UK Higher Ed: Prestige at a Discount

The competition is heating up and getting fiercer as UK higher education desperately fights to hold onto crashing foreign student enrollment. 

At least 22 universities are offering guaranteed tuition-fee discounts of up to £8,000 for overseas students. This shift is driven by a 17 percent drop in postgraduate enrollment in the two years leading to March 2026, stricter visa rules, and a 2024 ban on family members accompanying students. 

The reduced net fee at these varsities is likely to fuel concerns about the education sector's approach to recruiting overseas students, on whose fees it already depends.

The University of Nottingham, which set out plans to trim more than 600 jobs, offers an immediate £3,000 scholarship for 2026 taught master’s courses with no application needed, replacing merit awards. 

Meanwhile, the University of Aberdeen, where 100 jobs could be cut as part of a £10m savings plan, introduced an £8,000 scholarship directly deducted from the tuition bill. 

Furthermore, the University of Kent are offering a pre-approved £5,000 discount for master's degree entrants from 14 specific countries – including China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, and Vietnam – requiring no separate application process. 

The University of Leeds are also providing a hassle-free £5,000 regional scholarship reduction directly to eligible international undergraduate students, such as applicants from Kenya. 

Zeenat Fayaz, founder of The Brand Education, which advises universities on branding, said this “pricing war” could backfire by sparking competition between institutions on the basis of a degree’s cost rather than their own strengths. 

“Higher-tariff universities are not only offering scholarships, but they’re also reducing their grade requirements to allow students in... It’s a race to the bottom”.

The Brink of Dawn: Rewriting US Nuclear Strategy

The US military is drawing up a new nuclear weapons strategy that breaks with decades of established guidelines. ☢️☢️☢️

The strategy is being overseen by War Department policy chief Elbridge Colby (left) and breaks with guidelines followed for decades. Five people familiar with the plans say the update emphasises using shorter-range tactical weapons in regional conflicts. 

The new plan is designed to provide the US President with updated crisis-response options by seeking to deter adversaries from exploiting regional conflicts while preventing conventional warfare from escalating into a nuclear exchange.  

Colby made a scheduled visit and keynote speech at the US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) in Omaha, Nebraska, on August 05, 2026, where he addressed military leadership and attendees during the closed-door 2026 Deterrence Symposium. It came after the Pentagon previously warned that America faces two major nuclear rivals at the same time in China and Russia. 

On July 23, 2026, the Department of War designated three Chinese civilian research universities – Fudan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and Shandong University (alongside the Aerospace Information Research Institute under the Chinese Academy of Sciences) – as national security threats. These institutions join a growing blacklist that now comprises 130 foreign entities.

Celtic faced Kilmarnock yesterday, seeking back-to-back wins, and they didn't disappoint as they steamrolled past the latter 5-1. 

The Scottish champions were quick to launch an attack down the left side. Kieran Tierney passed to Arne Engels, who delivered a high cross to the far post for Kasper Høgh to head into the net in the second minute, scoring his first goal for Celtic. 

In the 33rd minute, Camilo Durán intercepted a defensive pass, linked up with Benjamin Nygren, and fed Høgh on the left side of the box for a sharp finish. 

During another fluid Celtic attack two minutes later, Nygren slipped the ball to the right for Durán, who sent in a cross that bypassed the goalkeeper, allowing Høgh to tap into an open net and complete his hat-trick. 

Nygren added to the tally in the 47th minute after intercepting a poor goal kick and firing a high shot straight into the top corner. 

While the Killies pulled one back in the 56th minute, Luke McCowan sealed the win with a 75th-minute volley after Kilmarnock failed to clear a looping corner kick.

Geopolitics Claims the Lab

The US has escalated its tech crackdown by adding top-tier educational institutions Fudan University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University to its defense blacklist. 

The updated US defense blacklist names 88 mainland Chinese entities deemed security risks, focusing on research and funding restrictions. Under the new rule, which takes effect at the start of the 2026 fiscal year (i.e., October 1st), the Pentagon will prohibit any funding for fundamental research conducted in collaboration with these schools, or for projects that use their equipment.

This signals a tightening of Washington’s research‑security crackdown, which previously focused mainly on military‑linked entities. 

