Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s Rhetoric For Meritocratic Culture, Emphasis On Knowledge And Education Counts For Nothing When Excellence Appears To Be Punished And Mediocrity Rewarded

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Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s Rhetoric For Meritocratic Culture, Emphasis On Knowledge And Education Counts For Nothing When Excellence Appears To Be Punished And Mediocrity Rewarded

Press Statement
by Lim Guan Eng

(Petaling Jaya, Wednesday): UMNO Deputy President Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak opening speech at the joint UMNO Youth and Wanita General Assembly for a meritocratic culture, emphasis on knowledge and education as necessary to progress is relevant not only to Malays but also all Malaysians. However such rhetoric counts for nothing so long as excellence appears to be punished and mediocrity rewarded.

Three recent instances that have caused unease amongst Malaysians stand out and shows how excellence appears to be punished and mediocrity rewarded. First, the failure of students who scored the maximum 5 As in the STPM not being able to get into courses of their choice, especially medicine. Instead the 128 top students were told that their results were just not good enough, as if 5As is very easy to get.

No one can understand why the government is not willing to offer medical places to Malaysian when the government spends RM 40 million annually to employ 700 foreign doctors. In fact more than 10% of the foreign doctors have to be sent back because they are not good enough. Would it not be rational, logical and responsible to train our own citizens to deal with the shortage of doctors instead of wasting money on foreign ones?

Second, the revelation that the Malaysian Examination Syndicate(MES) “copied” and reproduced questions for this year’s the UPSR English paper from a workbook published by Pearson Malaysia. Such plagiarism by the MES that is supposed to uphold educational standards and academic integrity was shocking enough. What was more shocking was the assertion by Education Director-General Tan Sri Abdul Rafie Mahat that there was nothing wrong to carry out such copying.

Is the Education Ministry and MES so short of excellent educators or bereft of ideas, lack originality and creativity that they have to copy from a workbook published by a private company? To-date no one has been punished for such plagiarism and compromising MES’ credibility.

Third, the admission by Science, Technology and Innovation Minister, Datuk Dr Jamaluddin Jarjis on 21.9.2004 of the failure of the government's "brain gain" scheme to attract foreign experts and Malaysian scientists abroad to return home. Jamaluddin had said that between 1995 and 2000, the scheme attracted 94 scientists, including 24 Malaysians in the fields of pharmacology, medicine, semi-conductor technology and engineering, but only one is left. In other words the other 94 experts including Malaysians have given up on Malaysia.

All these 3 recent examples above should have no place in a meritocratic culture with emphasis on education and knowledge. It is not surprising why our Prime Minister complaints about First World infrastructure but Third World maintenance is so prevalent in Malaysia.

The challenge for Datuk Seri Najib is to prove that he practices what he preaches. As a first step he should reward excellence and punish meritocracy to prove he is a worthy successor to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Badawi not only amongst the Malays but also of all Malaysians.

(22/9/2004)

* Lim Guan Eng, DAP Secretary-General