Letters
by Lye Hoke Tan
The unfair PSD scholarship awards issue, it happens all the times. I graduated from Chung Ling High School in Penang at 2004. Before 2004, I didn’t notice much about this problem, I just heard it from my high school teachers complaint it to us, I didn’t know it was so serious until it happened to my friends around.
Well, I can see this happens every year. Every year, to the same victims (Chinese Top Students), at the same time(after SPM results released), the same thing happen continuously in our country. Every year, I see the problems occur non-stop, it seems like unsolved cases even though those ministers, parties promised it could be solved. I have lost my confidence over their creditability, how can you give scholarship to someone, who his/her result is poorer than the others, just because of the skin colour.
Is PSD blind? They failed to see As every where every year, PSD prefer B and C? Maybe, as our government always has funny and “incredible” systems to rule this country. The funniest thing is, they DARE to repeat this “carelessness” every year, non stop. The media reported the same issue every year, what a shame!
The same thing happened during 2004, I have a friend, she got 13A1, she was also one of the top student had lunch with our ex-PM, Pak Lah, but the point is she failed to get JPA. When she told us she failed to get it, we got shocked. If top student like her by having 13A1 failed to get JPA, then we wonder how are we going to get it? Maybe we have to blame for our parents aren’t Datuk & Datin.
The next day, she went to the press, same stories like what it happens today. So, the next few days, she got the JPA. This is how our PSD works, OMG!
Those smart guys failed to get straight As, some of them just got 10As (but still much more better than those who are able to get JPA), so we chinese students definitely will fail to get the scholarship.
Okay, fine. They continue Form 6. They did well in form 6, they got scholarship bond from Singapore. They study there, graduate there, work there and get PR there. Some of them went to Hong Kong, Australia, Japan with scholarship bond too. Some of them will never come back to work in Malaysia, they get the PR there and stay there.
Again, we produce professionals for foreign country. Is our country still developing? If yes, don’t we need professionals to develop this country? or maybe we have more than enough professionals. So, it doesn’t matter where this professionals go.
To get a scholarship, sometimes it depends on your skin colour, your family background. You have to be strong in politics, you have to be rich, your parents have to be Datuk or Datin. This is how PSD works!
It is so hard for non-bumi to enter Local Uni due to the quota system (They can lower the local uni standard just to fulfil their quota. Sighs!) , so the blindness of PSD doesn’t sound strange to us any more.
Thank you!
#1 by AhPek on Tuesday, 19 May 2009 - 8:35 pm
lolo,
I happen to believe first not everyone is a university material,and thus following this premise we shouldn’t be building and building more and more universities to cater for such requests from an ever increasing school leavers year in and year out.The country,besides requiring engineers,lawyers,doctors,IT experts,architects, she also needs carpenters,plumbers,electricians,masons,bricklayers,entrepreneurs,cooks and so on.Second if you have to take in students for university,they must be given a first class education that includes developing leadership qualities,and leadership qualities can only come from campus environment which caters for the students’ interests other than his academic pursuit,interest not only confine to sports or games but activities like publishing campus paper,participation of union activities be it national politics or student politics,debating society or musical pursuit and many other activities which is extracurricular in nature.This is development of a well rounded student.
The Singapore Education Department is always on the search for other educational systems that are in other parts of the world,and every year they would send delegations to those places that they think is worth studying with the objectiveof incorporating some of the aspects of the foreign system into their own system for continuous improvement of their own education system.One such visit that I’ve read of is the sending of an educational delegation from the Education Department to Bronx High School of Science in New York which is reputed to be one of the best high schools in the world for passing thro its school corridors are7 Nobel Prize winners plus 6 Pulitzer Prize winners.No school anywhere in the world have produced such an outstanding group of people.If one look into the school system, the school aspires to produce all round education for her pupils,with great emphasis in maths,science,arts,music,languages plus extracurricular activities which is compulsory.The whole idea of extracurricular activity is to imbue team spirit and leadership qualities,attributes that are required whether one is an engineer,doctor,manager,politician,an economist or a banker.The other thing about Bronx High is that examination is just one of the school activities for assessment (maybe it contributes 70%),10% extracurricular and 20% on project (carried it out in small groups)which has to be approved by the senior teacher.
