A noon meeting with the Public Services Department Director-General Tan Sri Ismail Adam in Putrajaya has been scheduled on the subject of another round of injustices in the PSD scholarship awards, out of line with the “1Malaysia” slogan of Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
The subject has provoked national debate and soul-searching. I reproduce three emails below:
(1) From Allan Tan Kean Yang
Warm greetings. I’m from Penang, an 11A1’s, 1B3 SPM 2009 scorer. I’d be pleased if you could kindly consider
my appeal for the JPA scholarship. The results are as below:
Malay Language – A1
English Language – A1
1119 English – A1
Chinese – B3
Additional Maths – A1
Modern Maths – A1
Moral Studies – A1
Physics – A1
Chemistry – A1
Biology – A1
History – A1
English for Science and Technology – A1
I’m also shortlisted for the JPA interview at Kepala Batas. Yet, I failed to get the scholarship for KEJURUTERAAN course to UK and those English-based medium countries.
Besides, I’m actively involved in my cocurriculum activities, a Deputy Head Prefect in Chung Ling High School, Penang; a school representative for Chess Club to participate in Chess OPEN tournaments; a Leo Secretary for Leo Club of CLHS; I’ve also have had national PENGLIBATAN as well as states PENGLIBATAN and achievements.
I’m quite disappointed that I’m not being offered even a local scholarship in which some of them who did not do as good as me in the SPM Exam get one. I doubt that I did badly for the interview, not to mention I was a National Service trainee at Balik Pulau White Resort for the 1st Batch.
Last but not least, thanks for considering my appeal and all the best to y’al
on the 19th May 2009 as seen from this link.
http://tonypua.blogspot.com/2009/05/jpa-scholarship-scheme-seeking-fair.html
Thanks for fighting for our rights.
(2) From Meng Beh:
This is nothing new and happens every year.
What is MCA and Gerakan do ? Can they be more proactive, rather than re-active?
Why must they wait till people’s complain then react?
That’s why chinese is so fed-up and give up hopes to MCA and Gerakan.
This is their responsibility to ensure that all good student ( regardless of race) will obtain the scholar ship to further thier study.
And please do not try to claim credit. — please do not expect a vote of support when election come…this is thier responsibility and accoutability, do not hope to use it to exchange for vote.
(3) From Tang Mei San: –
The annual grouses on the unfair PSD scholarship awards are followed by the government’s annual promise to be fair and just in allocation. Almost inevitably, the MCA will step out to help voice the stories of disgruntled and unsuccessful applicants, promising appeals and calling for more equal allocations.
It’s hard to not think that the PSD Scholarships have became an instrument for MCA to gain political mileage, considering the fact that their annual “efforts”, while outright and loud, has never once succeeded in solving the problem.
In Chua Soi Lek’s blog posting on PSD Scholarships, I agree with him that it is impossible to satisfy all top students and I also concur with him that a string of distinctions cannot be an effective measure to determine the student’s eligibility for a scholarship.
But at the end of Chua’s posting, he resorted to the same old calling for more scholarships – an annual calling by the MCA that Malaysians have yet to see its effectiveness.
The root of the problem with the PSD scholarships is the perceived wide incongruity between the government’s promises to be fair in allocation and the reality in awarding. It is this perceived unfairness that has been the ground of the annual grouses by top students and their parents.
I dare not say that the reality in the PSD is justice and that the people’s perception has merely been unreasonably fueled by the media and political parties. But the point is, none of us have a tinge of clear understanding of what is happening since the PSD has never clarified the criteria used in awarding the scholarships.
Hence, I think a good initiative to reduce the intensity of the grouses will be for the PSD director-general to clarify on the system and criteria of awarding, whether they are based on results, merit, race, family income etc.
Another important step to be taken is to explain to unsuccessful applicants what are the viable alternatives to the PSD scholarships, as I am very sure that the PSD cannot be the one and only channel to a tertiary education. This, I think, should be the priority of political parties, rather than trying to outdo each other in calls for more justice.
