Subscribe in a reader | Subscribe by Email Initially, it was well reported only 34 students got the PSD’s 2000 overseas scholarship, with 194 having appealed. Later, the figure increased to 72 Indians students, with 187 appeals. Now the figures are upped to 161 and Datuk S.Subra has the gall to say that is more than last year! He totally misses the point that the students had to appeal and MIC leaders had to BEG for it! Isn’t that humiliating enough? Or is this some sandiwara to show MIC relevance? I seriously hope not since the makkal are past this kind of drama already. They are smart enough to make use of politicians and party. Come election time, makkal will teach them a lesson again.
Hopefully those who appealed really deserves it on merit instead of qualifying under some sort of quota for MIC. That will make us look like handout seekers and quota-dependent like the the privileged community.
Anyway, one good thing is that all 9As and above students will get scholarship to study in one way or another.
KUALA LUMPUR: The Public Services Department (PSD) has offered scholarships to 161 Indian students with excellent results in the 2007 Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) to pursue their studies overseas, Human Resources Minister Datuk Dr S. Subramaniam said here. He said only 120 Indian students were offered scholarships last year.
In a statement, Dr Subramaniam said he met PSD director-general Tan Sri Ismail Adam yesterday over appeals by Indian students unsuccessful in getting scholarships. On May 21, MIC president Datuk Seri S. Samy Vellu met Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Mohd Sidek Hassan to appeal on behalf of 187 Indian students who were unsuccessful in their scholarship applications.
Dr Subramaniam said the PSD had also stated that all SPM students who obtained 9As and above last year would be offered scholarships to study basic science courses in local public universities and four university campuses recognised by the JPA – Monash, Nottingham, Curtin University of Technology and Swinburne. He said the scholarships would also be given automatically to students who had obtained places in Ivy League universities and other similar universities overseas. He urged all SPM students who had got 9As and above to go to the JPA website to find out whether they had obtained scholarships to study in local universities.
Sandiwara? lol
wait till next year to know how many 9As students actually have received the scholarship this year.
Dear Poobalan & others
Perhaps you guys are missing the point here.
I am sorry but my comments going to be “panas” but that’s for a good reason as the truth must be told.
1. First of all,we need to understand that thanks to DAP and their partners, we are now in the age of semi-meritocracy. As such, there is no longer a quota for Indians but we need to compete with the other non-bumis.
So if there has been only 34 students had been originally accepted, then why do we think this was because the Indians were deprived ? Could it be due to the poor performance of the Indians or the superior performance of the other non-bumis ? I certainly think that (I am speaking without data, I admit but this is based on understanding of the stats published and personal experiences dealing with students). My personal opinion is that the performance of the Chinese students had improved much more than the Indian students and also their number has increased too.
I think you also missing the point about last year’s 120 students. For your info the same thing happened last year, after MIC’s intervention the number of students accepted were increased. Perhaps you should check your facts before you make such comments in the future.
In the last few years the number of non-bumi students being sent to overseas had increased tremendously and this was due to the effort and pressure from the Malaysian public and the political parties like MCA, MIC and Gerakan.
2. You know we should do ? Stop this silly scheme of sending the students overseas and let them study locally.
Many of these students create dramas when they were rejected but when they actually get the scholarship and complete their studies, suddenly they develop “political consciousness” and refuse to return citing all kinds of reasons. In actual fact they just stay back and work in the US and Europe to get lucrative pays.
Also do not get deceived by the teary tales of the so-called top students. As someone who had been helping indian students out in univ application, most times there are good reasons. It is just that some of them create some Bollywood drama in desparate efforts to get an overseas scholarship.
From my experience, the process of these scholarship is opaque and should be more transparent. The parameters for selections must be properly thought of and made known before hand. No doubt there have been abuses and an open selection would prevent such practices.
But having said that, I would caution people from believing everything that these students say in the press. First ask them for their result slips to verify their claims. Secondly, see what are the courses they have applied. There are some morons who apply for highly competitive courses like medicine in expensive nations like the UK even though their results was average. Some of these students can even be nasty by only applying one course that is highly competitive so that it puts the pressure on the selection committe in a spot. Thirdly, check their socio-economic standings.
