From the Toddlers' Plastic Desk, Mumong

Greetings fellow Officers,

Trying to make the weekly target happen.

This morning I went to the Land Transport Department to get my temporary driving license and then I registered at Asohraya. My law test will be on the 31st of this month. In the meantime I can start learning how to park and maybe do the hill (I can only get to the streets after I have passed the law test). So just now I went to Asohraya again to pay for the 10 hours, and I've got my teacher. The first of my lessons starts tomorrow!

There has been a lot of hype about the 2nd Heart of Borneo project, the local industries, the nation's development and the reinforcement of the ban on schoolteachers to carry out tuition out of school hours at their private residences.

I think the Heart of Borneo aims to preserve more than half the country's area as primary forest. This is Brunei's contribution to the international agreement between the nations that are on Borneo's soil namely Brunei, Malaysia and Indonesia.

Local industries such as food manufacturing should be aiming to produce more basic and staple foods, said Dr Hj Ibrahim (Senior Lecturer of Chemistry at UBD) at an event a few days ago, as today's local manufacturers go above the basic stuff e.g. crisps and that sort.

Brunei has set to leave about only 5% to be developed, the rest may stay as natural rainforest, and this means that the opportunity for real estate developers to build multi-storey residences e.g. flats or apartments has opened up (Did no one think of multiple stories earlier? Look, value for money, buy less land and make taller buildings therefore more people renting per unit area of land, more revenue, that stuff. See, a sixth form student who doesn't do economics nor business studies can come up with that!). The amendment of the Strata Act has indeed come in at the right time, to enable subdivision of building ownership e.g. one floor or half a floor per owner (correct me, anyone, if I am wrong).

Regarding the private tuition issue, tuition schools are still alright, it's just the private tuitions that are banned. Parents are reluctant to send their kids to tuition schools and have argued that their children should have the same teacher and tutor in order to have that 'consistency'. But, on the other end of the spectrum, can't the student themselves work harder up to the point that tuition is not needed?

Hope you find this informative. Stay in touch. Enjoy yourselves.

Regards,

Office Boy a.k.a. Local Correspondent