I also often wonder if the top students and their parents would start learning about the leaders in the government and opposition were it not for the sake of appealing for scholarships. As we the people often accuse our politicians for being corrupted and excessive politicking, I think there are many of us who are only in our ADUNs and MPs’ service centres for self-seeking purpose. Just another food for thought…
Shocking Revelation – that is why some well-qualified scholars did not get their PSD scholarships!
From today’s ‘theSun’
The rich who ask for govt scholarships
Barisan Nasional Beckbenchers Club president Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing has criticized the rich and people in high positions who obtained government scholarships for their children through guanxi (social relationships or connections).
He said these people were robbing deserving students from poor families of the chance to further their studies.
Tiong said the rich and powerful should not be applying for government scholarships at all, let alone obtain them through connections.
He said that in the past, the children of many of the who’s who of society and senior government officers had obtained Public Service Department scholarships through connections.
Tiong said he hoped the cabinet would address the problem to ensure that government scholarships were awarded to high-achievers who did not have the financial means to pursue a tertiary education.
The Bintulu MP told Nanyang Siang Pau in an interview that he had received complaints from the public about the children of certain senior government officers or well-to-do dignitaries being awarded government scholarships.
He said these children usually obtained government scholarships through their parents’ guanxi.
Tiong urged the cabinet to look into the matter to prevent a public outcry.
‘The government should make it clear that its scholarships are for students who excel but are poor.’
He said ministers who have the means should pay for their children’s education and leave scholarships to people from the low and middle income groups.
frankly speaking, in current SPM grading standard, there is a lot of 11As in the country.
the important thing we should look at is what is the racial breakdown for those who were awarded JPA scholarship. if it is according to formula, then just accept it. because that’s the government we chose and that’s the policy they set. if we want changes, then vote for Pakatan Rakyat in next GE. For sure, there will be changes.
this issue had been hanging around for more than 15 years, as far as I know, back to my school day…
another thing is interview, sorry to say that a lot of top student fared badly in interview…it’s more difficult than taking exam papers.
I don’t know how much bullsh!t the people will take before they will wake up and vote to kick out these racist umno. What is the use of all the complaining if you still vote for umno. They are not going to change and racism is so well entrenched. Go to any Government department and you will see how they will treat you. Don’t let them scare you all that there will be another 513 if you vote for PR. Be brave and it better to die once than to die a thousand times.
All we need is the list of the successful candidates, their results, and their addresses. If there is nothing to hide, they should make it public. Maybe we will see some successful candidates living in Damansara Heights or Tropicana !
Over 8000 students are qualified to be considered for 2000 scholarships which are allocated for medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, engineering, bio tech and other sciences.
So, in the 13th GE, just vote according to your conscience. For instance, 2000 votes( not counting their family members) should vote for BN to express their gratitude, and 6000( not counting their family members) should vote for PR to enable the necessary changes in the system. Meaning to say PR will be getting 3 times the number of votes of BN. So, good riddance BN!
It seems that MCA looks more like a beggar in the Umno-dominated BN government.
Why the denying of scholarships to the best students take place every year.
MCA is in the ruling position but not in power(Dang jia bu dang quan).
What have the cabinet ministers of MCA been doing in the Cabinet?
Malaysia has made tremendous progress in the past 40 years and our education system has also evolved to be one of the best in the world. That was why so many foreign students choose to study here. The BN government has always taken a very pragmatic and contemporary approach in our education system not only to improve the education level and also to enable the needy ones to have equal opportunities to further their studies. The manner how the scholarships are being distributed should not be questioned as it have proven that the current system was flawless and it was the corner stone and foundation of a modern a dynamic yet a harmonious Malaysia. If the scholarship was given only to the top students who are primarily from a particular race, it will be very unhealthy for the entire development of the country. We have to take into account the race distribution pattern and have to give considerations to the poor. Best students have always no problem in obtaining scholarships from other countries such as Singapore so it is important that we have to channel our own limited funds to those who are not able to obtain scholarship through other means. This explained why some of the top students did not get scholarship in Malaysia. This does not mean they are not good enough but simply because they have too much opportunities laid before them, compared to those who did not score well in their exams. And the BN’s priority is to pull those students who did not score well and equip them with equal opportunity so that they are able to compete with these students in future. This is imperative to the whole development in Malaysia, and is important in maintaining social balance. If someone is to argue that most of the scholarship was given to the Malays, please bear in mind that this is because of the aforementioned and is also in line with the notion of Ketuanan Melayu, which is an important factor in Malaysia. Please think from a broader perspective and don’t keep looking at things from a narrow angle.
