Tashny Sukumaran | May 28, 2011
DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang says the prime minister must restore transparency and integrity to the selection process
KUALA LUMPUR: DAP stalwart Lim Kit Siang wants Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak to make public the names of PSD scholarship recipients.
“Najib must restore transparency and integrity to the selection process by making public the list of scholarship recipients,” said Lim.
“It’s a crying shame that even after so long, the Public Service Department is incapable of functioning in a competent and professional manner.”
The former DAP chairman added that as the government had spent billions of ringgit on computerisation, this should be achievable.
“If it was not possible, those responsible for computerisation project should be sacked,” he said.
Lim also underlined the importance of restoring public confidence in the system by ending the double standard of having two different pre-university examinations.
“Malaysian students should be sitting for one common examination.
Separate systems go against Najib’s 1Malaysia concept as two different pre-U’s with different grading systems are open to accusations of manipulation.”
Public Service Department (PSD) scholarships are given to students who obtain 8A+ .
Top scorers are offered matriculation and diploma courses, and then given scholarships when they further their studies at the first degree level, said Najib yesterday.
There will be 4,000 scholarships to be given to those who obtained at least 9As. Of the total, 1,500 will be for study abroad and the rest for study locally.
There is a 60% Bumiputera quota for foreign PSD scholarships. The rest of the quota are given out to students based on merit (20%), those from East Malaysia (10%) and the needy (10%).
#1 by pulau_sibu on Sunday, 29 May 2011 - 8:36 am
.. to make public the names of PSD scholarship recipients.
should include their results.
i still want to voice out. please stop the scholarship for overseas bachelor’s degree. it is a waste of money.
why no one can think for the country. why all the vice chancellors are quiet with losing out the top students to overseas (and likely will open up the route for brain drain)?
how many of these a+ students are the true materials? let them apply to the world top universities and see which one they can get in. our A+ students are likely a joke and embarrassment to our country.
#2 by pulau_sibu on Sunday, 29 May 2011 - 9:16 am
not just the names, but should include their results.
i still want to voice out. please stop the scholarship for overseas bachelor’s degree. it is a waste of money.
why no one can think for the country. why all the vice chancellors are quiet with losing out the top students to overseas (and likely will open up the route for brain drain)?
how many of these a+ students are the true materials? let them apply to the world top universities and see which one they can get in. our A+ students are likely a joke and embarrassment to our country.
#3 by limkamput on Sunday, 29 May 2011 - 9:59 am
You fellows must know what you are asking for – distributing the scholarships based on number of A+ the candidates obtained is not exactly a good idea. I tell you what, it is likely that the next SPM exam will have students obtaining A+ based racial composition of the country or based on the number of scholarships JPA wants to give to Malays/Bumi and non Malays/non Bumi. You guys should have realised that if non transparency could occur in dishing out scholarships, what makes you think that non transparency and manipulation could also happened in SPM results. The band of getting an A+ in SPM exam is so wide that it is almost useless now. It could well be between an excellent student and an average student. Have you ever asked why university scholarships awarded by most government agencies are always based on SPM results when SPM exam is NOT a university entry qualification? You see, the average students can never do well in STPM (HSC in the past). So awarding scholarship based on STPM would be disastrous to the mediocre. So they started the matriculation exam which is a subversion of everything we stand for excellence. Go to MU medical faculty and see for yourself those who entered the medical programme based on STPM and those based on matriculation. The difference is between the sun and the moon.
How can this country ever be great when every system and every safeguard we hold dear to ensure standard and professionalism are being dismantled and subverted beyond recognition? Do you think it is just SPM exam? It is every exam you can think of, from CLP, to professional courses in Universities to exams sat by civil servants to get excellent service awards. Sometimes I want to use the bad word, but this site will moderate what I write.
#4 by waterfrontcoolie on Sunday, 29 May 2011 - 11:49 pm
For political euphoria, SPM results are used, when the STPM should be the proper benchmark for scholarship. The manipulation of results has started long time ago since the midst 60s without doubt. Only now, it is done on wanton scale. We love to cheat ourselves in most of our work, from basic construction to plain money collecting. we forget that once the bug gets it, we will never be able to get out from it. The end result will be a reminiscence of where Indonesia or even India was in the 60s. As many have quoted, you just go on bluffing even yourself all the times; and we are just doing that. A ‘ancient’ maths teacher of the Teacher College days told me that maths graduates today would not be able to tackle even the ‘Further Analysis’ or ‘ Applied Maths’ of those yonder years of sixth form. So much for all the As the Gomen published every year! We just stoop to achieve political expendiency for the sake of keeping power while driving the nation into the river!
