In fact Anwar is the one who politicised the education system.

I would not forget too what he mentioned in Penang about stopping bells in Hindu temples permanently.

Perhaps he has changed but anyone who has followed his career will know that he has been saying many different things to different people all the time. But when it comes to deliver, he always failed.

It is difficult to criticise someone who is not in power as we have no basic to make any comparison. However, it would be good to see his record as the leader of PKR if he is sincere or not.

People who think he has changed, just have to look at what had happened at the by election at Ijok when he cheated Indians after promising them to place them as the candidate. And after selecting Khalid, PKR and Anwar went ahead and used racism to attack the MIC candidate. And this wasn’t many years ago but in April 2007.

So, if you think he has changed, think again…

Workable or no is secondary …. importantly he has the bluerpint …… he should be given a chance to prove it ….

i dun really get u.

well.. yea.. every psd scholar shud b educated in msia.. n if theyre accepted 2 an ivy league overseas on merit.. they shud b able to get sponsorships…

i don’t he humiliates the indians, as he says he is not “pessimistic” as samy, implying that samy should have more faith in his own community. maybe i misunderstood the paragraph?

one swallow does not make a summer.

i have one question though - why did bumi percentage remained at 60%? that means 60% of mainly malays students are better than many chinese students? we leave out indian students first. perhaps you can offer some insight as well. if the reason is selecting students from poor family/rural areas as first criteria, its a skewed meritocracy, since academic results is not the main criteria.

however, it is possible that indians were moving from rural to urban areas in the past 10-15 years, thus lost their “rural” marks.

http://www.limkitsiang.com/archive/2002/may02/lks1561.htm

While Samy Vellu is right that the Indian community has become the most marginalized and new underclass three decades after the New Economic Policy and the National Development Policy which requires a special government masterplan to uplift the socio-economic and educational backwardness of the community, I am not so pessimistic as Samy Vellu about the academic potentials of the Indian students and would urge Samy Vellu that before MIC sounds the call for the reinstatement of the 55:35:10 quota for student intake into public universities, to examine whether more Indian students should have been selected into the public universities to reach the 10 per cent mark under a proper, impartial and professional merit-based selection system.

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Yo Poobalan :

Not many Indians in UTM becoz of this meritocracy system introduced a few years ago.

It used to be 6 : 3 : 1 quota for Bumi, Chinese and Indians and when the merotocracy system was introduced, the Indians’ percentage actually reduced tremendously. In fact it dropped to below 5% once. Though it later improved after intense lobbying by MIC, we never regained the 10% mark thanks to the efforts of DAP and others who constantly attacked the govt. In the end, the bumi % remained around 60% while the Chinese enjoyed almost 33 - 35% of the places.

I believe the current figure has improved to be around 6% which I am fairly certain that not based on pure meritocracy but semi-meritocracy after much lobbying by MIC.

As for UM, I was told that the it do not restrict students from well-to-do family and urban area unlike UTM. But in I am sure students from poor and rural families get additional points in the admission system. But again UM also practices semi-meritocracy system. It is just that it not so focus as UTM on helping the rural / poor students.

Another Univ that has different policy is UitM. It has far higher proportion of rich / urban kids than others.

Let me share what I know of these allegations.

1. Faculties reserved for bumis only : possible,I have seen and heard such unwritten practices. But not sure if these are still in place today. What I know is the reason behind this is to increase the bumi participation or % in that particular profession.

2. Marking : This is true. I remember the times when the MU Eng and Medical bumi students were marked separately. If I am not mistaken, the univ officials admitted this due to the students’ lower passing rate. The reason given was that if the same criteria was used then more bumis will fail. Of course this doesnt make sense at all. I don’t think this is still practised but perhaps more recent grads could offer their views.

However, having said all that. we need look at the bigger picture rather than focusing on such small issues. Whatever you can say about UMNO, had the party in power was DAP, I would guarantee that many Indians grads (50%) would never been admitted to the public universities due to their “fair” meritocracy system.

Under BN/UMNO at least we had this quota for Indians and thousands of poor and middle class Indians benefitted, including Poobalan and myself here. Had there been a meritocratic system for grad, I admit that I would not have made it and instead some rich Chinese student from urban area would have got it instead. But being an indian from a rural area and a lower middle-class, I benefitted from these policies. For that I am eternally thankful. One must understand that having an inferior result in SPM is not an indication of one’s true potential. Students’ from poor family just cannot hope to compete with rich kids who have the advantage of better teachers, facilities, tuition classes,etc.

To be honest i felt embarassed initially at the univ to see the Chinese students with better results doing lesser courses. However, that gave me the motivation to study hard and beat the best of the Chinese students to uphold the image of Indians.

we can propose million dollar worth ideas but none will take effect as long as BN(umno) in power……