Contents - Akademi Sains Malaysia

ASM Science Journal, Volume 7(1), 2013An article in The Star (Monday, 9 July 2012) highlighted “Call for ‘scientific power’ boost” which said that leaders inBeijing want more innovation in science and technology. What does this means? Leaders all over the world is urging andemphasizing on technological development. Besides, we should put effort in reducing our reliance on import technology.Every year, major expense is issued for the purchase of technology from other country. If we have enough capability toproduce our own technology, we don’t need to buy from foreign countries. No instrumentation, no research and when noresearch, no technology. Later, we will have to hire foreign workers who have already explored the field many years agoin various expertise. In addition, we must make counter offer by giving higher salary and allowances because to competewith other associations which may also need to do the same things.We have enough human resource — the academician, scientists and researchers. They are the professionals, but theyhave no back up to assist them in gathering data. We are thirsty for expertise in instrumentation science to carry outresearch. With their presence, they can help the professionals to handle the equipment, devices and tools — a technicalsupport. The curriculum structure of instrumentation science in universities should give the opportunity for the students toexplore the technology used in other countries that have not been adopted yet in this country. This exposure is important,so they can learn about the operating mechanism of more complex machines, sophisticated devices and gadgets. They willbring back the knowledge obtained as a reference material to start a new research or to accomplish incomplete researches.There are just so many things to be discovered with instrumentation science in diverse area such as medicine, electronics,transportation, military, sports, manufacturing industry, agriculture, construction, and education. Instruments are neededwidely — surgical instrument, electronic instrument, aircraft instrument, optical instrument, precision instrument, etc.To summarize, we need a plan of strategic enhancement in instrumentation science field. We should realize that theworld is changing so fast. Let the young Malaysians know that learning instrumentation science can be exciting andrewarding. I hope that people will not treat graduates in instrumentation science like second class engineers. Everybodyplay different important roles to lead our country in order to become a highly-developed country.78