Malaysian mediocre education system and quota: The Endgame

 

IN my last article, I took us along memory lane through the 60s and 70s when our education was world class. As I said, we prepared our bumiputra students at foundational levels in secondary residential and semi-residential schools to be able to competently compete on merit with others, at primarily international universities overseas.

After the social engineering of the New Economic Policy (NEP) quotas of the late 80s, our education system today is wrought by an overabundance of religious indoctrination, overtly in the curriculum and covertly in our public schools’ teaching environment. This was accompanied by the forcing of unqualified bumiputra students into local public universities that had to be graduated into the workforce in spite of them being mostly non performing. Gradings and exams had to bent to ensure large drop out numbers do not inundate the population. Instead, we flood the workforce with mediocre graduates who today fill the ranks of the civil service and government-link-entities top to bottom.

These graduates, in fact, today also fill up the whole levels of our education administration, teaching workforce and universities. Not all, but to most of them out there – you know who you are. Case in point are all the so-called bumi-based NGOs heads, university administrators including vice-chancellors who are somehow twisting their arguments into pretzels to defend the hapless Education Minister who just put his black shoes into his mouth with respect to the issue of a 90% quota for bumis in matriculation.

By now, everyone and their grandmother have seen the video-clip of our supposedly esteemed minister justifying the existence of matriculation quota in favour of bumis because the non-bumis are rich. To add insult to the wounds, he proudly claimed that private universities are mostly filled with non-bumis because non-bumis are better off than the Malays.

Let me today reiterate that this assumption can no longer be left unchallenged. It is patently untrue that all or even the majority of non-bumis are rich and are therefore of no need of government assistance. That the Malays are indeed so poor, that they are the only ones who are overwhelmingly in need of help.

This is a slap on the face of poor non-Malays and an insult to the many hard-working Malay parents who do not rely on government handouts and in general compete on their own merit.

Let us look at the reality, shall we?

Figures provided by Parliament in 2015, showed that bumiputra households make up the majority of the country’s top 20% income earners (T20), but the community also sees the widest intra-group income disparity. According to data from a parliamentary written reply, the bumiputra make up 53.81% of the T20 category, followed by Chinese at 37.05%, Indians at 8.80% and others at 0.34%.

So which groups overall are the top 20% income earners in the country? Answer: bumiputras by a whopping 16.76% to the next group, the Chinese!

However, when the comparison is made within the bumiputra group itself, T20 earners only comprise 16.34%. The remaining comprises the middle 40% income earners (M40) at 38.96% and the bottom 40% income earners (B40) making up the majority at 44.7%.

This means that in spite of almost 40 years of affirmative action, handouts, subsidies and quotas, bumis as a group has a large disparity between its haves and the havenots. That raises the question if it means practically none of the government assistance has in fact gone to help the bumis that truly needed help but has gone to further enrich those who are already having it all!

To the Malays, I say, “You should look into this disparity instead of pointing fingers to other Malaysians who work hard to uplift themselves without any help from their own government”.

Maybe because of your adulation of your Bossku, feudal fealty or religious chieftains that they are the ones that are taking up what is essentially yours to uplift your own lives?

After all the YAPEIM (Yayasan Pembangunan Ekonomi Islam), yes, another institution in Malaysia using religion to sucker people, the Director himself takes home RM400,000.00 in bonus and his senior executive draws another RM250,000.00 all by themselves. Must be one hell of a “pembangunan ekonomi Islam”.

The problem is not between the Malays and the other races. The problem is clearly within the Malay community itself. The help is not reaching the supposed target group. Why? So do not punish others with quotas that penalise the excellence of others for your own dysfunctions.

Now, contrast with the Chinese and Indian communities, where the M40 group makes up the majority.

Within the Chinese community, the T20 group makes up 29.66%, followed by the M40 group at 42.32% and B40 at 28.02%. As for the Indian community, the T20 group stands at 19.98%, followed by the M40 income earners at 41.31% and the B40 at 38.71%.

It is so clearly not true that all non-bumis are rich and therefore the quotas must remain to enable the bumis to compete on an equal footing. The quotas are no longer justifiable if it was ever justifiable in the first place. It is very clear from these data that equal opportunity to university places must be provided irrespective of race purely on merit. The help on the other hand must be in the form of scholarships or loans to those deserving based on the financial capability of each successful university entrant, as simple as that.