Officials say the move is part of a broader effort to safeguard sensitive technologies and prevent the transfer of critical knowledge that could enhance China’s military capabilities. 

Both Fudan and Shanghai Jiao Tong have long been recognized for their strengths in engineering, computer science, and advanced materials – fields that are of particular concern to US defense planners.

Academics and university leaders have expressed concern that the restrictions could hinder international collaboration and impede open scientific exchange. Nonetheless, the Pentagon maintain that protecting national security interests outweighs the risks to academic openness. 

The expansion of the US blacklist to include universities like Fudan and Shanghai Jiao Tong signals a fundamental shift in strategy where the line between civilian research and military capability has officially vanished. This trend indicates that the pursuit of innovation is becoming firmly bound by national borders, marking a new era of restricted academic collaboration.

On this Wednesday morning, I had an epiphany, a calm moment of clarity:

:

PhDs for the Real World

In most countries, earning a PhD means writing a dissertation. Hundreds of pages of theory, research, and citations that very few people will ever read. 

China decided to try something different. Under a law passed in 2024, select universities can now award engineering doctorates based on physical prototypes, new techniques, or major installations instead of traditional papers. 

The rule is straightforward: build something that works in real life and at scale, and you can graduate. 

The first cohort has already finished. Zheng Hehui earned his doctorate by designing reinforced steel blocks that snap together like LEGO to form massive bridge pylons. His invention is already in use on the Changtai Yangtze River Bridge, the world's longest cable-stayed bridge. 

Wei Lianfeng became the first practical PhD graduate at Harbin Institute of Technology by developing vacuum laser welding processes for the Nuclear Power Institute of China. 

Another candidate built a fire-fighting system for large seaplanes. 

At least 11 engineers have now earned their doctorates through this route. Since 2022, more than 60 universities and 100 companies have collaborated, selecting over 20,000 students for practical doctorate programmes. 

The goal is to close the gap between academic theory and industrial application, particularly in fields like artificial intelligence and semiconductors. One student built a bridge. Another welded nuclear components. And they got the same three letters as everyone else.

Yesterday, Malaysia's top women's doubles pair, Pearly Tan and Thinaah Muralitharan, successfully defeated Ukraine's Polina Buhrova and Yevheniia Kantemyr in the Round of 16 at the China Open. 

They took just a swift thirty minutes to wrap up a straight-games victory, winning 21-19, 21-12. 

They're in the last eight and today, they will play Japanese nemeses Yuki Fukushima-Mayu Matsumoto, whom they hold a 5-4 head-to-head advantage.

National doubles coaching director Rexy Mainaky believes the Japanese world No. 3 pair will have an edge as the Malaysians are still finding their footing on the World Tour.

"Against the Japanese pair, they will start as the underdogs. However, Pearly and Thinaah have beaten them before, so I hope they will fight all the way and regain their momentum", added Rexy. 

Current form suggests Fukushima-Matsumoto will start as favourites, but the China Open also presents Pearly-Thinaah with an opportunity to rediscover the form that once took them to world No. 2.

Law School's Ban on Laptops and Smartphones

A US university have announced a ban on laptops and smartphones for incoming law students in an effort to combat AI usage. 

The new policy will prevent first year students at the University of Chicago Law School from accessing any electronic devices during classes, starting from the 2026-2027 academic year. 

The ban is part of the law school’s strategy to develop “AI-resilient pedagogy and assessments” in an effort to elevate “essential human skills that distinguish excellent lawyers” in the AI era. 

“We need to ensure that our students actually learn to think critically, strategically, and independently without relying on AI”, the law school’s new AI strategy states. 

I can expect other academic institutions to follow suit.

There's been a lot of fixtures, a lot of football and it's already 100 games into the FIFA World Cup. 

It is said the quarter-finals were all quite closely contested – I didn't even bother watching any of the games – and the four teams left to compete in the semi-finals are France against Spain, and Argentina against England.

The Opta supercomputer predicts France to emerge as the winners of the 2026 edition. 

I know I've said I don't care, but IF I HAVE TO CHOOSE, I'd pick Argentina or Spain.

