Don’t let race get in the way of JPA study awards

 

The offer of prestigious scholarships from the Public Services Department for school leavers has been a bone of contention in Malaysia for decades and many bright students have been heartbroken because their hard work is not recognised.

The pain is made worse when those with much lower qualifications are given the scholarships.

Most of these victims have been non-Bumiputeras who lose out because of the special privileges accorded to the Bumiputera community.

Parents suffer a double whammy from seeing their children being dumped unfairly and having to plan their finances.

A large number are struggling parents who have to mortgage their properties, sell their jewellery or take loans from various sources. Many also withdraw from their EPF savings, sacrificing their old age savings for their children’s future.

Call it social engineering, affirmative action or positive discrimination, this practice results in the deprivation of some children from Keluarga Malaysia.

When this goes on for decades, people get tired and simply lose faith in the government and the system. Especially the diligent taxpayers whose money is used to fund these scholarships.

Let’s look at the latest list, which was shown to FMT. After last year’s Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia results, the JPA issued a list of about 625 students who scored the minimum of nine A+ to qualify them for scholarship offers.

Half of them are Chinese, 46% Bumiputera and 4% Indian.

There are two types of scholarships, one for study in Malaysia, which covers all courses, and the other for study at top colleges in the United States or Britain. Medicine is not included in this category.

As in most years, most will apply to study medicine, even at the expense of an opportunity to study abroad if they opt for other courses.

So, with the quota and all, there are bound to be those who will not be successful or fail to obtain the course of their choice.

Before they are selected, they have to go for group and individual interviews for assessment of various abilities. This process was completed last Sunday.

The students were apparently told to take the interviews seriously as only 50% of those on the shortlist would be successful.

This will obviously lead to much heartache and frustration when the results are announced at the end of this month.

The pain caused will snowball into much anger on the ground, as we have seen in the past.

To make it worse, there is a high possibility that deserving non-Bumiputera students will be sacrificed to make way for others in the name of positive discrimination. This practice has actually caused much negativity in the country in the past.

There is absolutely nothing wrong in giving a helping hand to a community in need but this should not mean another family member of Keluarga Malaysia has to be deprived. This will be tantamount to a stepchild treatment.

Meritocracy seems to be a bad word in Malaysia although the nation can really progress better and faster with a fair sense of getting only the best and keeping them at home.

As we have seen in the past, we have lost many talented people who could have helped Malaysia become a greater nation. These people were lost to the brain drain because of continuous and blatant discrimination.

Many want to know when this unfair practice will end. Or will it remain forever, with politicians continuing to use the race card for political supremacy?

This arrangement, which began 50 years ago, cannot go on forever. If it does, more will leave the country while mediocrity will continue breeding in a nation which has proven to have one of the best pools of talent in the world.

It won’t be so wrong to say that we are already seeing mediocrity pervading our key institutions, including schools and universities, while many of our leaders are in denial,

We can only hope that there will be no heartaches or tears at the end of this month, when the JPA scholarship results are announced. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.