Fong Chan Onn should present a Cabinet paper to  propose the reform of pre-university admissions with a race-blind needs-based merit system with 75% places based on merit and 25% allotted to needs

(Petaling Jaya,  Saturday):  There seems to be a new Cabinet practice, where Cabinet decisions are given different explanations and rationales by Cabinet Ministers. 

The Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad said yesterday that the Cabinet decision to allocate 10% of matriculation places for non-bumiputra students from next year is intended to help Malay students integrate with other races.  

He said experience had shown that Malay students who did not integrate with other races might face difficulties interacting, pointing out that some matriculation students, especially those from the Mara colleges, did not know students of other races at all. 

Mahathir stressed however that the Cabinet decision does not mean that more places would be available to non-bumiputras in public universities, as candidates would still have to compete for entry based on merit. 

The MCA Minister for Human Resources, Datuk Dr. Fong Chan Onn, has however given a different rationale for the Cabinet decision to allocate 10% of matriculation places for non-bumiputra students in his interview with Sin Chew Jit Poh.  

He said the opening up of 10% of matriculation places is only a “beginning” and that if there is a good response to this Cabinet decision, the government will continue to open up more matriculation places for non-bumiputras. 

There can be no doubt that there would be good response to the opening up of 10% matriculation places to non-bumiputra students, as every qualified matriculation student not only shortens the  two-year pre-university route through the STPM to one year, but receives full fee and lodging sponsorship and about RM2,000 a year from the Education Ministry. 

Many questions crop up from the different explanations given by Mahathir and Fong on the Cabinet decision to allocate 10% of matriculation places to non-bumiputra students from next year, such as:

1. What was the real reason for the opening up of 10% of matriculation places to non-bumiputra places?  Is it to expose the bumiputra matriculation students to a more multi-racial milieu or is it because of the injustices of the unfair and unprofessional meritocracy university selection system adopted by the Education Ministry this year?  If the former, why has it taken the government more than three decades to discover this basic defect of matriculation courses and if the latter, how is the injustice of such an unprofessional meritocracy system to be rectified?
2. Was there a consensus in Cabinet that the meritocracy system adopted this year was unfair and unprofessional, not only in comparing two completely different examination systems but in excluding some 10,000 diploma holders from consideration for admission to the public universities?
3. Was there a Cabinet undertaking for an progressive increase  in the allocation of matriculation places to non-bumiputras  depending on the response next year to the decision to allocate 10% of matriculation places  to non-bumiputras?
4. Did any Cabinet Minister propose that the time has come for a common university entrance examination for all pre-university students?
5. Did any Cabinet Minister propose that with the good results shown by bumiputra students in the merit-based university selection system, the time has come to introduce a race-blind  merit system coupled with needs to replace the quota system?

As Fong was a former university academician and Deputy Education Minister, he should present a Cabinet paper to propose the reform of pre-university admissions with a race-blind needs-based merit system with 75% places based on merit and 25%  allotted to cater to the socio-economically backward students to people our institutions of higher learning – based on a common university entrance examination.

(1/6/2002)