White Students in Minority at Nearly One in 5 UK Varsities

White students have become a minority at nearly one in five universities across the UK, according to official higher education data analyzed by The Telegraph. 

The newspaper’s analysis, published on Wednesday, found that white British students accounted for less than half of enrollment at 27 of the country’s 147 universities in the 2024-25 academic year, up from 13 institutions a decade earlier. 

At some universities, white students made up fewer than one in four enrolled. Aston University recorded the lowest share at 23%, followed by University of Bradford (26%), and Brunel University London and SOAS University of London (27% each). 

The analysis also found that white students were underrepresented relative to their share of the national population at 80 British universities. Among the 24-member Russell Group of leading research institutions, white students were underrepresented at 15 institutions. 

Despite the demographic shift, at least ten universities where white students are now a minority continue to offer scholarships, bursaries and other financial support reserved for applicants from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds, according to the newspaper. Some of the schemes provide funding of up to £18,000 ($24,000) per year. 

Eric Kaufmann, a politics professor at University of Buckingham and a critic of university diversity policies, told The Telegraph that race-based scholarships should be abolished. 

“There is no reason to maintain BAME scholarships, which represent racial discrimination, pure and simple”, he said. 

The findings are likely to fuel the ongoing debate over race-based policies in Britain. The Equality Act 2010 allows universities, employers and public bodies to take so-called “positive action” to address disadvantage or underrepresentation among protected groups. 

Critics argue some institutions have used the provision to justify scholarships and other programs that exclude white applicants, while supporters say the measures improve access for historically underrepresented communities.

Reading Is the Ultimate Cognitive Enhancer

Reading is essentially a mental workout. It actively strengthens and expands your brain's cognitive networks, directly driving how you acquire, process, and retain information. 

Truth be told, reading is the ultimate cognitive enhancer. Even in an era dominated by generative AI, smartphones, and short-form digital media. 

In fact, the way we read has changed more in the last decade than in the previous century. So what do we actually know about what reading does for the mind? 

In his book, "The Perks of Being a Bookworm: The Science of the Benefits of Reading" (2026), Falk Huettig, senior investigator at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, brings together research spanning psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, and education to answer that question. 

The result is a systematic account of how literacy reshapes memory, attention, language processing, and reasoning – and even abilities readers might not expect, like face recognition. 

Cognitive enhancement is having a moment, with people turning to better sleep, exercise, nutrition, stress management, and tools like caffeine or neurostimulation in search of a sharper mind. 

According to Huettig, reading has largely flown under the radar.

One of the more surprising threads in the book concerns face recognition. A long-standing idea in cognitive neuroscience holds that because reading is a relatively recent cultural invention, the brain has no dedicated reading network of its own, so literacy training has to borrow space from older visual systems, including the one used for recognising faces. 

“Neuroscientists have proposed that the development of reading expertise may therefore partially displace or encroach upon the face recognition network in the brain”, Huettig (right) explains. 

“This postulated cortical ‘invasion’ could result in a measurable decline in face or object recognition performance, as neural resources are reallocated to support the newly acquired reading skill”. 

Huettig’s own research points the other way. “Our alternative perspective challenges the idea of destructive competition by proposing that learning to read may actually enhance sensitivity to faces and other visual object categories, rather than intrusively co-opting existing face recognition territory”, he says. 

In studies conducted in India comparing literate and illiterate adults, his team found that “such co-opting leads to functional fine-tuning, where older networks are not diminished but rather adapted and even enhanced. We confirmed this explanation in behavioral studies: literate people were better at face recognition than illiterate people”.

The book argues that literacy keeps developing long after someone learns to decode text. 

“Reading proficiency does not end once a reader can fluently decode a writing system”, says Huettig. “Avid readers continue to automatize and refine these subprocesses and their coordination, training both lower- and, with increasing practice, higher-level cognitive functions. 

As a result, literate people come to ‘see’ the world through a fundamentally different lens than those who are illiterate or less literate”. Few people, he notes, ever reach the very top: “only a small proportion of individuals reach the highest levels of critical reading in international assessments such as the PISA tests”. 

