Letter to the Editor
The recent statement from GERAK or the Malaysian Academic Movement calling for the abolishment of race-based entry into public universities in Malaysia is most timely.
Unless and until Malaysia is open to such radical changes, there is definitely not much hope of our public universities ever catching up to the rest of the world in standards. Furthermore, the current methodology of choosing students based on race as well as lecturers based on race, quota and others will lead Malaysia down the path of mediocrity and our graduates will not be much in demand locally or internationally.
Meritocracy in the education system will ensure that our graduates are well qualified at all levels, not only at university or college; education is the basis for any society to progress and with the current pace of IT we will surely be left far behind if there is no change to the education system.
Sadly, our education ministry is more focused on trivial things rather than setting the agenda and vision for the next decade for the nation.
Many traditional education methodologies will be outdated in the next few years as new technologies are pushing the boundaries further with each generation of upgrades. Unfortunately, Malaysia is still searching for the way forward in education policies based on race and quotas which have no merits in the modern era.
The pattern that is emerging from Malaysia is this – graduates who are mediocre, lacking language and social skills and less likely to be challenging for success in future.
Large number of our graduates just are not competitive in the labor market where the real world is and this scenario will continue to snowball in the coming years to a situation where jobless and restless youths start causing trouble for the country.
We certainly do not need to remind ourselves of the same situation happening in various parts of the world where similar scenarios have toppled governments and lead to chaos.
For an exporting nation like Malaysia, any internal turmoil will seriously hamper our economic well-being and cause our trading partners to source for supplies which are more reliable from other places.
From:
Philip Wong, Director for Sarawak Institute for Public Affairs (SIPA), is an entrepreneur and author with Masters in Development Economics (Canada) and passionate about travelling, having visited over 100 countries to date. Sarawak Institute for Public Affairs is dedicated to the betterment of the state of Sarawak and Malaysia for a more prosperous, harmonious and fair society.
