It is ironic that on one hand we spend millions to attract our talented people to return home and at the same time deny some of our brightest students courses and universities of their choice.
Baradan Kupusamy, The Star
This annual season of silliness will only force high-performing students to look elsewhere to further their studies.
One obvious benefactor is Singapore which offers scholarships, living allowances and an attractive multi-cultural environment to study in. Eventually, after graduation, jobs are offered too.
The MCA and MIC have kicked up a storm, and rightly so, over the drop in placements and the government has said a decision is pending.
But why deny our top students from studying the courses of their choice in the first place?
Why allow this mockery to take place year in, year out?
Why put them through this harrowing experience, which must surely test the limits of their love for their country.
The MCA in particular wants to know why there is a low intake of Chinese students - 7,913 successful applicants out of 41,573 for 20 public universities this year.
Its education bureau chairman Datuk Dr Wee Ka Siong revealed shocking figures that show Chinese students intake at a mere 19% of the total for the new academic term.
In previous years, and since meritocracy in the university intake was introduced from 2002, Chinese student intake had never dropped below 25%.
Apart from the Chinese students, there were 30,903 bumiputeras, 1,824 Indians and 933 other races that made up the total number of successful applicants.
This state of affairs is completely unacceptable, it is unfair and bright and young students should not be put through this.
Some of the students with CGPA of 4.0 were not only not given courses of their choice but places in universities.
They had selected medicine, pharmacy and dentistry as their top choices followed by accountancy and engineering.
Even within the 19% of successful Chinese students, many are not happy with the courses they were given.
It is to avoid this mess that the government implemented a meritocracy policy in 2002 and Chinese student intake had always been above 20% whereas the Indians averaged 9%.
These students are a talent pool that would do the nation proud in years to come.
Even Dr Wee expressed worry that Singapore would be the main beneficiary of this annual intake mess in our universities.
The government has to play an annual balancing game with meritocracy on one hand and on the other, giving the under-privileged a chance at high value courses.
We are not against social engineering but these efforts at giving the under-privileged a chance should not come with a price tag in meritocracy.
You don’t have to deprive the best and brightest of their right to study courses of their choice as they are a bright pool of talents that any country would value.
Some of them are also poor and under-privileged themselves and are hoping to use education as a ladder to climb out of poverty.
They have put in years of hard work, pouring over text books and going for tuition and preparing for the big STPM examination.
And some of them excel in it and at the end of the day they hope to secure a course of study of their choice and even a university of their choice.
In this respect, the government should do everything possible to ensure that the selection process is transparent and accountable.
At the moment, the selection process for the 20 public universities is opaque. We don’t know how and who select the students and the qualifying criteria.
We are just told that the students are judged based on their examination results (90%) and extracurricular activities (10%).
The onus lies with the government to explain the record low number of seats given to Chinese and Indian students in the new intake for IPTAS.
One obvious benefactor is Singapore which offers scholarships, living allowances and an attractive multi-cultural environment to study in. Eventually, after graduation, jobs are offered too.
The MCA and MIC have kicked up a storm, and rightly so, over the drop in placements and the government has said a decision is pending.
But why deny our top students from studying the courses of their choice in the first place?
Why allow this mockery to take place year in, year out?
Why put them through this harrowing experience, which must surely test the limits of their love for their country.
The MCA in particular wants to know why there is a low intake of Chinese students - 7,913 successful applicants out of 41,573 for 20 public universities this year.
Its education bureau chairman Datuk Dr Wee Ka Siong revealed shocking figures that show Chinese students intake at a mere 19% of the total for the new academic term.
In previous years, and since meritocracy in the university intake was introduced from 2002, Chinese student intake had never dropped below 25%.
Apart from the Chinese students, there were 30,903 bumiputeras, 1,824 Indians and 933 other races that made up the total number of successful applicants.
This state of affairs is completely unacceptable, it is unfair and bright and young students should not be put through this.
Some of the students with CGPA of 4.0 were not only not given courses of their choice but places in universities.
They had selected medicine, pharmacy and dentistry as their top choices followed by accountancy and engineering.
Even within the 19% of successful Chinese students, many are not happy with the courses they were given.
It is to avoid this mess that the government implemented a meritocracy policy in 2002 and Chinese student intake had always been above 20% whereas the Indians averaged 9%.
These students are a talent pool that would do the nation proud in years to come.
Even Dr Wee expressed worry that Singapore would be the main beneficiary of this annual intake mess in our universities.
The government has to play an annual balancing game with meritocracy on one hand and on the other, giving the under-privileged a chance at high value courses.
We are not against social engineering but these efforts at giving the under-privileged a chance should not come with a price tag in meritocracy.
You don’t have to deprive the best and brightest of their right to study courses of their choice as they are a bright pool of talents that any country would value.
Some of them are also poor and under-privileged themselves and are hoping to use education as a ladder to climb out of poverty.
They have put in years of hard work, pouring over text books and going for tuition and preparing for the big STPM examination.
And some of them excel in it and at the end of the day they hope to secure a course of study of their choice and even a university of their choice.
In this respect, the government should do everything possible to ensure that the selection process is transparent and accountable.
At the moment, the selection process for the 20 public universities is opaque. We don’t know how and who select the students and the qualifying criteria.
We are just told that the students are judged based on their examination results (90%) and extracurricular activities (10%).
The onus lies with the government to explain the record low number of seats given to Chinese and Indian students in the new intake for IPTAS.
It is no point dredging the world for Malaysian talents and spending money urging them to return and at the same time allow our young and bright to go without a university education, especially when our neighbours are looking out for talented Malaysian youths.
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