3. I believe in fighting for the community but some of these arguments (including yours Poobalan) can be seen as racist from another perspective. We are still stuck in a racial mindset of wanting a certain % of Indians being accepted and we demand that this must be more than 7%. What would happen if our brothers and sisters from Orang Asli, Iban, Kadazan, Murut,etc make the same demand ? Don’t you think the Indians are far better off than these ethnic groups ? When UMNO Youth makes the demand we say they are being racist. What about us ? Don’t you think the Malays feel they are entitled to have 60% of the places due to their population ? They might even feel they deserve more as Indians have higher GDP/capita.
So brothers and sisters, think of improving ourselves rather tha making silly and racist demands. In this world, to move head we need to work to get it and not wait for the opportunity to fall on your lap.
Hi Killer,
its good to “panaskan” things once in a while to make us think, no? of course, within accepted decorum.
1. semi-meritocracy is the problem. the chinese will be wondering why the privileged people who score 5 or 6As can get overseas trip, while their children with 10 or 11As just get place in STPM. i agree that the number of chinese students with excellent results (let’s put it at 13As and above) is far more than indian students. i don’t have the stats from MES or JPA, but by virtue of the 34/900 being indians, i guess the rest is chinese. JPA has no reason to favor chinese over indian (unless want to punish community over Hindraf protests). I’m sure you would have read that out of those who appealed via MIC and PKR, many had 11As and below, meaning they are automatically disqualified. but the unhappiness is the reason you gave earlier – SEMI-meritocracy. surely the indian parent will be incensed when his neighbor’s kids with few As go to UK, while his son/daughter left crying at home. Yeah, we can talk about “privileges” and “bigger picture”, but would the parent care about all that? He only sees one thing – injustice.
as for the 120 students last year, i know that MIC went begging as usual. I’m sure you know that this has been going on for years. we get few places, MIC intervenes, and we get more. same with MCA. it is likely that not many indian students qualified last year, so after MIC intervened, we had 120 students. Subra is telling that this is year is more students due to MIC interference. my point is that MIC is doing the same thing every year.
2. i agree with you. we should just limit or scrape the overseas program. we save more money which can be used to fund more students locally.
And I also agree that the selection process should be more transparent (just like what many other malaysians think). in fact i wrote about the lack of transparency in previous few postings as well.
the cases you mentioned do exist – wrongly apply courses or choosing only one or two options.
3. now, when did i say that there should be a certain number of places allocated for indians? that was mentioned by MP saravanan recently, who wanted 250 places for indians. in fact, if you read my original post (those before this one) again, i raised my concern that by using quota, we will be looked down by others since the students may not be qualified but got the scholarship due to our skin color. we should not be a “handout” community like those privileged people. i support the “best for the job”. if all 2000 top scorers who family income is less than 3K and score full marks for extra-curricular are chinese, so be it. they deserve it. simple as that. if being 60% of the population means you automatically get 60% of everything, then something’s wrong. you have to put your share of the hardwork as well. nothing comes free in this world. probability-wise, more high-achievers should be coming from the bigger majority group, but that’s without considering other factors – environmental and individual.
Poobalan
Some excellent points….
1. “surely the indian parent will be incensed when his neighbor’s kids with few As go to UK, while his son/daughter left crying at home. Yeah, we can talk about “privileges” and “bigger picture”, but would the parent care about all that? He only sees one thing – injustice.”
KILLER : In a way I agree. But I had been in the situation too but I didn’t sit at home and cry. Instead I managed to get into a local uni and have done much better than those we had studied in overseas.
But how about the Chinese kids we see Indians with inferior results (let’s say 8As) going overseas while he/she with 10As end up in TAR college ? That’s unfair too right ?
2. “now, when did i say that there should be a certain number of places allocated for indians?”
KILLER : My humble apologies.
3. Many people think merotocracy is the fairest policy and I say it is b*****. In fact meritocrasy is a very unfair policy. It will only make rich richer and the poor remain poor. Just look at Singapore for example.
