We all grew up on stories of the magic bean, golden egg, the silver bullet. From young, we all want to believe that there exists this one thing that is the panacea to all our ills.

This tradition was continued in a most animated fashion when DreamWorks Studio brought out Kung Fu Panda. In it, the master Shifu, decides the Panda Po is ready to open the sacred Dragon Scroll, which promises great power to its possessor.

However, when Po opens it, he finds nothing but a blank, reflective surface. Stricken with despair at the scroll’s apparent worthlessness, Po returns to the village and meets up with his father, who tells him the secret ingredient of the family’s noodle soup: nothing. Things become special, his dad explains, because people believe them to be special.

Yes, we have been blessed. Because we were always given something. Our land yielded tin, then oil, then gas. Rubber grew easily and profusely, then oil palm.

But what if all of these ran out. What if we had nothing.

If we extend the Kung Fu Panda parable, maybe then would we become truly special. When we stop depending on gifts from the world, and start building on our own gifts.

The great thing about having a good leader is that progress can be envisioned, planned, executed and accomplished, ahead of anticipated calamities. A gamut of official and unofficial studies estimate our domestic oil and gas reserves will last only another 20 to 30 years.

That’s one generation away. Our children’s Malaysia will have no indigenous energy reserves. We have to start acting now on the basis that we have nothing because by the time our kids grow up, they had better be endowed with their own magic ingredient.

Unfortunately, by many accounts, empirical and anecdotal, we have not been working on giving them this mojo. A recent article on themalaysiainsider.com lamented that schools like Victoria Institution (whose famous alums include Tan Sri Ananda Krishnan, Tan Sri Francis Yeoh), St John’s Institution (Datuk Seri Najib Razak), Penang Free School (Tunku Abdul Rahman) and others like Malacca High School and St Michael’s Institution are all storied schools that have been allowed to fall behind until they are no longer counted as among the elite educational institutions in the country.

The author went on to highlight how we would have reacted if we heard of England’s Eton College or Singapore’s Raffles Institution falling into such ignominy. Yet, Malaysians remain apathetic to what has befallen the most respected schools in the country.

Speaking of Raffles Institution, I visited their sprawling campus recently. At the main entrance rests the bust of Sir Stamford Raffles, with an inscription that reads “would that I could infuse into this institution a portion of that spirit and soul…  as easily as I endow it with lands”.  These words remain true 200 years later and no more so than in Malaysia.

To be able to create our own gifts, Malaysia needs to allocate a disproportionate share of its wealth today to the development of the minds and spirit of our children.

It is about giving our children the best education money can buy today. We can live with less, (faulty) submarines and (cannibalised) jet fighters. We can make do with less opulent government quarters. But we cannot let our education standards slide. We cannot let schools decline. We should not lower the passing grade so that everyone can feel good about “making it”. We need the best and brightest to become educators. The noble profession needs a makeover to be appealing.

No other (political) consideration should be allowed to supersede this ultimate objective of truly educating the nation. With a better-educated population, we can endow our children with their own special ingredient and with this special gift, we can all chart our own progress, come what may.

I had asked if Malaysia can regain its competitive edge. In response to a reader, I postulated that all of Malaysia must first recognise that our edge has been eroded, and that the first step to undo this is to arrest the brain drain (and better still, to attract more brains into our country). For, human talent is the ultimate factor of production. Now, I’ve gone further — that we need to ensure we keep building our own human capital pipeline. It is the only sustainable way to maintain our advantage.

These writings can come across as a bitter rant to some readers. That would be furthest from the truth. I truly believe there is a desire amongst our people to want to be advantaged and to want to stay there. And the answer, like in the Dragon Scroll, is simple. It is us: a well-educated thinking, acting population. It is not our oil, our gas, our rubber or our palm oil. Our own capability is our silver bullet.

With this, Vincent Chin will conclude his 42 column. He will return occasionally next year to comment on the latest developments in management and leadership.His previous columns in Management@Work can be found under the Management section at www.theedgemalaysia.com

This article appeared in Manager@work, the monthly management pullout of The Edge Malaysia, Issue 795, Mar 1-7, 2010