Scholarships for those who earn and need it


Yap Mun Ching
The Sun
23 June 2011

AFTER many years of opaque silence, the debate over tertiary education scholarships has finally boiled over with public demands for the list of renegade Public Services Department Scholarship (PSD) holders to be published and at least one father threatening to sue a corporate foundation for not giving his son a scholarship to Cambridge. It is a timely debate and one that stands at the heart of the transparency and accountability pledge of the government.

To find our way out of this mess, a useful starting point is the criteria for allocating scholarships which has been veiled under much secrecy. In a letter to the NST, the chairman of the Centre for Public Policy Studies, Tan Sri Ramon Navaratnam, stated the criteria as follows: academic achievement (20%), racial composition (60%), East Malaysia bumiputra (10%) and socially disadvantaged (10%).

If this is accurate, we can trace many of the controversies over allocation of scholarship funds to this set of guidelines. If only 20% of the national scholarship budget is used to award meritocracy; it is not surprising then that the majority of scholars that we turn out are of mediocre achievement. If only 10% is allocated to support poor students; no wonder movements like Hindraf strike a chord. It is uncertain if the bulk of the 70% of racial allocation is made with any secondary criteria (e.g. meritocratic and means-tested) as well, but it is galling for this writer to recall the PSD and GLC scholarship holders who had sufficient means to purchase vehicles and designer goods throughout their study abroad.

Setting the criteria right is the first step that the administration has to take. If the 1Malaysia pledge is to mean anything, the criteria for awarding public scholarships should also reflect its principles. Scholarships should be provided to those who earn it and those who need it. If the government is concerned about assisting poor bumiputra students, this objective can be achieved by fine-tuning means-tested requirements, rather than using broad racial categorisations.

To ensure that a cross section of deserving students receive scholarships, it is also necessary to clarify what qualifies someone to be a top scorer. Does it mean getting straight As or should students also demonstrate other qualities such as community leadership and sporting excellence? Taxpayers should certainly not be required to foot a ballooning bill of generous promises without transparent and effective management of scholarship funds.

To better manage expectations, clear distinctions have to be made between the right to education and the right to scholarships. There cannot be a limit to a person’s right to seek the best education anywhere he wishes, but this should not automatically imply he has the right to public funds to support these aspirations. To receive a scholarship is a privilege for those who have done exceptionally well and those who intend to give back to society what they have received from it. When the line is not clearly drawn, parents and students come to assume that denial of a scholarship is a denial of education, which is clearly not the case. It also feeds the problem of “ungrateful” scholarship holders who do not return or repay their scholarship monies.

Unless we have a bottomless pit of funds to support a growing demand for scholarships, some hard decisions must be made and made soon. We cannot stinge on education spending but we can certainly better use it to improve the quality of tertiary education at home so that there is less pressure for students to go abroad. There should also be an end to giving away free money, with all students required to repay part of their scholarship money. To address the problem posed by those who received scholarship to go abroad but do not return, publishing their names in the newspapers would do nothing other than giving an outraged public temporary satisfaction. A more effective solution is simply to enforce repayment of the funds, if not from the students, then from their guarantors.

Mun Ching enjoys travelling off the beaten path to discover the grittier but more revealing parts of the region we call home.

  1. #1 by k1980 on Thursday, 23 June 2011 - 7:14 am

    2As in spm— overseas scholarship

    10As in spm —- scholarship for diploma in local university

    Procedure of above selection— whether you are tuan or pendatang

  2. #2 by undertaker888 on Thursday, 23 June 2011 - 7:49 am

    It means,
    20% are merit-based scholarships
    60% are score-less-A-ship for people like crusade Ali

  3. #3 by k1980 on Thursday, 23 June 2011 - 8:09 am

    //Mun Ching enjoys travelling off the beaten path to discover the grittier but more revealing parts of the region we call home.//

    Mun Ching, I just hope your off the beaten path journey does not end up inside Kamunting Holiday Camp for anti-bn activists. You will definitely not enjoy your holiday there.

  4. #4 by dagen on Thursday, 23 June 2011 - 8:57 am

    This annual begging festival must go on, as far as umno is concerned. It serves the vital function of re-affirming – each year – the ketuanan status of umnoputras. And a reminder to them that they are the supreme race of the world. Besides and importantly, it makes them cum. It is the time of the year when wives of umnoputras are at their happiest.

    So folks, jangan mimpi. If umno has its way umno would amend the constitution to give recognition to the annual begging festival.

    Ahhhh. Dont bother. Just vote umno out. ABUkan umno.

  5. #5 by HJ Angus on Thursday, 23 June 2011 - 8:58 am

    like everything else in Malaysia, the scholarship schemes have been piratised to benefit mainly the connected tuans; with the rest getting the leftover crumbs.

  6. #6 by Bigjoe on Thursday, 23 June 2011 - 9:15 am

    I personally believe there is NO solution to scholarship problem without first reforming the universities here first. The fact of the matter is that many of those students who come close to getting the scholarship should be offered a real alternative – a first class local education. The fact of the matter is when I interview the top graduates here, I discover their training is at least 1 year behind their counterpart elsewhere in the region.

    The priority really is to take one of the top 3 public university and make it COMPLETELY RUTHLESSLY GLOBALLY DARWINIAN MERITOCRATIC – from the administration, to professors to admission. let it be governed by and independent board like private universities in US/UK WITH a liberal budget to match. Politicians should stay completely out of it.

    Its really the more practical solution instead of trying to fight over limited funds for ever more expensive education abroad.

  7. #7 by Winston on Thursday, 23 June 2011 - 9:16 am

    Let’s go back to basics.
    During the British colonial times, scholarships were given out based on scholastic excellence.
    A means was also made to ensure that the applicant deserved it.
    Nowadays, scholarships are given, even to the super rich.
    This defeats the very purpose of giving out scholarships!
    Anyway, don’t expect this government to act logically.
    That’s not its forte!!

  8. #8 by baochingtian on Thursday, 23 June 2011 - 1:23 pm

    Scholarship is one of the few channels that a non bumi can benefit from the govt. If this is shrunk, firstly only the non bumi’s are at a loss coz many who r technically qualified to apply comes from this group of students. Secondly, the available scholarship allocations will go into somebody’s pocket anyway if they r not used to finance studying abroad.
    “…Tan Sri Ramon Navaratnam, stated the criteria as follows: academic achievement (20%), racial composition (60%), East Malaysia bumiputra (10%) and socially disadvantaged (10%)….” With a criteria stating weightage of 60% on race component and 20% for academic achievement, the policy makers have indeed turned Najib’s 1 Malaysia into a mockery of the century! It’s no wonder why the setting up of Talent Corp and the overseas roadshows to rope in best brains from abroad when the country is not grooming the potentials in home ground!

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