasional (BN) was responsible to start the ruckus...if the media did not support BN, it is okay but reports must be fair. We are not happy with reports of some media," he told reporters after a meet-the-people session at Changkat Jering here today.

Dr Zambry said the fiasco only started when the opposition crossed over to the section where BN representatives were seated, when he tabled a motion.

"Who started the ruckus?...it was they (opposition) who initially attacked us and that was an irresponsible and uncivilized action," he said.
The action of the opposition to grab and change the names of seats that were supposed to be for the us (BN) was also not reported, he said.

Asked if any action would be taken against such media, Dr Zambry said the Perak state government respected press freedom and would not restrict or bar any media.

"We are not going to impose any restriction like what Nizar (former Perak MB) did to Utusan Malaysia or what happened in Penang when the New Straits Times was barred," he said.

The fiasco caused the first session of the second term of the assembly which was opened by the Regent of Perak, Raja Dr Nazrin Shah, to be delayed by six hours.

The commotion started with a motion to remove V. Sivakumar, from DAP, as State Assembly Speaker, and the appointment of Datuk R. Ganesan, from MIC, as the new Speaker. - Bernama

Ministry awaiting ILO's risk assessment report on Retrenchment Fund

KUALA LUMPUR, May 9 (Bernama) -- The setting up of the Retrenched Workers Fund will be able to be realised after the International Labour Organisation (ILO) completes its risk assessment report on it by the end of this year, said Human Resources Minister Datuk Dr S. Subramaniam.

He said once the assessment report was completed, his ministry would forward a proposal on the fund to the Cabinet for its further action.

"The ministry asked the ILO, which has the actuarial experts on this, to conduct a study based on the situation in our country and recommend a suitable system for the fund.

"We are open on this, if what the ILO suggests meets our needs and can be implemented, the government is willing to go ahead with it," he told reporters after attending the Titiwangsa MIC's annual delegates meeting here today.

He said this when asked to comment on the announcement by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak recently that the government would be adopting two specific measures for the benefit of workers as a result of the global economic crisis.

They were the setting up of the Retrenched Workers Fund to assist workers that were laid off and as a pension scheme for private sector workers for social security during their old age.

One the pension scheme, Subramaniam said his ministry was holding discussions with the relevant parties to realise it.

On other matters, he said he welcomed the announcement by Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein yesterday that 13 Internal Security Act detainees, including three members of the outlawed Hindu Rights Action Force, would be released soon.

A new pecking order in Europe's balance of economic power but don't expect it to last for long

FOR years leaders in continental Europe have been told by the Americans, the British and even this newspaper that their economies are sclerotic, overregulated and too state-dominated, and that to prosper in true Anglo-Saxon style they need a dose of free-market reform. But the global economic meltdown has given them the satisfying triple whammy of exposing the risks in deregulation, giving the state a more important role and (best of all) laying low les Anglo-Saxons.

At the April G20 summit in London, France’s Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany’s Angela Merkel stood shoulder-to-shoulder to insist pointedly that this recession was not of their making. Ms Merkel has never been a particular fan of Wall Street. But the rhetorical lead has been grabbed by Mr Sarkozy. The man who once wanted to make Paris more like London now declares laissez-faire a broken system. Jean-Baptiste Colbert once again reigns in Paris. Rather than challenge dirigisme, the British and Americans are busy following it: Gordon Brown is ushering in new financial rules and higher taxes, and Barack Obama is suggesting that America could copy some things from France, to the consternation of his more conservative countrymen. Indeed, a new European pecking order has emerged, with statist France on top, corporatist Germany in the middle and poor old liberal Britain floored.

A cockpit of competing capitalisms

It is easy to dismiss this as political opportunism. But behind it sits a big debate not only about the direction of the European Union, the world’s biggest economic unit, but also about what sort of economy works best in the modern world. Thirty years after Thatcherism began to work its cruel magic in Britain (see article), continental Europe still tends to favour a larger state, higher taxes, heavier regulation of product and labour markets and a more generous social safety-net than freer-market sorts like the Iron Lady would tolerate. So what is the evidence for the continental model being better?

The continental countries certainly have not escaped the recession: France may be doing a bit better than the world’s other big rich economies this year, but Germany, dragged down by its exporting industries, is doing significantly worse. Yet Mr Obama is right to admit that in some ways continental Europe has coped well. Tough job-protection laws have slowed the rise in unemployment. Generous welfare states have protected those who are always the first to suffer in a downturn from an immediate sharp drop in their incomes and acted as part of the “automatic stabilisers” that expand budget deficits when consumer spending shrinks. In Britain, and to an even greater extent in America, people have felt more exposed.

The downturn has also confirmed that the continental model has some strengths. France has a comparatively efficient public sector, thanks in part to years of investment in better roads, more high-speed trains, nuclear energy and even the restoration of old cathedrals (see article). Nor is it just a matter of pumping in ever more taxpayers’ cash. By any measure France’s health system delivers better value for money than America’s costlier one. Germany has not just looked after its public finances more prudently than others; its export-driven model has forced its companies to hold down costs, making them competitive not only in Europe but also globally. By design as well as luck, much of continental Europe avoided the debt-fuelled housing bubbles that popped spectacularly in Britain and America (though Spain did not, see article).

But will it last? The strengths that have made parts of continental Europe relatively resilient in recession could quickly emerge as weaknesses in a recovery. For there is a price to pay for more security and greater job protection: a slowness to adjust and innovate that means, in the long run, less growth. The rules against firing that stave off sharp rises in unemployment may mean that fewer jobs are created in new industries. Those generous welfare states that preserve people’s incomes tend to blunt incentives to take new work. That large state, which helps to sustain demand in hard times, becomes a drag on dynamic new firms when growth resumes. The latest forecasts are that the United States and Britain could rebound from recession faster than most of continental Europe.

Individual countries have specific failings of their own. Even if it did everything else right, Germany’s overreliance on exports at the expense of consumer spending has proved a grave weakness in a downturn (see article); its banks also look weak. The rate of youth unemployment in France is over 20% and it can be twice as high in the notorious banlieues where Muslim populations are concentrated. Italy and Spain have seen sharp rises in unit labour costs and their labour-productivity growth has stalled or gone into reverse. It may not be long before the fickle Mr Sarkozy is re-reading his Adam Smith.

Not what you aim for, but how you do it

If there is to be an argument about which model is best, then this newspaper stands firmly on the side of the liberal Anglo-Saxon model—not least because it leaves more power in the hands of individuals rather than the state. But the truth is that the governments on both sides of the intellectual divide could go a long way to making their models work better, without changing their underlying beliefs.

On the continental side, there is nothing especially socially cohesive about labour laws that favour insiders over outsiders, or rules that make the costs of starting a business excessive. Even Colbert might admit that Europe’s tax burdens are too onerous today, particularly since they are likely to have to rise in the future to meet the looming cost of the continent’s rapidly ageing populations.

For the liberals, even if the cycle swings back in their direction, the financial crisis and the recession have shown up defects in the way they too implemented their model. Getting regulation right matters as much as freeing up markets; an efficient public sector may count as much as an efficient private one; public investment in transport, schools and health care, done well, can pay dividends. The pecking order may change, but pragmatism and efficiency will always count.The Economist