What Meritocracy?

The Deputy Prime Minister announced today that the Matriculation Exam stays.

Entry into public universites in Malaysia is supposed to be based on meritocracy now. The former race-based quotas have been abolished. But the bumiputras here have learnt from Deng Xiaoping: it does not matter what colour is the cat so long as it catches the mouse. By devising a system with two university entrance examinations, it has again been institutionalised that there will be no true meritocracy in this land.

The Matriculation Examination was introduced in 1998 when the DPM was the Education Minister. It is now conducted in 9 centers in the country and 90% of the places are reserved for bumiputras. In two MARA colleges, all the places are reserved for bumiputras. Most of the non-bumiputras take the other university entrance exam, the STPM, which is equivalent to the GCE "A" Levels.

The Matriculation Examination is notoriously light-weight compared to the STPM. The STPM is widely recognised worldwide but the Matriculation Exam is not. The only route for Matriculation graduates is to join public universities here.

It begs the question why the country feels there is a need for two university entrance exams. The ministry says the standard and curriculum for both examinations are largely the same. This hardly answers the question. If so, why then is there a need to have two examinations?

This is merely paying lip-service to the concept of meritocracy. The DPM made this statement, “The selection process (into the matriculation programme) is based on meritocracy which is fair to all parties. I believe non-bumiputras too benefited as a quota of 10% has been set aside for them.’’ Such logic. Effectively, this is just shifting the race-based quotas downwards. Instead of applying them at the universities, the discrimination starts earlier.

There will never be a total level playing field. At the SPM (the high school certificate), bumiputras offer Islamic studies and other related subjects while non-bumiputras offer a compulsory subject called Moral Education, which is practically useless if you ask me, but the grade for Moral Education is taken as a compulsory subject when it comes to scholarship applications. Examination leaks are common in this country, especially at residential schools which again are catered mainly for bumiputra students. At SPM, a 70% score already garners an A1, thereby making it harder to distinguish the truly brilliant students from the average. And with the matriculation to bridge the gap to public universities, it is not surprising that the number of graduates from public universities with worthless degrees is on the rise in this country.

Don't get me wrong. There are some very good bumiputra students out there. However, with such education policies, these good bumiputra students will always need to fight for the recognition that they deserve in their own right.