Content matters too: “It matters a great deal what people read”, Huettig says. “Reaching these advanced levels of literacy requires regular engagement with sophisticated texts, along with the development of strong critical thinking and reasoning skills”.

On format, the picture is more nuanced than “print good, screens bad. Meta-analyses have found inferior reading comprehension when text is read on digital screens”, Huettig notes, but he points to self-regulation as the likely driver: “Readers tend to regard analogue print as a more appropriate medium for ‘serious’ reading than screens, and monitor their behavior accordingly. As a result, they exert more cognitive effort for the task at hand”. 

Still, he’s cautious about overstating the case: “The existing body of research does not support the simplified inference that print always results in better reading outcomes than digital reading”. 

Audiobooks, meanwhile, can deliver some of reading’s benefits at a distance. “Listening to audiobooks can expose listeners to rare and sophisticated words, infrequent grammatical constructions, and complex narrative structures: elements that are not commonly found in everyday speech”, he says. 

But the full picture requires the real thing: “The full spectrum of the benefits of reading is only obtained from reading text”. 

And Huettig’s advice runs counter to a popular instinct: don’t over-simplify. “Simplifying texts to align with shrinking vocabulary and declining grammatical proficiency among young people may be counterproductive”, he warns.

“Relying too heavily on human- or AI-generated readability scores, or defaulting to auto-correct for ‘better words’ and ‘better grammar’, can dilute the richness of written expression. Instead, prioritizing quality writing, memorable prose, and the use of complex, uncommon, and sophisticated language may be a more effective strategy for maintaining and enhancing literacy”. 

More broadly, he wants readers to come away with a sense of just how much is at stake: “Reading and writing are not merely neutral tools that humans use: they take hold of the mind and profoundly reshape it”. 

The book closes by asking what happens to these benefits as reading habits keep shifting.

Huettig is cautious about firm predictions but draws a parallel with vinyl records: “What once was the standard medium for music has become a niche interest, sustained by a small group of enthusiasts… In a similar way, the written medium may persist in pockets of culture, or even become a nostalgic fad for future generations, before largely fading from everyday use”. 

If literacy continues to decline globally, he suggests, the kinds of skills current intelligence tests measure may decline with it, and he’s doubtful new technologies will simply compensate: “Mastering new, future technologies may compensate for the loss in cognitive abilities, but personally, I wouldn’t bet on that happening”. 

Early endorsements describe the book as an original and accessible contribution to the science of reading, with reviewers from Oxford, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and CNRS/Aix-Marseille University praising its scope and clarity.

Nearly 2M Malaysian Grads Trapped in Jobs Below Qualification Level

Nearly two million Malaysian graduates are trapped in jobs below their qualification level, a far more damning measure of higher education outcomes than unemployment figures, economist and founder and director Williams Business Consultancy Sdn Bhd, Geoffrey Williams shared. 

He said the biggest issue facing graduates was underemployment as they leave universities burdened with debt and accept whatever work is available, regardless of whether it matches their qualifications. 

"Unemployment is low, but underemployment is high. This is the measure to watch. Almost two million are in this category, more than one third of all graduates", Williams (right) told the Sun. 

Data from the Department of Statistics Malaysia showed that 1.96 million tertiary-educated Malaysians were in skill-related underemployment in the third quarter of last year, making up 35.5% of employed degree and diploma holders. Graduate unemployment, by comparison, stood at just 3.2% in 2024. 

Williams said graduate employability should not be treated as a measure of university success. 

"Graduate employability is not a good measure of university success because if businesses do not supply graduate-level jobs, universities cannot do anything about that". 

He rejected the notion that universities should primarily function as workforce training centres, even as industry associations continue to highlight the gap between academic output and labour market needs. 

"The fact is that universities are not training centres – they are not set up to train graduates for the labour force. Most academics have never worked outside of a university and do not know what employers want". 

Williams added that traditional employability measures fail to capture whether graduates are actually securing graduate-level positions. 

"Traditional employability statistics are already irrelevant because they do not show that graduates have graduate-level jobs. One big mismatch for universities is that they prepare graduates for formal contracts that do not exist in large enough numbers". 

