Of merits and scholarships...

The cows have come home... and the issue stands. We are a nation of many 'exceptional' students. So when these exceptional students apply for scholarships, we cannot fault them for having high expectations. After all, aren't scholarships meant for them? Then as the results of the applications for scholarships came out, many of these exceptional students found their hopes dashed... which is nothing out of the ordinary in this beloved country of ours.

Next, we have all these politicians (our MCA Prez is one fler) who says there must be a revamp in the selection. His sidekick, the Youth Head says the selection criteria makes no sense. Who are these flers kidding? Problem has been there for eons. We've been bleeding best brains for years now. Meritocracy reeks compromise. And we've way too many straight A(s) for our public exams.

Each time the results come out. My Malay colleagues with children involved seem to take it for granted that their children will be given something even though their results are less than perfect. My Chinese and non-Malay colleagues on the other hand will wait expectantly - half hoping to get, the other half expecting nothing, and invariably these are kids with usually better results. But I also add that these days, I hear slightly more getting offers but still there are many (especially non Bumis) with excellent results who get nothing. Non bumis make up almost 26% of the overseas scholarship recipients, it seems. They fare worse at the local level, making up only around 10% of overall number. It's back to the drawing board of racial quotas.

The imbalance is there cos there are still way too many exceptional students. These are our own creations... it's easy to increase the number of exceptional students these days... with passing marks allegedly running in the ten(s) and A grades running in the sixty-ish. The quality of an 'A' student is often in question. Hence you have students getting credits or sometimes even an A in English not being able to speak or write well... or students who pass their Maths but cannot even count properly. That is the standard of our school leavers now.

How did we get to this state? Years of mollycoddling, giving less than the true picture, lowering our standards, the kasihan culture... all to increase the number of A(s)... to paint a rosier picture, to give a false sense of bolehness. To keep people under crutches so that they continue to need assistance.... to give those people in power a sense of being seen as they are doing something for their people... The final picture - a red rosy nice looking apple. But when you cut it open, a lot of it is rotting inside. What is outside is just a covering of the rot that has set and is eating its way out.

So, yes... there must be a revamp in the selection system for the award of scholarships. But there also must be a revamp in the testing and grading system too. Scholarships should not be awarded at SPM level. It should be at STPM level. We should do away with the Matriculation path of getting into the local uni and have one standard for all. The disparity of quality is great between Matriculation and STPM with the latter being the more difficult one. SPM has been greatly compromised... despite KBKK (Kemahiran Berfikir Secara Kritis dan Kreatif) being one of our goals, majority of our students are far from it. They remain a spoon-fed generation, lacking in general knowledge and maturity.

We need an overhaul of the whole system, a makeover as well... to trim away the rot that is eating us. Wrong means will always lead us to the wrong end; no matter how one tries to justify it cos a wrong will continue to perpetuate more wrongs.... my two sen.