Time for all political parties and the Education Ministry to focus on why qualified students cannot get places in local universities on merit
After 56 Years of Merdeka, the time has come for all political parties and the Education Ministry not to focus on race but on why qualified students cannot get places in local public universities on merit. Depriving qualified students, including those with a CGPA of the maximum 4.0 from places in public universities, is not only a waste of top talent but will serve to drive away our best and brightest overseas.
This will only exacerbate the brain drain, make it harder for Talent Corporation to generate a brain gain and make it easier for other countries like Singapore to happily snatch away our crème de la crème. The Education Ministry must stop such short-sighted policies that will only cause Malaysia to lose out but also mental anguish annually to our young who are deprived of their future. How can we prepare the young for the future or the future for our young when we permit such painful injustice?
DAP does not agree with the annual national obsession on race profiling by both MCA and MIC. Both argue the serious issue of deprivation of university places in education solely from a racial perspective when it should be strictly from equal opportunity, excellence and performance. DAP believes that both political parties are perpetuating the racial division annually to create a dependency syndrome to make both MCA and MIC still relevant, instead of institutionalising a clear criteria for entry that is transparent.
MCA pointed out that although the intake of students in public universities had increased this year compared to last year, the successful Chinese Malaysian applicants only formed 19 percent which was much lower than about 23 per cent in previous years. Out of the 41,573 enrolments this year, only 7,913 were Chinese Malaysian students compared to last year where they made up of 8,986 of a total enrolment of 38,549 and 9,457 of a total enrolment of 41,267 in 2011.
MIC even questioned Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s pledge to uphold his message of "nambikei" (trust) to the Indian community when Indian students were allocated only 4% of public university places. MIC stressed that there should be 3,000 and not 1,800 places at public universities for Indians this year, following the undertaking by the Prime Minister of increasing the matriculation places from 300 to 1,500.
DAP believes that there should be equal opportunity for those with poorer backgrounds to public university places. There is no reason why in giving equal opportunity, those with top results including with a CGPA 4.0 are denied university places for the courses they seek.
The Education Ministry must bear full responsibility for their failure to be fair and ensure that those who are qualified are allotted places. The future of our young is too important to be politicised or played about as an annual game. As the public has lost confidence in the professionalism of the Education Ministry, an independent body such as an international auditing firm should be appointed instead to ensure that no qualified students loses out.
