Discriminatory policies for scholarships
Posted by: awkmah1
I am just an eighteen year old going on to nineteen but have already faced the harsh reality that despite our family’s three generations of being born and bred in Malaysia, we are still deprived of the privileges of a true Malaysian as our country is full of “never ending discriminatory” policies depriving deserving Malaysians from rightful government scholarships to study.

 

I was naïve enough to believe that by striving to be the top student for four consecutive years in an elite government school in the heart of Kuala Lumpur, receiving numerous yearly awards, excelling in my extra curricular activities and obtaining 12A1s in my SPM in the year 2006 will be my key to obtaining a government scholarship to study abroad.

 

To my disbelief and utter disappointment, I was not even accepted to local universities under matriculation and neither offered a  PSD or Petronas scholarship. I am now pursuing my  “A” levels and obtaining excellent results nearing perfect scores and have even been offered a conditional acceptance to Imperial College London in UK, one of the top 5 universities in the world for chemical engineering.

 

With this offer, it is without a doubt that I am being recognized overseas but not by my own country and I cannot help but wonder why a person of such caliber does not deserve a scholarship. If they doubt on my language ability in terms of my communication skills, perhaps a score of A1 in my English 1119 and an 8.0 in my IELTS international English assessment might prove them wrong. Or perhaps the “Little Napoleons” in the education department are so blinded by the discriminatory policies that they actually did not vet through and processed my applications.

 

 I cannot help but feel so disappointed with our one sided education system and policies which has deprived me of what is rightfully mine. It is the tax payers’ money that the government is dispensing and they have to be extremely prudent with the rakyat’s money. Both my parents are tax payers. Why are children of government servants given special consideration to government scholarships? Are not all Malaysian citizens paying the same tax rates? Are government servants paying higher tax rates than non-government servants?

 

If so, perhaps they are entitled to special consideration. The awarding of government and other scholarships should be transparent and purely based on merits and non-discriminatory. I totally agreed with Dr J. Lau that this should be practiced fully, not just as a policy guideline or merely a lip service. Our government should walk the talk.

 

 My parents are merely working class citizens and are striving to sustain the rising cost of living and to provide for their several children who are all still schooling. My aspiration since my schooling days is to pursue a scholarship for my tertiary education overseas as it is impossible for my parents to finance me especially when my father will be retiring in the near future. However, this may only remain as a dream unless I am offered a scholarship to study overseas.

 

 I can only pray and hope that these unfair and biased policies will vanish to benefit all deserving Malaysians regardless of their race and religion. As a final attempt, I have turned to Shell, Sime Darby, Nanyang Singapore, Yayasan Khazanah Holdings, Securities Commission, Bank Negara and Natsteel Singapore in hope of an overseas scholarship not only to fulfill my own dreams but to lessen the financial burden of my parents who secretly within has such high hopes of me.

 

Disillusioned, Kuala Lumpur.