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Current Policy Issues

• Huge pay rise for Selangor EC

• Pay rise for teachers• School based

assessment • Extending compulsory

education from primary to secondary education (6-11 years)

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1. Policy and its characteristics2. Policy questions, its aspects and paradox3. Policy Process: Policy formation, policy

decision & political analysis of policy 4. Policy research and evaluation

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POLICY MAKING

This Note is Courtesy of Prof Madya Dr. Mohd Majid Konting, UPM, 2011 (With Adaptation).

CONTENTS:

Statement of position, not statement of procedureApply to a clearly defined populationNo specific time referenceApply to a specific area whereby the policy making body has authority/ influence/ control

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1.1 CHARACTERISTICS OF POLICY STATEMENT1. POLICY

• Policy statement is defined as, formal document outlining the ways in which an organization intends to conduct its affairs and act in specific circumstances

• Policy on poor children who are not attending schools-- Compulsory Primary Education- Compulsory primary & Secondary

Education5

Arises from conflict among humans over the distribution of goods, i.e. conflicts of interest. But, it lies in the incompatibility of the actual goods that human beings seek.Ask how to allocate such goods?The allocation is the business of politics.No policy without politics nor politics without policy

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2.1 ETIOLOGY (origin) OF POLICY QUESTIONS2. POLICY QUESTIONS

Policy questions is different from constitutional, moral questions, and questions aimed at forming the set of alternatives from which policies might be selected.Policy process involved policy analysis, formation, decision as well as the political analysis of policy

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…2.1 ETIOLOGY OF POLICY QUESTIONS

• Is a request for a fairly stable, but modifiable, line of action aimed at securing an optimal adjustment of the conflict between different goods, all of which must be pursued, but which, taken together, cannot all be maximized (Green, 1994).

• Can only be formulated if we can state the set of values or goods from which the question arises.

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2.3 POLICY QUESTIONS

PQ Examples as in MEB

How can the nation provide• Education accessible to all students• Education equitably to all students• World class quality education to all students• Education efficiently to all students

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• “Nested” within a set of mutually incompatible values or goods.

• Consider the issues surrounding the imposition of UPU’s (University Center Unit) entrance requirements:

~ Levels of attainment racially or ethnically balanced~ High academic achievement, and~ Culturally pluralistic communities

• Maximizing any one of these goods, will inhibit the advancement of the others.

• The policy problem arises by accepting all aims of education, and yet they cannot all be maximized.

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2.4 POLICY ISSUES

Continued

• No technical solution to policy questions.• It is practical questions, never theoretical

(depending on political ideology).• It is a statement of what we should do. • Information and analyses can improve

decision of action.• But policy questions can be answered even

without such information.

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…2.4 POLICY ISSUES

1. Scarcity2. Conflict of goods3. Policy, Politics, and Utopia

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2.5 ASPECTS OF POLICY QUESTIONS

Why we need a policy? (a) Increasing the satisfactions available to human beings

– increased productivity~ can be balanced by abundance.

(b) Doing something about their desires – improved moral and discipline~ can be made to meet not by the satisfaction of wants, but by their proper and harmonious composition.

Thus, one source of policy questions is the mismatch between human desires and satisfactions

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1. SCARCITY

Policy questions arise because the goods that human beings seek to secure in the world are interdependent and often jointly discordant (exactly the opposite of: yang bulat datang menggolek, yang pipih datang melayang)

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2. CONFLICT OF GOODS

• Human goods (values?) cannot all be present sufficiently to satisfy human desires.

• They cannot all be maximized.• They exist even when human interests do

not.• Thus, a need for solution to policy problems

in utopian terms

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3. POLICY, POLITICS, AND UTOPIA

Policy questions are different from moral, constitutional, and research questions:

1. Constraints of time;~ the answer will be revised~ have to be answered on time, though the information needed for the answer is not on time.

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PRESUPPOSITIONS OF POLICY QUESTIONS

2. Policy decisions and ethical decisions are different because policies and moral rules or principles differ.~ Policies are drawn from within a set of alternative actions all of which are either morally indifferent or capable of evoking moral approval.~ Defining the set of policy choices is the expression of moral conviction and estimations of value, but selecting from within that defined set is not.

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PRESUPPOSITIONS OF POLICY QUESTIONS

1. Policy analysis2. Policy formation3. Policy decision4. Political analysis of policy5. Policy research and evaluation

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3. THE POLICY PROCESS

• The rational or technical assessment of the net marginal trade-offs between different policy choices.• To discover a balance between competing

values.• An activity whose theory is the theory of

marginal utilities – exercise rationality.

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3.1. POLICY ANALYSIS

• An activity of gaining agreement on what form a specific policy can or will take, as opposed to what form it ought to take.

• Involve conversation, persuasion, argument, endless meetings.

• Employ governmental management and rhetoric theory.• Example : at Federal, the theory of inter-agency politics;

- “Don’t fight over turf, just take up space”. - “For the interest of the nation”.

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3.2. POLICY FORMATION

• The authoritative action of some office, administrative, or legislative by which a line of action is established.

• Employ the theory of polity, the political and legal theory by which authority is distributed, obligations for decision are assigned throughout the structure of political institutions, and agents of authority are enjoined to act.

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3.3. POLICY DECISION

• Is concerned with measuring the political weight of a policy.

• The aim is not so much to determine the net social benefits of a particular policy, but to determine its constituency.

• Whether the best thing to do is the same as the best thing to be done.

• It estimates who will vote for it.• It employs the theory of political behavior

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3.4. POLITICAL ANALYSIS

• R&E can contribute to each of those activities.• The rational of policy decision and political

analysis are the standards of political judgment.• The exercise of political judgment is a practical

and evaluation activities• Researcher can involve in these activities in the

context of government.• To what extend the policy achieves its

objective?23

5. POLICY RESEARCH & EVALUATION

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POLICY

PROJECT

DISCUSSION

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Policy: Extending compulsory schooling to 11 years

1. Data: Education Statistics

2. Implication from data:

a) Additional teachers-Teacher training

b) New classrooms and schools

3. Culture

4. Legislation (Act and Regulations)

5. Students aids

6. Financial implications