Citing Higher Education Ministry tracer studies, he added that about 90% of graduates worked for employers while only 10% became entrepreneurs – a ratio he said was poorly suited to the realities of the modern economy. 

"In a world of artificial intelligence, gig economy and micro-enterprises, employment will be more informal. World-class universities are preparing people for that and Malaysian universities need to catch up". 

And Williams also contended that the Malaysian Qualifications Agency played an important role in maintaining quality across the sector. He said without the agency’s oversight, standards in higher education would deteriorate. 

On June 14, MQA chief executive Prof Dr Mohammad Shatar Sabran (left) said Malaysian higher education met international standards and dismissed claims that declining standards were behind graduate employment difficulties. 

He maintained that strong academic results alone were no longer sufficient and graduates must equip themselves with additional skills to remain competitive.

Norway Pulls the Plug on Classroom AI and Tablets

Norway is imposing a near ban on the use of generative AI tools by elementary school pupils while also restricting their ​use in the education of older children to prevent a ‌negative impact on learning, the country's prime minister declared. 

Facing a broad decline in education test scores, the government in 2024 banned smartphones from schools and have given teachers back more powers to enforce discipline in the classroom. 

Using AI increases the risk that young children skip important ⁠steps in their education, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere (right) told a press conference on Friday. 

"The most important thing in school is that our children learn to read, write and do mathematics", Stoere said, adding that the new standards will be imposed from the new school year beginning in late August. 

Pupils from first through seventh grade, aged 6 to 13, should as a general rule not be using AI, while those in lower secondary school, aged 14 to ‌16, can ⁠cautiously adopt tools under teachers' supervision, the government said. In upper secondary education, from ages 17 to 19, students should learn to use AI appropriately so that they are prepared for further education and work, they added. 

Norway began adopting computers in classrooms in ⁠the 1990s and tablets after the introduction of the iPad from 2010 onwards, reducing the reliance on books and handwriting. 

But in a related statement on Friday the government also ⁠said they will propose legislation to fund the use of more books in classrooms, reversing the trend towards computer tablets. 

In April, the Norwegian government had ⁠announced plans to ban children from using social media until they turn 16, in order to reduce young people's use of electronic devices.

A Major Reshuffle of Academic Offerings

China's universities are undertaking a massive reshuffling of their academic offerings as part of a drive to better align higher education with the nation's development goals - culling thousands of so-called obsolete degrees in favour of new, tech-focused programmes. 

The sweeping campaign comes as China races to become a global leader in a slew of hi-tech "future industries" and solve a severe graduate jobs crisis, which has left millions of young people struggling to find work. 

Between 2021 and 2025, China's higher education institutions revoked or suspended 12,200 undergraduate degree programmes while introducing 10,200 new ones, meaning that more than 30% of the nation's university programmes underwent adjustments, according to Ministry of Education data cited by Xinhua. 

The cuts have been heavily concentrated in arts, humanities, foreign languages and management - fields that are increasingly deemed outdated or oversaturated in China, where more than 16% of young people are unemployed and the job market is being rapidly transformed by artificial intelligence. 

Many of the new programmes, meanwhile, are closely aligned with Beijing's economic development goals. For instance, nine universities have added new majors in embodied intelligence, which dovetails with a national drive to speed up the integration of next-generation AI into the real economy. 

Universities have faced pressure to adapt to rapid changes in the Chinese economy over recent years, as graduate numbers have soared to record levels but many have found their degrees offer little help when it comes to finding work. 

The University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, for example, halted admissions for their product design programme this year, with one recent graduate saying the decision was partly based on the poor employment prospects of students on the programme. 

"The rapid development of AI has hit product design hard", said the graduate, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the topic. "Many core tasks, such as modelling and rendering, can now be handled by AI". 

The Communication University of China (CUC) - a prestigious media-focused school in Beijing - has made headlines by restructuring a string of programmes including cinematography, which has been merged with the film and television cinematography and production programme. University alumni said the consolidation was a natural response to technological and market changes. 

Song Song, a videographer who finished CUC's cinematography programme in 2012, said his undergraduate years had coincided with the shift from film to digital. 

"With the rise of live streaming and short videos, the requirements for a cameraman are completely different from traditional television news shooting", Song said. "Changes in education are absolutely necessary". 