I think your are from UTM. One of the criteria for UTM (at least during my time) is that they take students based on factors such as socio economic standing, extra-curricular activities, rural areas and academic result. Students from big cities, despite excellent results were by-passed. This has enabled people from the middle class and small towns/estate/kampung to make progress socio economically. But the policy of MU was different, they did not look at parent’s income and other factors.
I think for scholarships a more humane and progressive polices should apply. And the govt must scrap overseas studies except in case of specialist courses (for Masters or PHD levels).
dear poobalan n killer,
i dun agree with both of u regarding the overseas studies should be scrapped.
Good achievers should be send overseas for further study, this is the way, we will have more global students and better blend of citizen in Malaysia. There are plenty we can gain from this program.
However, government must be very strict in term of their contract and must make sure comeback or take action,
dear borak
Let me articulate my reasons.
1. The cost factor : as pointed out, a lot more students can be sponsored if we allow these students study in Malaysia. Thus avoid the problems that we are seeing.
2. Outflow of funds : Due to this, we allow a significant amount of money to flow out of country.
3. Development of local education industry : if the money spend for overseas studies are channelled locally, it would help the local education industry and help it to develop further. It will also help the economy.
4. Brain drain : It would be hard to stop these students from staying back in the US or EU.
5. Standard of local education : it would be bad for quality of local education ins. if the best students are sent overseas. By keeping these students locally, we can improve the standard and quality of our local uni.
6. Bumi/Non-Bumi gap : Since the best bumis are sent overseas, the remaining ones in the local unis are unable to cope up with the non-bumis, thus creating an unhealthy situation.
For the undergraduate level, I see very little benefit for sending people overseas unless it is for reasons of rewarding the best. It would be more uselful for them to study their Phd and Msc overseas for specialised fields.
I think the experience of Koreans and Taiwanese governments in this aspect is a good indicator for us.
scrapping the program may be last resort if many students don’t return or if it causes much problems. if the whole process is transparent and we don’t have groups like MIC or UMNO youth demanding for quota, it should be ok.
In the land of Bolehland i dont think so meritroCRAZY will never work.
When we had quote system,at least we secured a good 10 % . In my humble opinion, i think we must revert back to quota.
10% in everything is good i think.
i think in Bolehland, people are warming up to the idea that everything can change, even the government of the day 🙂
Malaysia Boleh!
10% is more than our population. Won’t it anger others? Perhaps a temporary measure of 10% intake for 3 years continuously for Indians? The following 3 years, allocate 10% to Kadazan, then another 3 years to Dayak, etc.
i appreciate ur patriotism however i dun agree with ur idea that overseas studies should be scrapped.
Yo Maya
Pls share with us your reasons why it should not be scrapped.
coz in my opinion, our indian students also should be given equal opportunity to study in overseas like the bumis. if we were to talk abt fund flowing out of country and economy of this country, we should also take into consideration the amount of taxpayers money being wasted by our government.
Hi Novin
If we ask 10% quota, then what would happen if all other ethnic groups start to do the same ? Since Ibans, Kadazans, Muruts,etc are worse off, should they be given even higher quotas ?
In my view, we should do away with racially based quota. We should allocate a certain percentage to the poor (may be 30%) and the rest based on meritocracy. This would ensure fairness without sacrificing quality. I want to see Indian students competing and beating the Chinese instead of relaying on MIC to get a backdoor entry. I hope Indians can show their “Makkal Sakthi” in being equal or better than other communities in all aspects rather than being the tops in crime and waste time in taking part in illegal demos.
1. Well sir, good for you that you took the failure in the chin, and managed to get into local uni. I hope all our youths are like yourself (or even like me, but that would be “angkat bakul sendiri! ), unfortunately, with the intense competition (partially due to very loose marking and standards resulting in many double digit A scores), places in local university is also a problem. Of course, there are the percentage of students did not do well, yet think that they deserve a place in uni to do critical course.
Obviously, it would be unfair if the case you mentioned happened (8A indian going overseas while 10As Chinese stuck in TARC). That’s why I’m not supportive of quota. Now, if both students got 10As but the indian had lower family income, and there’s only one place available, i’ll choose the indian student. Thus, academic results, in tandem with family financial status, extra-curricular, medical tests (to filter those who faint at the sight of blood, for medical courses) can decide the recipients. Not race or gender.