“What have the cabinet ministers of MCA been doing in the Cabinet?” -Joshua Tan Kok Hauw
to think of how to embezzle our money.
RM4.6 billion (about) USD1.286 billion = USD1,286,000,000
if a student needs USD30000 for overseas undergraduate education, the $ could translate into:
USD1286000000/USD30000 = 42,867 students
does it tell something?
We all know complaining won’t solve the problem, those top scorers should instead figure out another way.
Why go oversea when the local education institutions are in trouble? isn’t this running away from facing the problem?
If they are really clever, they should help in developing the country, even the hard way, going on the ground level of battle. We are in serious crisis of confidence, outflow of human power is not longer a small issue.
I’m getting sick and tired not only of the UMNO politic and governance but also the “traditional” responses from minority ethnics and the opposition, it won’t affect the problems at all, we need a revoluntionary way and to change the people in the government.
Allan Tan Kean Yang, instead of going to UK, why not try the local one? I know it’s not fair but with the outstanding result in your SPM I believe you are intellectually strong, so no matter where you land, you will be able to excel, right?
YB Kit,
I hope that the tenses errors or grammatical errors as shown in this blog were just the slide of pen. Otherwise, I would be quite disappointed to find that the top SPM scorers in Malaysia indeed were not having good command of English when they were given a Grade A1 in the English subject.
“I’ve also have had national PENGLIBATAN as well as states PENGLIBATAN and achievements.” (Allan Tan Kean Yang)
“I’ve also have had” is a repetition in wording! (Onlooker)
“What is MCA and Gerakan do ?” (Meng Beh)
I would rewrite the above sentence as “What are MCA and Gerakan doing?” (Onlooker)
“That’s why chinese is so fed-up and give up hopes to MCA and Gerakan.” (Meng Beh)
I would give up hope on MCA and Gerakan and I would not “give up hopes to MCA and Gerakan.” (Onlooker)
It is also astonishing for me to find that a top scorer like Meng Beh miswrote “their” as “thier” as a stereotyped spelling error. (Onlooker)
{It’s hard to not think that the PSD Scholarships have became an instrument for MCA to gain political mileage, considering the fact that their annual “efforts”, while outright and loud, has never once succeeded in solving the problem.} (Tang Mei San)
The past participle for the words “have became” was wrongly spelt. The correct words should be “have become”. (Onlooker)
See the difference between you Onlooker and that racist Kasim Amat.You can detect so many uncalled for errors in the usage of the English Language coming from SPM achievers with A1 in English that one cannot but call in question the quality of our education system.Over the years we have also heard interviewers expressing surprise that candidates in job interviewers can hardly speak English even though some of them have A1 for the subject.In the case of Kasim Amat he has very high praise for our education system going so far to say our education system has evolved to be one of the best in the world.Quite a mouthful isn’t it but one can expect that from one who advocatesmediocrity,and who looks down on his own race for thinking that the Malays are inferior to non Malays and thus need not do well like the others to merit a scholarship.
Onlooker Politics, absolutely! The whole education system in Malaysia is very doubtful!
We should instead concentrade on the base problems.
NOT fighting over the quota yet, yes the quota exists, so what?
Please do that barbarian kasim amat a favour, ignore him
I like to response to Voice says an hour ago. Even with 11A & 2B he cannot enter matriculation and also UPU for local Universities doing Diploma. What do you think? Do you mean to ask all the high achievers to stay back and help develop the country and sent those without brain overseas so that they can be controlled like a puppet.
