The government should open up its educational institutions to all qualified Malaysians as helping non-Malays will also help the bumiputera, says former law minister Zaid Ibrahim.
As such, Zaid panned Higher Education Minister Zambru Abdul Kadir’s statement that there had been no discussions on opening Universiti Teknologi Mara’s (UiTM) cardiothoracic surgery postgraduate programme to non-bumiputera students.
He attributed the fear of opening up UiTM to Umno, Zambry’s party, and that they should look at the issue differently.
“Our educational institutions need to open up and take all qualified Malaysians to fill up the places.
“UiTM was started to help bumiputera and should continue to do so.
“But today, we have to recognise that helping non-Malays into UiTM is also assisting the bumiputera by solving the nation’s problem,” he said.
Yesterday, Zambry denied any discussions of the matter, saying that several pertinent issues need to be scrutinised before such an idea can be considered.
On April 25, Codeblue reported Raja Amin Raja Mokhtar, who is on the board of studies of the UiTM-IJN cardiothoracic surgery postgraduate programme as saying that the varsity is agreeable to open up to non-bumiputera parallel pathway trainees and graduates.
He said the decision was made after speaking to UiTM’s vice-chancellor and the chairperson of the UiTM board, and they agreed to the idea for a limited period.
However, on April 30, Dewan Negara member RA Lingeshwaran objected to the idea and maintained that the bumiputera-only university should continue to serve bumiputera students exclusively, while non-bumiputera or non-Malay students can take the parallel pathway for medical speciality training.
‘Irrational fear’
Meanwhile, Zaid pointed out that Malaysia is facing shortages of various medical specialists in the public healthcare sector.
“The fear of having more non-Malays as doctors, nurses, or lecturers is the trauma of the 1970s. Umno must exorcise itself of this irrational fear.
“We are now one country with more significant problems but have enough resources to serve every group.
“Do not continue to govern this country with the fear of the past,” he said.
Yesterday, Urimai chairperson P Ramasamy criticised Lingeshwaran for opposing the proposal to open UiTM’s cardiothoracic surgery postgraduate programme to non-bumiputera.
“Although there are no discussions yet, if UiTM is ready, what’s wrong with that given the shortage of cardiothoracic specialists in the country?
“Why is he trying to preserve ethnic hegemony in public universities? In fact, other universities should open up too,” he told Malaysiakini.
Lingeswaran said there was no need to open UiTM to non-bumiputera when the parallel pathway already exists.
The DAP senator stressed the need to recognise the Health Ministry’s parallel pathway programme with overseas royal colleges, as the number of specialist doctors produced by local universities is far smaller than those produced by the parallel pathway. - Mkini
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