Perceived Corruption Worsens in Malaysia

The 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index released yesterday by Transparency International shows that corruption levels remain at a standstill worldwide, with 86 percent of countries making little to no progress in the last 10 years. 

The CPI ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceived levels of public sector corruption on a scale of zero (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean). 

The CPI global average remains unchanged at 43 for the tenth year in a row, and two-thirds of countries score below 50. 

And Malaysia garnered 48 points, the first time the country’s score dropped below 50 since 2012. Undoubtedly, perceived corruption in Malaysia has worsened – and we are placed 62nd in 2021, or five rungs lower than the previous year. 

FYI, Denmark, Finland and New Zealand are top of the index with 88 points each as “clean countries”, while Somalia, Syria and South Sudan are at the bottom of the index, with 13, 13 and 11 points respectively.

Covid is hurting education.

The scale of the number of children who have lost out on their schooling during the pandemic is “nearly insurmountable”, according to UN data released on Monday. 

Globally, disruption to education has meant millions of children have significantly missed out on the academic learning they would have acquired if they had been in the classroom. 

Up to 70% of 10-year-olds in low- and middle-income countries cannot read or understand a simple text, up from 53% pre-Covid, the research suggested. 

Classroom closures continue to affect more than 616 million children globally, with younger and more marginalised children facing the greatest loss in learning after almost two years of Covid, according to children’s agency UNICEF, which called for intensive support to help students recover. 

Across the world, from Ethiopia and South Africa to Brazil and the US, children have lost basic literacy and numeracy skills and their mental and physical health has suffered. It is a worrying situation.