Email to Mahathir to  urgently  redress policy neglect to develop high-quality university education system by ensuring that all SPM and STPM top scorers are admitted to local universities

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Media Statement
by Lim Kit Siang 

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I told  the Prime Minister that Musa’s clarification is unsatisfactory for at least  four reasons:
 

• Inability to  explain the statement by the Education Ministry Higher Education Department director Professor Hassan Said on 3rd May 2001  that there had been a 15 per cent drop in university intake from the originally-targetted 38,000 university places to 30,800 because of a shortfall of qualified bumiputra science students.
• Whether the  two matriculation  groups totalling 8,365 bumiputra students should be included in this year’s university intake, as the first group of 5,761 matriculation students  were  enrolled into the universities last November and should be considered as intake for the 2000/2001 academic year and not for the current year while the second group of 2,604 matriculation students in the International Islamic University should also not be included since the university is not considered one of the local public institutions of higher learning.
• The outrageous claim that even with the additional 8,365 bumiputra students to the figure  30,800 to give a new total of  39,197,  the new figure still show a 55:45 bumiputra to non-bumiputra ratio as in the earlier figure of 30,800 students - which is impossible as the 8,365 bumiputra  students have been added without any additional increase for non-bumiputra students.
• Inappropriate for the  7,168 unfilled science university places to be filled up by bumiputra students in arts and Islamic studies.

In my email to the Prime Minister, I stressed that the public outcry over unfair university admissions was a bad start for the Third Outline Perspective Plan, the Eighth Malaysia Plan and the National Vision Policy to forge a united nation consisting of a progressive and dynamic Bangsa Malaysia which  is globally
competitive.

I urged the Cabinet to immediately resolve the public controversy over university admissions as its prolongation will not only be a great setback in forging a Bangsa Malaysia but will be a new and major factor to undermine efforts to restore investor confidence in the future of Malaysia and our economy.

This is because the message the government is sending out from the unfair university admissions controversy is that the government is not attuned to the needs of the new K-economy,  does not give the highest priority to talents, creativity, skills and innovation but only interested in  quantity and not quality of higher education in the country.

This will be a major constraint to Malaysia’s success to become a knowledge-based economy, when in all the advanced nations, knowledge is supplanting physical capital as the source of wealth and a nation’s prosperity in the new era will depend on the quality of its higher education.

Today, global wealth is concentrated less and less in factories, land, tools, and machinery. The knowledge, skills and resourcefulness of people are increasingly critical to the world economy. Human capital in the United States is now estimated to be at least three times more important than physical capital.

The Cabinet should wake up to this reality in the new economy that human capital is more important than physical capital, and that the quality of knowledge generated within our  higher education institutions is  becoming increasingly critical to our national competitiveness.

Malaysia must not only expand the quantity but also improve the quality of higher education in Malaysia, and the Cabinet should urgently redress the policy neglect to develop high-quality university education system by ensuring that all SPM and STPM top scorers are admitted to local universities, and for the current crop of university admissions, approve a four-point plan comprising:
 

• University admission for the 500-plus SPM top scorers;
• Automatic university admission for SPM students with 8As and above;
• First choice of course for SPM students with 11As and above;
• Release all science places  from the  7,168 university places not filled by bumiputra science students to eligible Chinese and Indian science students.

(13/5/2001)