THE pre-university matriculation programme was rolled out in 1998 with the goal of creating an additional route for Bumiputera students to pursue higher education in science, technology and applied arts.

The programme was exclusive for Bumiputeras, but in 2003, non-Bumiputera students began to be accepted at a 10% quota.

Unsurprisingly, the greatly imbalanced racial intake for the programme has never been a source of discontent with Malaysia’s minority races already so used to a slew of other affirmative action policies.

However, the programme gained some attention last month when education minister Maszlee Malik announced that it would be expanded to accommodate 40,000 students from the existing 25,000, with the 90% Bumiputera, 10% non-Bumiputera racial quota remaining in place.

This means that while an additional 1,500 seats would be created for non-bumiputra students, seats reserved for bumiputra students would jump by 13,500 to 36,000.

This “compromise” – raising non-Bumiputera intake while not reducing the quota for Bumiputera students – has raised questions on the need for the government to continue imposing a racial quota in the field of education, where prolonged affirmative action has proven to breed a sense of complacency and self-entitlement over determination and old-fashioned hard work.

Discussions about matriculation, like most other racial policies put in place after Merdeka, should be centred around an honest look at how, if at all, the programme has succeeded in achieving its goal.

Sadly, though, the debate around the programme and Maszlee’s recent announcement has digressed into a racial battle once again.

Maszlee reportedly said at a town hall session in Universiti Sains Malaysia last Thursday that removing the racial quota for the matriculation programme would only be considered once bumiputras are no longer discriminated against at job interviews for not being able to speak Mandarin.

Days later, he had reportedly said that non-Malays did not need as many matriculation spots as they were financially more able to consider private education options. He allegedly backed this up by declaring that non-Malay students greatly outnumbered their Malay counterparts in private universities.

The race game is a dangerous one, but one which Maszlee seems to have discovered first-hand is fairly effective in swaying popular opinion, or rather appeasing the opinion of the majority.

The dismal state of our education system cannot entirely be blamed on university racial quotas, but it would take a very misguided sense of denial not to see that setting racial requirements for both student intakes and staff hire would eventually lead to a plunge in standards of our graduates.

Matriculation is but a drop in the ocean of our affirmative action policies gone-wrong, and some will argue that even removing the entire programme really does very little to improve the quality of our graduates. 

However, there still needs to be an honest appraisal of why the programme is even necessary today, and how it does anything more than lead to a bloated number of “science and technology” graduates who actually lack the basic skills, character and qualities that deem them employable.

Likewise, there should be a discussion on how prolonged aids like the matriculation programme may actually be doing more harm than good to the Malays, due to the widely-held assumption that it is merely just another free pass for bumiputra students.

Instead of acknowledging and explaining why the programme and its quotas are still relevant today, it is disheartening to see Maszlee playing up the tired and flawed narrative that the Malays are a disenfranchised lot and need to be given a crutch in order to stand up.

The hiring prejudice Maszlee alludes to is unsubstantiated, while his claims that non-Malays are more affluent, is idiotic at best.

Most liberals would agree that the only way to raise the level of our education and the quality of our graduates is to eventually remove all racial quotas, but most would also agree that to do so at this point when Pakatan Harapan is suffering its lowest support levels would be akin to political suicide.

Malaysians, at least those who voted for Pakatan, are not an idealistic lot and are patient to a fault, as evident by our continued belief in change after so many years of BN rule. We are not demanding harsh, immediate changes, but we also don’t suffer fools gladly.

Maszlee’s downright erroneous simplification of the education racial quota problem is an insult to those who voted him out from political obscurity into one of the most important portfolios in the country.

As the minister, Maszlee holds the power and privilege to determine where our doomed education system is headed over the next few years.

If he chooses to wield that power by playing up racial stereotypes and rhetoric, whatever good work his ministry has done so far would be in vain.

If he truly desires change and believes that we are able to compete against our neighbours who have raced ahead in their education rankings, then he needs to stop playing politics and engage Malaysians in a way befitting his title. – May 20, 2019.

* Julia Yeow has been in journalism for two decades and counts it as her first love, despite enjoying brief stints as a lecturer, clown and salad maker. She is a strong believer in social justice, and holds that there is sometimes more truth in the greys, than the blacks and whites.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.