2. accepted with humility.
3. Well, the criteria used in UTM was still the same when i was there. We are just few years apart. Nothing much changed till in early 2000s. I think meritocracy as you highlighted (purely on academic results) is not what i had in mind. My idea of meritocracy is academic excellence together with the things you mentioned (economic standing, location, and extra-curricular marks). But is race a criteria as well? The parameters are good, but the way its manipulated is the problem. Can we put location as first qualifying criteria instead of results? Is economic standing more important than extra-curricular activities? As you said in previous comment, lack of transparency causes manipulation. In my course, certain number privileged students left after first year due to failure. None of the others races were kicked out.
However, sad to say now, not many Indians are in UTM. Either not qualified or the rules have changed. Are you sure MU did not consider income etc.? That would mean many Chinese would be in UM and practically no Indians or Malays. It also means UM did not support the governments policies on university intake in the last decade.
maya reply on June 12, 2008:
coz in my opinion, our indian students also should be given equal opportunity to study in overseas like the bumis. if we were to talk abt fund flowing out of country and economy of this country, we should also take into consideration the amount of taxpayers money being wasted by our government.
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This is my reply :
1. In first place, there is no need to send any students, be it bumi or non-bumis to overseas. So there is no ground to argue on the basis of equal opportunity.
2. Leakages and wastages : Surely this is not an argument for sending students overseas right ?
I would support your proposal if you could be more specific on the benefits of studying in overseas (for undergraduate level). FYI I studied locally for my degree and did my Masters in a foreign university. Due to my work, I am also well aware of the education system in many countries, both 3rd world as well as the First World ones.
facts that i know :
– BN (umno) will never put brain on top of race . so we will continue to see anger among non-bumi students…
– i was told by a uni astrology prof that , there’s an unwritten rule that only one non-bumi allowed in intake for that particular faculty ….
– i was told that bumi students get ‘previeledged’ marking in uni exam as well
– there are many bumi engineers in MNCs . Some are below par though graduated from local/oversea Uni . This makes non-bumi engineers (whom didnt get scholarship/place in local U) grumble .
we can propose million dollar worth ideas but none will take effect as long as BN(umno) in power……
Dear VJ
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.
However, sad to say now, not many Indians are in UTM. Either not qualified or the rules have changed. Are you sure MU did not consider income etc.? That would mean many Chinese would be in UM and practically no Indians or Malays. It also means UM did not support the governments policies on university intake in the last decade.
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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.
For people who think PR and DAP fighting for Indians, see below an except from Lim Kit Siang’s blog. The link is here, please go and read it quick before he takes it down. This is from 2002. In his own words he has admitted that Samy Vellu has been fighting for Indians. But read on how he humiliates Indians. This is just an inkling of what will happen if DAP / PR takes over, despite all their talk.
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.
thanks for explanation, killer.
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.
killer,
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.
wad d … if they dont give complain.. give oso complain….
ppl nowadays… make up ur mind yall..
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…
hi m’sian kid.
i dun really get u.
Anwar was part of the pack which discriminated non-malay in edu . He now claims to undo his mistake .
Well , he addressed a gigantic Penang crowd (~25k) at last nite’s ceramah and promising for equal oppurtunity , eg Uni places , sholarships….etc .
Workable or no is secondary …. importantly he has the bluerpint …… he should be given a chance to prove it ….
Well, when Anwar was the Edu Minister, it was the worse time of Malaysian history. The changes that he brought was all meant to destroy the vernacular edcation. Many of the discriminatory policies we have today originated from his time.
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…
facts that i know :
– BN (umno) will never put brain on top of race . so we will continue to see anger among non-bumi students…
– i was told by a uni astrology prof that , there’s an unwritten rule that only one non-bumi allowed in intake for that particular faculty ….
– i was told that bumi students get ‘previeledged’ marking in uni exam as well
– there are many bumi engineers in MNCs . Some are below par though graduated from local/oversea Uni . This makes non-bumi engineers (whom didnt get scholarship/place in local U) grumble .
we can propose million dollar worth ideas but none will take effect as long as BN(umno) in power……