If a candidate does not qualify, he or she does not, race be damned. That person must then take a different route – vocational or skilledbased profession or any other road to success. There is nothing wrong with not being a university graduate if one is not qualified. Find your vocation and passion in a field that you will excel in.

The Government has no business populating a university and later the workplace with a single race based on the criteria of fulfilling quota. It makes no sense and it is the root of ensuring the downfall of both the administrative branch of government or even the overall machinery of the nation’s economy.

Maszlee claims that foreign university branches in Malaysia are filled up by non-bumis, therefore Malays need more places in public universities via matriculation. As such the Government instituted matriculation in 1999. He cited Monash and Nottingham as examples. Unfortunately, Monash was opened in KL in 1998 and Nottingham in 2000. That lie blew up in his face pretty fast, didn’t it?

But really why would private universities be filled up with mostly non-bumis? Can’t Maszlee see that if the local public universities are providing only 10% quota to non-bumis to enter via matriculation, an even tougher entry through STPM and none via UEC, that middle and low income non-bumis will have no other choice but to opt for the less expensive private local and branch universities to sending their children for overseas education?

They even can’t gain entry to public universities due to the quotas despite having better results than Bumis. Where do you expect them to go then Maszlee? I know of many non-bumis who are scraping their barrels to ensure they send their kids to further their studies either local or overseas. Many of them have fewer children because they know they will have to pay for their kid’s education in the future. With most if not all of the scholarships given to bumis do they have another cheaper option?

How much more heartless is your assessment of our fellow non-bumis’ predicaments can you get, my dear Maszlee?

I think Maszlee need to learn facts and have some critical thinking before opening his mouth. Being the education minister is not like teaching religion, where people are not going to fact-check you because they think you are a gift from God. An education minister with such thinking cannot be allowed to stay in that position much longer. It is untenable.

Interestingly of late, a number of those from the Malay academia have come to the defense of the hapless minister defending matriculation quota because of workplace imbalance in the private sector. I have to ask is this proof that our universities are headed by Malays who have no business graduating and being employed and now heading such academic institutions and organisations? Do they even realize the tenuous relations between entry quota into learning institutions vs recruitment variables?

We truly need to clean up the education ministry from top to bottom including at our public universities. Too many people with no brains sucking up to powers that be and playing the race and religion card. It’s enough to make you weep.

Back to our conundrum that is the Malaysian education, what then is our endgame?

1. Stop quota - period. Any type of quota. It does not work and it will destroy the capability of our public and private sector to excel. Merit must reign.

2. Go back to basics. Primary and secondary education are the foundation that will allow any persons of any race to compete on equal footing in order to enter vocational institutions, colleges, and universities. The rest will take care of itself upon them graduating and joining the workforce. Trust in our youth. The bumis are not incapable of excelling given the right foundation.

3. Bring back a Science, Mathematics and English-heavy curriculum for primary and secondary years. Go back to basics. These are foundation years. Do not worry about having the latest technology. Children will absorb that in their own time. Tertiary education is where skill-based knowledge is acquired. Foundational knowledge and critical thinking is honed before you leave high school.

4. Please leave religion at home. Teach it if you want but do it outside of normal school hours. Let our children be among their peers as human beings without any differentiation of beliefs and faiths. Let them celebrate their differences without adults telling them who is better than others. Show them all the beauty they possess without judgment.

5. We are all Malaysians. We all bleed the same blood and we all weep the same tears when we are capable but are unable to fulfill our potential because we do not have the financial means to achieve those goals. Help us irrespective of race. All of us contribute to our taxes. No one group should benefit more than the other because they are of a different ethnicity.

We will see that Malaysia will prosper with each race helping each other as Malaysians once and for all.

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Siti Kasim

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Malaysian public research universities using short-cut measures to achieve world-class recognition

Other ways to achieve world-class recognition

I WAS bewildered by the news that some public research universities intend to increase their intake of foreign students so that they can achieve the so-called world-class university status.

This is a misguided strategy that, if followed through, will be done at the expense of local, especially non-bumiputra, students whose places would be taken up by the foreigners.