However, switching one programme for another is only going to be a short-term fix, and deeper changes to higher education may be needed to adapt to an era of accelerating technological change, warned Chu Zhaohui, a senior researcher at the National Institute of Education Sciences. 

Many of the programmes cut by universities were only established a few years ago, during an earlier phase of China's push to overhaul university majors, Chu pointed out. As a result, they had little time to develop and improve. 

Rather than continually swapping out one major for another, Chu suggested that universities adopt a more flexible system that gives students greater freedom to select their own courses.

"This would allow them to select courses based on their personal interests, unique strengths, and their demand for different career paths, ultimately building their own distinctive intellectual profile," Chu said. 

As the job market becomes increasingly volatile, many in China are coming to view undergraduate degrees as a starting point rather than a final destination. 

Vincent Zhao, a 48-year-old who runs a media production company in Beijing, encouraged his daughter to choose a programme focusing on statistics and data governance when she entered university last year. 

"We focused on choosing a broad direction that aligns with what she likes and excels at, leaving room for either future postgraduate studies or employment", Zhao said. 

"The old path - where you study one specific major, find a perfectly matched job, and stay in it stably for a lifetime – simply does not exist any more".

AI Doesn’t Just Help Us Think, It Thinks Instead Of Us

Deep in Book VII of Plato’s Republic, Socrates describes prisoners chained inside a cave, mistaking shadows cast on a wall by firelight for reality itself. They name the shadows, debate them and develop expertise about them. The prisoners are completely, sincerely wrong, and they have no idea. The cave isn’t a place of stupidity, it’s a place of convincing, well-organised illusion. 

But Plato’s real interest wasn’t the cave, it was in the periagoge – a Greek word meaning the turning of the soul away from shadows and toward the light. For Plato, this was education itself: not the filling of an empty vessel with facts, but a fundamental reorientation of how a person relates to truth and how they come to know that truth. 

The shadows persist but today they aren’t cast by firelight, they are generated by machines. Large language models (LLMs), image making and AI-powered search produce outputs that are fluent, confident and immediate. 

But here’s the crucial difference from Plato’s original problem, his shadows were at least connected to something real. What AI produces is different in that a language model has no built-in commitment to truth, only a statistical relationship to an enormous quantity of text. When it tells you something, it isn’t reporting, it’s composing. 

The outputs can be correct. But they can also be wrong in ways that are structurally indistinguishable from being right. The shadow no longer flutters on a cave wall, it speaks now, and sometimes it speaks beautifully. 

This is why periagoge – turning towards the light – matters more now than ever and why AI threatens it so quietly. Knowledge isn’t merely true belief, it’s true belief held for the right reasons, connected to the world through justification, evidence and process. 

AI disrupts this at the root. It is useful precisely because it decouples output quality from the slow, demanding work of verification. You don’t need to consult a primary source, triangulate between perspectives, or sit with the discomfort of not yet knowing. 

GenAI poses many problems for learning. When an AI hands us an answer, we risk bypassing the process through which learning happens. We’ve received a product that looks like knowledge from the outside but is hollow at its core, it’s a shadow that convinces us of something we haven’t actually understood. 

GenAI doesn’t just help us think. It thinks instead of us. And there’s growing evidence it’s making us measurably worse at doing it ourselves.

The philosopher Miranda Fricker identified a harm she called “epistemic injustice”, the wrong done when someone is denied the tools to make sense of their own experience. Writing in 2007, she couldn’t have imagined the form that harm might take two decades later. 

What we risk now is something adjacent but distinct: epistemic atrophy. Not the theft of knowledge, but the slow erosion of our willingness and capacity to undertake the more demanding work of understanding what is real. In other words, the capacity to ask: how do you know? And the instinct to distrust the fluent answer, and the patience to sit with the discomfort of not-yet-knowing, which is where all the real learning begins. 

These capacities can’t be downloaded. They’re built slowly, through exactly the kinds of tasks that AI now makes it easiest to skip, and scientific studies are catching up with what educators already sense. A landmark MIT Media Lab study tracked a group of students writing essays variously with ChatGPT, a search engine, or nothing at all. 