Something is not right when the higher education do not consider meritocracy as a criteria for entrance. What they are doing now is is to further down grade our universities ranking in the world.
DAP’s perspective on fairness = diminish special privilege enjoyed by a particular community
DAP’s perspective on injustice = The special privilege or position accorded to the majority under the Constitution
DAP regards itself as a party that represents all the races….However, their action shows otherwise…… Majority is disenchanted with DAP’s policies which favor a particular ‘ethnic’ group……They deal with issues related to that particular ‘ethnic’…..If you take a closer look at the previous topics…. Have you come across postings about ‘Pak Abu’, an elderly and poor fisherman in Penang? Or posting about ‘Makcik Halimah’ who is living in hardcore poverty …..
Without doubt, DAP does not represent all Malaysians…… Why must they deny when it turns out to be true all along?
Nationwide analysis of SPM results.
Nos. 2006 2007 2008
16A1 1 1 3
15A1 2 3 2
14A1 12 3 6
13A1 38 33 41
12A1 117 160 229
—- —- —-
170 200 281
11A1 290 270 610
10A1 435 394 614
9A1 20 27 171
12A1 and above we have only 281 students, the Cabinet had allocated 20% of the 2000 scholarship base on meritocracy and how is it that there are someone out there with 12A1 or above not given one. 20% of 2000 is 400)
It seems no point studying as hard as you can in order to secure a scholarship for further study but it all depend on who you know or who your parents were.
Please don’t forget we are tax payers too
Tell me cintanegara,by insisting that the special position of the Malays be there forever,are you not aware that you are making a statement that the Malays are stupid,incapable of competing with other groups on equal footing and that a tongkat must always be given for them to survive in this world?
This is nothing further than the truth for there is no superior race,Jesse Owens the great Black American athlete in the 1936 Summer Olympics won 4 gold medals (nobody has done that at that time) right under the nose of Hitler who has propagated the Germans are a Superior race.
I agreed with what voice said.
I didn’t get JPA scholarship as well, but so what…life goes on
I took Form 6 and entered UM, now enjoying good engineering career in China.
Mr Pathetic Kassim Amat,
I believed strongly you’re in darkest situation. You are really BLIND. When I see you blog I laughed! Laugh Out Loud…
“Malaysia has made tremendous progress in the past 40 years and our education system has also evolved to be one of the best in the world.” – How sure are you? Do you know even a Hong Kong Form 3 equally standard student can speak well better english than some of our so called “big shots”??
“That was why so many foreign students choose to study here.” – You mean those foreign students that came to learn english? Eg. Indon, Myanmar, Thai, Nigeria, Africa??
“The BN government has always taken a very pragmatic and contemporary approach in our education system not only to improve the education level and also to enable the needy ones to have equal opportunities to further their studies.” – I have heard of this many times but I have yet to see any signs of it for the past 20 years.
“The manner how the scholarships are being distributed should not be questioned as it have proven that the current system was flawless and it was the corner stone and foundation of a modern a dynamic yet a harmonious Malaysia.” – Try telling it to everyone in the world and they will be laughing and rolling on the floor. “FLAWLESS”? Why companies not employing the graduates then? At their standard, if they take the scholarship, they won’t be able to pass through. So with the number of failures, the responsible board had to lower down the standard to suit them letting them pass. What happened then? With their standard, they can’t fill in the blanks offered by companies. So how can they survive? NEVER.
“If the scholarship was given only to the top students who are primarily from a particular race, it will be very unhealthy for the entire development of the country.” – Scholarships offered to only the top students are fair deem! Who in the world had said it should be offered to only a certain or particular race?? You are RACIST again! If you see scholarships offered to the top students and it happened in the past that among the majority are the Chinese or Indians, you should ask why they can be the top students and not asking about skin colours! I’m sure if you are one of the top student, you’ll be jumping happily when the scholarship offered to you! But if you being the top the student and no scholarship offered to you, how would you feel? You’re really pathetic!
“We have to take into account the race distribution pattern and have to give considerations to the poor.” – Yes this will take into consideration if they are the top students. If not, forget it. No point squeezing in if you’re not, you’ll only waste the money and the opportunities for those who are top students.
