I criticize Higher Education Ministry director-general Prof Datuk Dr. Husaini Omar for playing with semantics with his claim that no racial quota is imposed in the university admission system.
Director-general Husaini Omar’s “no racial quota” claim reflected his disingenuity and intention to spread disinformation and mislead the public instead of sincerely helping students with excellent results who were denied admission.
The racial quota system exists on the pre-university level, whereby selection based on race excludes non-Bumi students. Apart from the well-known STPM and Matriculation programmes, many public universities also provide foundation (Asasi) programmes, of which most of the placements are exclusively reserved for Bumi students.
While all Asasi programmes are essentially reserved for Bumi students, the racial quota of 90% of Bumi students and 10% of non-Bumi students is imposed for the Matriculation programme. In other words, despite how excellent non-Bumi students are, they can only strive for the 10% placements in Matriculation. This is because students are aware that Matriculation students have a higher chance of being enrolled in popular and critical courses, such as medicine, pharmacy, and so on. The remaining unlucky students have no other choice but to accept STPM, with the hope of grabbing the leftovers- the final chance of entering public universities.
For instance, the University of Malaya’s foundation programmes, such as the Foundation in Life Sciences and Foundation in Physical Sciences, are only open to Bumi students. Given that foundation programmes are exclusively for Bumi students and Matriculation programme implements a 90:10 racial quota, how could the Higher Education DG claim that the university admission system applies meritocracy and doesn’t impose a racial quota?”
In addition, Husaini Omar’s claim that some students with excellent results were denied admission to popular courses due to lower co-curricular grades was no more than a half-lie that would mislead the public. Apparently, he was not interested at all in paying attention to and tackling the structural unfairness in the education system that many STPM students faced.
Due to structural flaws, Matriculation students can easily participate in any co-curricular activities and be awarded state-level co-curricular marks. In contrast, most STPM students can only be awarded school-level or district-level co-curricular marks. Therefore, when STPM and Matriculation students with the highest CGPA of 4.0, co-curricular marks are often the deciding factor that makes STPM students fall way behind Matriculation students.
Therefore, the government and the Higher Education Ministry should be sincere and admit that Malaysian higher education reeks of racial discrimination and structural flaws that perpetuate differential treatment.
DAPSY hereby proposes three policy solutions for the Higher Education Ministry to rectify the current flaws and reform the education system:
- At this critical juncture, the Higher Education Ministry should immediately form a special committee to assist the University Admission Unit (UPU) to review cases of students with excellent results being denied admission to public universities. This is to provide opportunities for excellent students to pursue higher education and prevent brain drain.
- As a short-term measure, the government has to raise the rate of STPM student enrollment. For instance, the government should stipulate that 50% of STPM students and 50% of Matriculation students are enrolled in the popular and major courses across universities to strike a balance between the two major pre-university programmes.
- As a long-term reform, the government has to abolish pre-university programmes with structural advantages, including the Matriculation programme, and merge pre-university programmes into a single admission system. This will ensure that students can compete on the same level based on the principles of meritocracy and fairness, regardless of race, religion, and skin color.