#5 by pulau_sibu on Sunday, 29 May 2011 - 10:05 am
can some one tell me how to make conversion between A, A+, etc with the old grading system of SPM?
#6 by waterfrontcoolie on Monday, 30 May 2011 - 8:00 am
The formula is flexible, depending on the target of As to be prodiced or proclaimed. Hence you don’t need any fixed formula!
pulau, it is so simple; you need only to ADD the agreed marks to fit the GAPS! No wonder this group came out with this acronym.
#7 by k1980 on Sunday, 29 May 2011 - 11:11 am
Now that A+ is so cheap nowadays, jib will introduce A#, followed by A@ and then A*…… next year’s spm will have grades such as E-, E, E+, E#, E@ ,E*,……… B-, B, B+, B#, B@ ,B*,A-, A, A+, A#, A@ ,A*
#8 by boh-liao on Sunday, 29 May 2011 - 10:15 pm
Nazi said dat of d 300 scholarships dat were given based on merit, 14% were given 2 bumi while 86% 2 d non-bumi
True 1 or not aah? D above did not gel with d last paragraph of d above article:
“There is a 60% Bumiputera quota for foreign PSD scholarships. The rest of the quota are given out to students based on merit (20%), those from East Malaysia (10%) and the needy (10%).”
List out d names lah, b transparent lor
#9 by waterfrontcoolie on Monday, 30 May 2011 - 8:09 am
scholarship to the various fields should be given based on the needs of the nation; as it is they are given to all subjects pursued by individual applicants. I do note that every 9-A holder wants to be doctor; notably from one community. The gomen should indicate scholarships based on the fields they need the most brains. Medical seems a little crowded, at least with our limited facility available for them to do their training. At the Gomen hospitals, it is crowded with people looking for MCs! Unless the gundamantals of this nation can be straightened up, we will go nowhere. The main curse is still the big C: corruption!
#10 by Loh on Monday, 30 May 2011 - 9:24 am
///There is a 60% Bumiputera quota for foreign PSD scholarships. The rest of the quota are given out to students based on merit (20%), those from East Malaysia (10%) and the needy (10%).///
The 60% reserved for Bumi in the foreign PSD scholarship should be given based on racial composition. As East malaysia has been excluded, the ratio should be 35% for Malays 18% Chinese and 7% Indians. It is most unfair to reserve 60% for Bumi when they are also entitled to the 20% based on merit.
The government used the excuse of meritocracy to conduct interview, and that interview conducted by 1Malay civil service produce race-based merit.
Civil service change from the promotion by seniority to meritocracy in the 1970s, and that is how we see that from the 1990s, only Malays were made head of departments and secretary general. That too is how PSD award scholarship based on merits through interviews.
It is not a perfect system to award scholarships based on examination results, just like promotion in the civil services based on seniority in the pre-NEP days. But the institutionalized bias based on race would be prevented.
#11 by Loh on Monday, 30 May 2011 - 9:34 am
If only 14 % of bumi got the scholarship by merits, it would mean that out of the remaining 60% of foreign PSD scholarships reserved for Bumi, only 8.4 percent were awarded based on merit, of the lesser quality, and the remaining 51.4% or 771 scholarships were awarded based on race and race alone. The 771 sub-standard foreign scholarship holders should only be given local scholarships and we can save foreign exchange. Indeed the saving can be used to finance more needy students of all races.
#12 by pulau_sibu on Monday, 30 May 2011 - 11:31 am
Muhyiddin seems to be smarter than the rest of politicians!
GEORGE TOWN: The Government is looking at sponsoring more top students at local universities so that the country can retain talents, Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said.
He said he believed local universities were comparable to foreign ones.
“This way we can support more students in their studies,” he said when asked to comment about the concerns raised over the awarding of Public Service Department (PSD) scholarships.