“Best students have always no problem in obtaining scholarships from other countries such as Singapore so it is important that we have to channel our own limited funds to those who are not able to obtain scholarship through other means.” – Who said we had limited funds? Why depend on foreign scholarships when we can manage? It is plain truth that if one can’t obtain a scholarship, then that means its due to his/her low grades, I believed its fair enough. That person should not force through, cause he/she can’t go any further of their abilities.
“This explained why some of the top students did not get scholarship in Malaysia. This does not mean they are not good enough but simply because they have too much opportunities laid before them, compared to those who did not score well in their exams.” – I strongly believe this is ridiculously unreasonable. Only fools says this.
“And the BN’s priority is to pull those students who did not score well and equip them with equal opportunity so that they are able to compete with these students in future. This is imperative to the whole development in Malaysia, and is important in maintaining social balance.” – I had a friend and his 2 boys aged 6 and 5 respectively, could speak well better english than our U graduates! Who taught them? Their parents using UK education standard.
“If someone is to argue that most of the scholarship was given to the Malays, please bear in mind that this is because of the aforementioned and is also in line with the notion of Ketuanan Melayu, which is an important factor in Malaysia. Please think from a broader perspective and don’t keep looking at things from a narrow angle.” – No one argue about RACISM here. Only you! We only talk about the unfair allocation of scholarships that we have which wasted our many potentials and country’s resources. You are the one who should open your eyes big to see the broader light of things that are happening in our country than to just be led by BLINDEDNESS!
Man, whatever you said up there, you had only achieved an embarrassment to yourself. If I were you(knowing very well I won’t and I thank GOD that I’m not!), I better dig a hole and bury my head down! LOUGH OUT LOUD!
Forgive me YB Lim, I can’t help but had to poke him a little bit.. (^_^)
Dear Cintan Negara,
Why DAP DAP pulak? You’re another guy who made me laugh..LOUGH OUT LOUD!
Does PSD scholarships has to do with DAP or BN or UMNO? Who control it?
Man…Another pathetic guy…LAME betul! LAUGH OUT LOUD!
Meritocracy is an universal value, what’s wrong in applying to our 1Malaysia concept??
it appears that the only one who possess vision terowong is none other than kasim amat,
young malaysians… be all you can be but and use kasim amat as your punching bag
the limits of excellence is to the power of infinity..unless you are being purposely deprived
beware of glass ceilings and suggestive motivation pep talk….read and listen carefully
there is at least 50 years of preventive actions
“Best students have always no problem in obtaining scholarships from other countries such as Singapore …” Kasim Amat
flawed argument based on the false premise that all chinese are rich (and therefore not in need of public assistance) and top scorers at exams (and therefore not in need of limited state resources).
tails you lose, heads i win.
Since the last 15 years, the number of 12As is going through the roof; has anyone really analyse the careers of all these achievers after they have graduated from those overseas Universities? Are they doing very much better than those who have more down-to-earth result? The STPM should be the only criterion for any scholarship especially going to overseas universities. In life it takes more than just mugging to do well.
It’s not just scholarships. Education is arguably the worse and most obvious discrimination of this racist Umno govt. Racist policies include:
1) Matriculation to provide an easier and faster route to university for Malays. Matriculation grades are taken as on par with STPM which is nonsense.
2) Universities and colleges open to one race only. Where else in the world can you find this?
3) Discriminatory racial quota for entrance into public universities.
4) Preferred courses in public universities open to Malays only or severely restricted quota for other races. It’s very hard for non-Malays to get into professional courses like electrical engineering even with with good results. How do you like to be offered cinematography, fishery, forestry, literature, humanities etc?
5) Discriminatory award of scholarships.
What were MCA, MIC and Gerakan doing? Busy being lackeys of Umno and feathering their nests.
The only way to end this discrimination is to vote out the Umno govt in favour of PR. (Note that I did not say BN govt as the real govt is Umno with bogus power sharing with other parties).