Scholarships: Najib copies & plagarises Pakatan (but what is this ‘new category only’ really?), Muhyiddin threatens fighting to the last drop of blood

Nathaniel Tan

Tsk, tsk - Najib isn’t able to come up with a single original idea of his own. Desperate to reclaim even an inch of the miles of non-Malay ground that he has lost, he resorts to adopting Pakatan policies.

Don’t take my word for it, check out PKR’s 2008 Manifesto, especially the section on education. Some quotes:

Furthermore, scholarships for overseas studies must be increased and guaranteed for students who attain a certain standard of achievement in their examinations. This will allow Malaysia’s best and brightest to reach their maximum potential and pave the way for them to bring back cutting edge skills and experience back into the country.

and

KeADILan’s vision for better education will:

1. Ensure universal access to high quality education by making school from kindergarten to university is completely free of charge for all Malaysians.

2. Guarantee government scholarships for students with a minimum of 4 A’s in their STPM and who are admitted into top international universities. Special attention will be given to poor families and students from rural areas.

Copycat.

Worse yet, he isn’t *really* making scholarships merit based, as the spin doctors would have you believe. Observe carefully:

A new category of Public Service Department (PSD) scholarships will be introduced next year based purely on merit, regardless of race.

New category?! What the heck is that?

So, the government will award merit-based scholarships to….. five people? I like how there is absolutely no elaboration on this vague ‘new category.’

The likely truth of the matter - and how Najib is gonna sell this quietly to his dwindling Umno faithful - is that the main body of scholarships will be given out in exactly the same manner as all things NEP: on the basis of race, and to selected cronies at the expense of the poor.

Why do we need a ‘new category?’ Does it not merely perpetuate the division of society (one system for sejenis, another system for jenis-jenis yang lain?) - that same root of all barriers to unity in this country?

This of course, is entirely consistent. Look what Muhyiddin had to say on the exact same day to offset any backlash:

Umno will fight to the last drop of blood to protect Malay rights, the status of the Malay Rulers, Bahasa Malaysia and Islam.

I will fight to defend these too, but really, is it a coincidence that Umno chose to use such martial and violent analogies on that day? To the last drop indeed :P

And how merit based will it really be anyway?

Najib: “We will announce it next year and with the plan to limit the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia to 10 subjects, we expect to see a more level playing field,”

“So the best of the best and the creme de la creme will get aid for higher studies.”

Oh really? And how will you determine that?

I agree with YB Lim who said that maybe 20 SPM subjects is too much. But is say, 15 subjects, really too much? Or is this whole subject cap designed so that differentiating between 10A students can be done on a more ’subjective’ (read: discretionary) basis?

Once again, this subject cap gimmick not only prevents people from learning as much as they can and want too, it also is merely to save the government the embarrassment of not funding the real top scorers (and God alone knows why they haven’t, all these years).

So, while Najib plagarises Pakatan’s ideas, he’s obviously secretly evading any true change of heart. Are you gonna let him have his cake and eat it?

I think it’s obvious we would *never* see such changes if not for the electoral gains of 2008. The question now is whether we convert those gains to meaningful change in GE13, or whether we put up with these half-hearted, spin-doctored, con-jobs measures

*

The Star is so funny:

The new merit-based category of Public Service Department (PSD) scholarships from next year has received overwhelming support from various quarters.

Various eh? Let’s look at the list of people quoted in the article, who do we see? MCA, MCA again, MIC, MIC again, Umno, Lee Lam Thye.

:|

I also enjoyed Anwar’s comments:

“The PKR policy has been in favour of aid to the deserving and the underprivileged irrespective of race. Now the BN wants to hijack our agenda. When we announced our agenda, I was derided as a Chinese agent, even a Jewish conspirator, among other things,” he chuckled.

“I wonder what they are going to call Najib now that he appears to be taking a leaf of our book,” said Anwar.