Perkasa president Ibrahim Ali has proposed that taxes from haram activities like gambling and liquor sales be increased so that the surplus can be used set up a scholarship fund for non-Malays.
Ibrahim said his proposal made sense because gambling and liquor were industries that Muslims stayed clear of, and that while he is not against non-Malays receiving government funding like from JPA, they should heed the warning “cuma jangan mengganggu hak pelajar bumiputera??? (only do not disturb the rights of bumiputera students).
Non-Malay students with excellent results could apply for private scholarships which he suggests to be created by soliciting contributions from businessmen like Robert Kuok and other prominent non-Malay cartels.
Stressing that every excellent bumiputera (he means Malay) student must be given a scholarship “tanpa mengira jumlah ataupun kuota tertentu??? (regardless of how many applicants there are or any quota limit), Ibrahim announced last Friday that his movement will sue the government if any one of them should fail to get the scholarship – which he deems their constitutional right.
Two days later, Muhyiddin Yassin said that UPSR and PMR could possibly be abolished as public exams. The deputy prime minister-cum-education minister said on Sunday that Std 6 and Form 3 students may in future be tested only internally for the purpose of streaming into Science/Arts or for places in residential schools.
Residential schools, elite schools, Mara Junior Science Colleges and matriculation centres are run – at exorbitant cost – to specially cater for Malays.
Muhyiddin’s statement begs the question: If the Std 6 exam is only to determine who gets into privileged schools, why should non-Malay pupils bother to be tested at all?
Ibrahim’s idea of ‘excellent’
Cemerlang means excellent. It is necessary to make a distinction between achievement and excellence. For example, it was doubtless an achievement for Abdul Malik Mydin (left) to be the first Malaysian to swim the English Channel.
However, his time of 17 hours and 42 minutes is short of excellent if we keep in mind that a 12-year-old girl Samantha Druce managed 15 hrs 28 mins. Even a 70-year-old, George Burnstad, did better at 15.59 than the 29-year-old Malik at 17.42.
The Malay hero was nonetheless conferred a Datukship for his exploit, such ‘excellence’ as KPI-ed by our self-calibrated measure. Was it worth all the state-sponsored expense of Malik’s training under an Australian coach and ‘airflown’ to England for his almost 18-hour swim when the best channel crossers can complete the distance in under-seven hours?
For that matter, why not carry out the Malaysia Boleh stunt, if they must, swimming from Langkawi to Kuala Kedah instead?
It was however a different case with the second Malaysian to swim the channel that same year (2004). Lennard Lee was already based in England – at Cambridge University doing medicine, and at least his swim met a more useful objective, i.e. to raise funds for a cancer hospital.
Clocking 9.45, Lee was faster than Malik by a whopping eight hours.
More importantly, Lee did not land Malaysian taxpayers a hefty bill for ‘Satu lagi projek Barisan Nasional’.
Ketuanan chest-thumping
Relating the above swimming anecdote to education, ask if it is worth your money splashed (pun intended) on Malik-type students to send them to England immediately after Form 5 and all those other places with expensive currency exchange for such mediocre returns?
The politicisation of education has lowered the bar and a significant part of SPM presently comprises objective questions where students tick A-B-C-D from multiple choice options.
In 2007, one boy broke the SPM record with 21As, including a distinction for the High Arabic language paper (Communication Arabic is a separate paper). One gets a better perspective if you were to compare that candidates apply to Oxford University with only three A-levels.
SPM As are multiplied with Islamic Studies separated into many papers – Pendidikan Islam, Pendidikan Syariah Islamiah, Pendidikan Al-Quran dan As-Sunnah as well as Tasawwur Islam.
The exam grading is now A-, A and A+. Refining the ‘A’ into three tiers has become necessary because too many students are striking As like bowling pins. The passing mark for some of the papers is now very low, and others are so easy that my 10-year-old niece can score A* & A-moon for SPM English.
Sidenote: Inversely, the standard of Malay language, though, has risen and someone with a BM credit in MCE would have a hard time of it today.
Sensible policy on scholarships
In other countries, university scholarships are given to those at A-level, not O-level by the way.
If Malaysia must award public scholarships, let it be for critical science-and-tech courses that are not available locally, conducted at the most prestigious and cutting-edge universities, and preferably at Masters level for those in government service with lecturers and researchers given priority.
Sidenote: The two Japanese and one Japanese-American scientists who shared the Nobel Prize for Physics all got their first degrees in Japanese universities.
The double standard viz. STPM and matriculation is another contentious higher education issue. Not only does the STPM take a longer time, there’s another six months wait for placement in local university.
But what galls the most is the spin Ketuanan Melayu puts on the disparity. Higher Education Department director Hassan Said once disclosed that “a matriculation student with a grade B would obtain the same points as an STPM candidate with a C.??? (‘Ministry reveals formula on grades’, The Star, May 15, 2002).
This asymmetrical grading is due to the STPM being a more difficult exam. Now, following the education ministry formula revealed by Hassan, the next correlation would be that a matriculation ‘A’ is equivalent to an STPM ‘B’. But where does that then logically leave the STPM ‘A’?
By the education ministry’s own admission and anyone’s calculation, there is no way for a matriculation top scorer to match someone with 5As in STPM. Entry into local university is via two paths. Those who have done well in matriculation are graded at the maximum 4.0 CGPA – a bumiputera accommodation that not only places the STPM straight As scorer at a disadvantage but also puts his A to waste.
Chinese education boom
Perkasa’s scaremongering spiritual guide Mahathir Mohamad has accused those who support Chinese education as “racialist???. The ex-premier’s persecution of the Chinese educationists during his tenure is a matter of record.
Yet nowadays, almost everybody I know who is non-Malay has enrolled his/her child in Chinese school.
There’s nothing stopping the Malay or any parent either from enrolling their children in a vernacular school whereas the mollycoddled MRSM, residential and elite schools remain strictly Malay domains.
And if in the past these kids from SRJK (C) proceeded to national school after Std 6, trending now are private Chinese secondary schools and the UEC exam. Parents who pull their kids out of the kebangsaan system are merely making a rational decision.
The bottomline is some non-Malay parents have resigned themselves to zero expectation of this apartheid country.
Non-Malays do not expect their brilliant, hardworking children to get fair treatment from the government. They see and are dispirited by the annual pantomime of poor but clever kids crying and begging, unlike the Perkasa wards who loudly demand state assistance as their federal constitution-given dues.
To sidestep the guaranteed frustrations, the middle-class non-Malay starts saving for his child’s college education when the baby is still in the crib.
Since they realize that they have only themselves to depend on, their rejection of the national school is therefore most logical. Moreover, the Biro Tata Negara-ish environment in School Kebangsaan sends some of the more vulnerable young children home in tears, especially over complaints of bullying in matters of religion.
Why don’t Chinese and Indian parents want to send their kids to national school? The answer in two simple words: What for?!
Related:
The Great Malaysian Brain Drain
Scholarships and Perak, a microcosm of NEP success and failure