For my son, when he grows up, this site will be my legacy for him. The decisions his mother and I made for him, to understand them, to learn from them and to lead a life without prejudice and to succeed in it on his own merit.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

A's Just Dont Do If You're Not It

Is scholarship frustration over missed ‘opportunities’ or ‘privileges’?
(The Malaysian Insider) KUALA LUMPUR, May 20

How many more As do you need to get a scholarship?

Mak Meng Chin's plea at last night's public forum on Public Service Department (PSD) scholarships reflected the sort of incredulity over the issue which sees over 800 Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) top scorers appealing their rejections this year.

"Why must Malaysians wail and cry over this year in and year out?" the 45-year-old investment consultant exclaimed rhetorically to the mostly urban Chinese crowd of over 100 at the KL & Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall.

Mak was bemoaning the fate of his niece Ng Zhii Yee, who had scored 11 As in the school-leaving exam in 2006 but failed to obtain a PSD scholarship.

Even her brother, who scored straight As in last year's Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR) mid-secondary school exam, has already said he will not bother to explore this avenue in the future and will proceed with a foreign pre-university course.

But is the frustration really about missing out on education opportunities or windfall sponsorships?

Due to the racial quota system, the shortfall in PSD scholarships — despite the 10,000 given for local undergraduates and 2,000 to study overseas — occurs like clockwork each year and is a controversial issue for Chinese Malaysians who outperform other ethnic groups academically.

This year, the scale of the problem has left Deputy Education Minister Datuk Dr Wee Ka Siong shocked despite having handled education issues for MCA since 2001.

However, cases of top scorers falling through the net that have been highlighted by the media and political parties alike have nearly exclusively involved those who applied for overseas scholarships.

"Going overseas to study is still a big privilege," PKR's Seri Setia assemblyman Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad commented on the fact that it is the 2,000 overseas grants that is the real bone of contention.

Most highlighted complainants have so far been in the top 200 performers — let alone top 2,000 — and there seems to be a sense of entitlement, that they have done enough to deserve an overseas scholarship.

It appears that to merely encapsulate the issue as a racial zero-sum game would be simplistic. Nik Nazmi was quick to point out that there were many Malays who missed out on the scholarships as well.

Later, he told The Malaysian Insider that in fact, the scholarships seemed to be less about human capital, as it is about subsidising the large middle-class that Barisan Nasional had itself created.

DAP information chief Tony Pua noted that unlike in Singapore, where government scholarships were a way to ensure a top-notch civil service, the PSD was more than willing to cancel a scholar's bond if he could find a private sector job so that the civil service could absorb unemployed graduates instead.

It was a sentiment echoed by Aaron Nair, a 19-year-old who has recently been accepted to Boston University, in the United States. His sister had scored 11 A1s in last year's SPM and had wanted to pursue medicine in Britain but was denied a scholarship by the PSD.

Admitting to being from a privileged background, he insisted that "it is still not cheap for my parents to bear the cost" and that scholarships should be awarded based on financial means only to break a deadlock of merit.

Teacher Munis Waran also backed an "academics first, economic status second" criteria for the selection of scholars and called for the interviews by PSD to be conducted by experts in the respective fields of study.

But lawyer Ivan Ho defended what he called "an obsession with foreign universities" due to the drop in standards of local universities, citing Universiti Malaya's fall from being among the top Asian institutes to being ranked 39th in the continent.
Retired civil servant P.W. Cheng referred to his experience with his two sons as "agonising and morale-depleting" and accused the system of having an appeals board as a way to give the government time to justify scholarships being given to Umno cronies.
It was left to PAS research chief Dzulkifli Ahmad to remind the audience that the overarching consideration is to allow all students an opportunity to pursue their choice of careers.

"Then whether it is a Malay or Chinese who is serving the community, all Malaysians benefit from it," he said.

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