Friday 29 Mar 2024
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This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on May 20, 2019 - May 26, 2019

The greatest of resources that belong to a nation are her people. If this is true, the only path to sustainable economic development, a functional political system and a vibrant cultural life, is that of an education system of the highest quality that delivers good results and produces youth that possess critical skills and creative thinking. The only way this can be done is through an education system that is founded on meritocracy.

A meritocracy, whether it refers to the economic, political or cultural dimension, is defined as a system in which positions and goods in a population or society are distributed solely according to individual merit. This idea of meritocracy, when applied to tertiary education, would apply to the allocation of positions according to a set of criteria based on individual talents, abilities and efforts. In other words, this would be an educational system in which students would advance in the system on the basis of their merits. In a meritocratic educational system, applicants to university would not be assessed on the basis of arbitrary factors such as race, class and gender, but rather, on the basis of scholastic merit.

While many would believe that such a system is the most just in terms of guaranteeing an equitable distribution of resources across a society, it has been pointed out that meritocracy may give rise to unfairness. Meritocracy assumes a level playing field or a common starting point for all. This is often not the case, though. For example, there is the gap between the rich and the poor.

The former have a head start on the educational race. Rich families would be able to send their children to the best kindergartens and provide higher quality tuition for them. From the very beginning, there is no level playing field. In such a case, far from addressing that inequality, meritocracy functions to advance inequality by veiling it, by pretending that it is not there or by imagining that all have an equal chance to succeed if only they work hard and apply themselves.

In the educational sphere, however, research has shown that children from richer homes tend to advance faster to the top. That students from poorer families would need to put in more effort to make it or never perform as well as those from more affluent backgrounds means that the playing field is uneven. This is the case in many countries that stress meritocratic education. The students in elite schools tend to come from richer families. As a result, students from richer families would be better suited to translate their educational achievements into better jobs, wealth and generally more promising life chances.

The solution, however, is not to do away with meritocracy by pushing up the lesser qualified or by doing away with the emphasis on talent, abilities and hard work. Rather, the education system ought to level the playing field as much as possible while at the same time institutionalising meritocracy. The current matriculation programme is against the philosophy of meritocracy. This system is part of a dual qualifications entry system to public universities that is practised in Malaysia.

 

The problem of matriculation

Recently, Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad made the admission that the matriculation programme was a “backdoor” method to help low-performing Malays enter local public universities. Despite this admission, the government has made the decision to retain the ethnic quota for the pre-university matriculation programme to favour bumiputeras. For many Malaysians, this is yet another disappointing performance of a government that they had high hopes for. After the 2018 general election, Malaysians had been hoping for a radical overhaul of outdated and non-functioning institutions. The Pakatan Harapan government had promised to introduce meritocracy but it seems that the old hostility or indifference to meritocracy prevails.

Critics of this decision have a sound point to make. They say that while having a quota is acceptable, the administration of the quota should not be along the lines of race but rather economic inequality. It is the students from the bottom percentiles of families that should receive help in getting places in the universities, regardless of race.

 

Matriculation is not defensible

Another criticism is that the quota should go and that matriculation should be done away with. Many educationists in Malaysia would say that the “backdoor” to entry into public universities should be closed. Instead, there should be a variety of “frontdoors” through which Malaysians may enter our public universities. This would include not only the Sijil Tinggi Persekolahan Malaysia (STPM) examination but also others such as the A-Levels, GCSEs and International Baccalaureate (IB) programmes. In other words, there should not be a “backdoor” method of entry but rather one based on merit.

Nevertheless, in recognition of the uneven playing field, various programmes could be instituted in order to help students who come from economically disadvantaged families. In other words, the educational system needs a thorough revamp. If the “backdoor” entry method is retained, it will ensure that the system will produce graduates of poor quality and that mediocre rather than talented people will dominate the public and private sectors. More and more mediocre teachers will define the school system, resulting in the proliferation of mediocrity.

For its part, the Malaysian government defends the dual qualification entry system. Indeed, it is true that dual entry systems are practiced in many countries. In the case of other countries, however, while they do accept different qualifications for entry into their universities, there is no discrimination on the basis of race as to who can have access to these qualifications. If Malaysia is to be a meritocracy, both the STPM and matriculation must be accessible to all, regardless of race. Then, the question as to whether matriculation should be retained is another matter related to the relative merits of different entry qualification systems.

Will our politicians ever learn to stop playing the ethnic card? Will they stop taking advantage of the insecurities of the Malays and non-Malays alike? If they do not come to a realisation of the dangers of racism, their race-based educational policies, of which matriculation is one, will only serve to worsen the polarisation of Malaysian society. Furthermore, if the government is serious about uplifting the Malays, it will do away with matriculation and create a system in which the Malays will eventually be able to compete with other races.


Syed Farid Alatas is Professor of Sociology at the National University of Singapore

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