There must be something right done by this school to produce such illustrious students.Because of this visit you now find that the education department of Singapore is gradually and surely releasing emphasis completely on written exam at the end of the year.Projects are starting to come in similarly to what Bronx High is doing.In fact exceptional students are exempted from taking O level.they go straight on to lower six.
#2 by lolok on Tuesday, 19 May 2009 - 11:32 pm
AhPek,
I agree with most of what you’ve written, with some disagreement… we’re human after all, there will always be disagreements ;)
I believe Bronx High is doing the correct thing as well (well and the fact that it’s in US, where all the money is), that is they introduce students to different varieties of subjects, which is very nice indeed. I guess the main difference is how the courses are conducted. The thing is when Malaysian (or most Asian countries) talk about art, music and language, we immediately think about memorizing art history, forcing someone to play an instrument and memorizing those crazy old literature. This is how our SPM and STPM are thought. Students that excel from this kind of program are not exactly what you call well rounded students. They are more like machines. The thing about these countries like in US and Europe are that when they talk about art, music and language, they focus on appreciating it. Their approach is by introducing classical music, paintings and literature to students, and teach them how to appreciate it. The students in turn start to try to understand them better and thus actually volunteer to go deeper into it. This is what I call learning. And I won’t really call them well rounded (it could be that they are still only good at certain things), but at least they will know what is around them and know how to appreciate other things.
Regarding university as a place to imbue team spirit and leadership qualities… No offense, but I highly doubt that is the aim of university. They might try to create an environment that encourage it, but that is not their aim. And no, university is also not a place where knowledge are disseminated, despite common public believe. What university actually is, is that it is a place that gives training in ways of gaining knowledge. They introduce you the tools and the means for gaining knowledge, whether you can get it or not in the end, that is your problem (you don’t get anything you fail, if you get it you pass, simple as that).
But I guess we should stop for now, as we’re moving too far and too broad, from how scholarship be given to how education should be conducted. And thanks a lot for the discussion, it was fun :)
#3 by aio193 on Friday, 22 May 2009 - 1:15 pm
i can’t believe what i’m reading over and over again.
Do all of you really think that having all the A1s will earn you a scholarship? You have a right to it? A scholarship is a privilege, not a right! And stop complaining about students using tax payers money to study, if you’re not happy about it, stop paying tax!
I think its NOT the issue of malay or non malay.
Those who are accepted are an exceptional lot. I had non-malay scholars with me while i was studying in the US.
They themselves WERE NOT straight A1 students and from LOCAL PUBLIC SCHOOLS but they were active with societies, i had one (two actually) amazing violinists and other students, regardless of race were student heads, athletes (state) or just simply brilliant.
It was very rare to get students who were loners (study by themselves, shut the door, throw the key and get a CGPA of 4.0)
The problem here is your tactic on getting the scholarship.
You don’t walk into an interview saying, OH, i have 13 A1s, give me the scholarship.
If you can’t carry yourself to an interview, how would you carry yourself 20,000 miles away, pretty much having to start making new friends, adjust, and excel? the 13A1s won’t help you here.
That 13A1 is your ticket to the interview. It just PROVES you can learn and score. In a team? by yourself? who knows, then after that you PROVE TO THEM (PSD) AGAIN why you want it … badly!
Why you are a great individual. it doesn’t matter if you want to serve your country or not, cause if you are the right person with the right attitude, you’ll know what to do when the time comes!
if you dont show your hunger for a PSD scholarship to go overseas, just thinking your As will help you, then don’t bother.
Cause if you don’t show or learn how to ‘sell’ yourself as a good candidate, the 3A1 6A2 applicant might have just stolen your seat.
cause he knew what he wanted and proved it to them.