Take a look at the National University of Singapore, a top-10 university in Asia and top-50 in the world. It has only 8% to 10% foreign students whereas Universiti Teknologi Malaysia has 20%.

My point is increasing the intake of foreign students in our public universities to 10% and above is not a compulsory requirement to attain world-class university status.

I do not deny that a developing nation like Malaysia still needs to import foreign talents but they must be brilliant people and not just the average Joe.

Reduce the intake and tighten the screening process to accept smart foreign students only.

Efforts to attain world-class status should be focused on research and development, rate of journal citation, efficiency of teaching staff and facilities, academic freedom, etc.

Let’s stop using short-cut measures to score full marks in the foreign student category.

I strongly urge public universities and the Education Ministry to fix the foreign student quota to no more than 10% and re-allocate precious tertiary education resour­ces to local people who are paying tax to the Government.

By doing this, we can also reduce the chronic problem of brain drain.

NKKHOO Cheras

Stop using short-cut measures

WE share NK Khoo’s sentiments regarding some public research universities intentionally increasing the intake of foreign students to achieve “world-class university” status in, “Other ways to achieve world-class recognition”.

It is good that over the past few years the Government has been serious and determined in improving the global university ranking and upgrading tertiary education of our public universities.

It is however unfortunate that in their eagerness to satisfy the ranking companies, we have seen some of the public universities sacrificing the quality of education as a whole and using their limited resources to earn “easy” points on certain measures, such as the QS World University Ranking’s “International faculty ratio” and “Student-to-faculty ratio”.

For instance, University of Malaya (UM) and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) have shown a significant improvement in ranking in the “Student-to-faculty ratio” and “International faculty ratio” measurements. In the former criteria, UM and UTM had respectively climbed to 58th and 143rd in 2015, from 86th and 203rd in 2013 respectively.

There are also good signs of improvement in the latter criteria with UM and UTM ranked at 167th and 193rd in 2015, respectively.

The irony is that with these improvements in “ratio”, it still falls short in claiming graduates who are “good quality graduates” in our public universities in the last three years.

The QS surveys’ have seen declining “Employer reputation” (employers were asked to identify universities that they consider best for recruiting graduates) and “Academic reputation” (academics were asked to identify the institutions where they believe the best workplace is) of these universities in the last three years.

For UM, these “reputation” measurements have been declining from 200th (2013) to 246th (2015) for “Employer reputation”, and 184th (2013) to 175th (2015) for “Academic reputation”.

Given that the above “reputation” indicators are measured using QS global surveys, that drew responses from thousands of experienced stakeholders worldwide, it indicates the dire need for the leading public universities in Malaysia to catch up to earn their reputation professionally and internationally.

Further, one possible explanation for such a negative correlation between “reputation” and “faculty ratio” measurements is that these rankings by “ratio” do not reflect the actual quality of some of the academic staff hired by the universities.

The counter argument would be that investing taxpayers money into upgrading rankings is good in improving higher education, but should not be done at the expense of the teaching quality.

For comparison, the leading Singaporean university, the National University of Singapore (NUS) has shown positive correlation between “reputation” and “ratio” measurements. With “Employer reputation” ranked at world No. 9, its “Student-to-faculty ratio” is ranked even lower than UM, at 67th.

As compared to UM, with a relatively higher number of students per academic staff, NUS still managed to produce much better quality graduates who earned a high reputation from employers globally.

To emulate NUS’ experience, more autonomy to the administration and management of our public universities could possibly address the underlying problems.

For instance, a better and fairer reward scheme for high performance faculties, strict replacement system for under-performing staff, as well as ensuring that only truly qualified candidates enter public universities, would potentially help to improve accountability, effective work culture and reputation of tertiary education in Malaysian public universities.

As these universities are highly subsidised by the Government, it must be worthy of the money paid by the taxpayers. To this effect, the Government plays an important role in providing necessary support such as academic freedom and autonomy to public universities, and eradicating hurdles and constraints that restrain public universities’ improvements, particularly in teaching and research.

On the other hand, despite the shortcomings and flaws of all existing university ranking systems, results of comparisons between universities can still serve, to a certain extent, as indicators to gauge the international reputation of a university.

Some of these ranking measurements are useful for policy makers and academics to collectively improve the standard of tertiary education in Malaysia.

BK SONG and TINA NEIK Subang Jaya