Those using LLMs showed the weakest brain connectivity of all three groups, cognitive activity scaled down in direct relation to how much was outsourced. Most couldn’t recall what they’d just written and yet the task was completed. But fundamentally, the learning never happened. 

Worse still, the cognitive habits don’t automatically reset. Once we hand the thinking over, our brains don’t automatically take it back. By the end of 2025, a RAND survey of 1200 students found two-thirds believed AI was harming their critical thinking. The students themselves can feel what’s happening to them. 

The most important thing educators teach has never been content. It has always been periagoge, the reorientation of the whole person toward truth and the willingness to be wrong, to revise, to trace an idea back to its roots and ask whether it holds. 

If we design our curricula, our assessments and our institutions around the assumption that the output is what matters – the essay, the answer, the finished product – then we are not educating. 

Plato’s escaped prisoner, having seen the sun, returns to warn the others. They don’t thank him. They find him disorienting, probably, certainly annoying. In their minds, the shadows they trust are sharper than any daylight he can describe. 

Today, the cave is still the cave, but the chains are more comfortable than ever, and the shadows have learned to speak. The question now is whether we are still teaching people to turn around and face the light. 

June 2026's PWP for Teens

On Tuesday-Wednesday, I was part of the speech coaching team that works with teens at The Thinking Space in Pusat Bandar Melawati, Kuala Lumpur. 

This particular workshop saw high coach-to-participant ratio, allowing for highly individualized attention. This strong presence ensured comprehensive assessments, meticulous evaluations, and continuous progress tracking. 

Kindly check out the photos of the said workshop:

A Classroom Ban on the Viral Six-seven

From viral catchphrases to bizarre inside jokes, internet memes have become an unavoidable part of youth culture, often spilling beyond social media feeds and into classrooms, homes and everyday conversations. 

The “six seven” meme, for one, has taken over not only online spaces among the younger generation but also real-life interactions, as the mere mention of these numbers may trigger an overly enthusiastic response from children, teenagers and even young adults who keep up with current online trends. 

[Note: If you don't know what this meme is all about, kindly check our my blog post "Six-seven" published October 29, 2025 – and you'll understand it].

The Sun, had, on May 22, highlighted a woman who had claimed to have come across a sign banning the popular meme in a classroom, even going so far as to impose punishment on students who either utter it or act it out.

The viral Threads post claimed that the punishment involves students writing 200 sentences if they are caught. 

“This kind of useless trend is ruining kids’ brains and attitudes”, the post was captioned. 

The woman also said in the comments section that the slang had become so overused that she actively avoids saying the two numbers herself. 

While some see these trends as harmless fun and a reflection of changing times, others argue that excessive obsession with online slang may be affecting students’ focus and behaviour in school. 

With the post garnering widespread attention, netizens were divided over the ban, with some agreeing and others criticising the move, highlighting the growing influence of internet culture on younger generations and the challenges educators face in balancing discipline with self-expression. 

“It disrupts the lesson. The moment you say ‘six seven’, students start repeating it, making them less focused”, one user pointed out. 

“There are levels to memes, but I don’t know why this current generation of memes is just straight-up nonsense. I genuinely prefer the older memes that were more relevant in many situations”, another netizen said. 

“Why are people so uptight about it? I’d rather kids say random brainless but harmless things instead of vulgar ones. Let kids be kids”, commented another. 

Netizens also pointed out that similar memes or slangs that were trending during their youth did not deter their focus from learning during school hours.

At the Singapore Open today, Pearly Tan-Thinaah Muralitharan crashed out in the second round.

The Thai sisters, Benyapa Aimsaard-Nuntakarn Aimsaard, who are ranked No. 105 in the world defeated the Malaysian women's doubles pair 21-16, 21-19 in 36 minutes.

Disappointing!!

PWP @ Universiti Malaysia Sabah

On Wednesday to Thursday, our Persuade with Power workshop at Universiti Malaysia Sabah drew twenty-one participants, with the majority hailing from the Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences, and many who are medical doctors.

I am really pleased with the outcome, especially considering the size of the group I took charge of and the limited time available to help participants move beyond informative speaking towards more persuasive communication.