ROSMAH Mansor should not have wasted taxpayers’ money on travelling to the United Kingdom, said Serdang MP Ong Kian Ming, referring to the prime minister’s wife Permata trip to London in May.

Rosmah was in London from May 4 to 10 to expand the Permata programme. She opened the Nobelist Mindset, a programme organised by Permata Pintar with the Royal Society of London.

“If Permata is under budget constraints, as claimed by Rosmah, I suggest that instead of visiting the UK, she could have taken a trip across the border to Singapore to learn how top institutions there help high-achieving students get into Oxbridge,” Ong said in a statement today.

Based on University of Cambridge and Oxford statistics on Malaysian students, he said, Singapore sent nine times more students to Oxbridge compared with Malaysia on a per capita basis.

“Given Singapore’s success in sending so many students to Oxbridge compared with Malaysia, it would make sense for Rosmah to visit Singapore to learn more about the secret to their success,” he said, pointing out that Rosmah could have visited the top 5 “A”-level institutions in Singapore.

If the prime minister’s wife were to have visited Singapore instead, said Ong, she would have learned that high academic achievements were needed to gain entry into Oxbridge.

“The question that Rosmah has to answer, as the patron of Permata, is how many of its pre-university students obtained straight As for the A-level exams (or their equivalent)?

“What does Permata need to do in order to reach similar academic standards as the top pre-university institutions in Singapore?”

Ong said Rosmah would have learned that exposure to various intellectual challenges was needed to expand students’ “intellectual horizons beyond the normal academic syllabus”.

He added that Permata needed professionally trained teachers and academic councillors.

“As far as I know, Permata Pintar does not have full-time academic councillors to guide students on their higher education options.

“The closest thing I found was a research mentoring programme, where students can be mentored by a UKM academic in an area of their interest.”

He said it was Permata’s duty to create the right environment for high-IQ students, and it was not right for Oxbridge enrollments “to be ‘bought” via visits and donations to Oxford and Cambridge by Malaysian dignitaries like Rosmah.

“Ultimately, regardless of the number of overseas trips that Rosmah makes on behalf of Permata, I’m not sure if she will learn a much more basic lesson, which is that programmes for ‘gifted’ students, such as Permata, cannot be a launch pad to promote one individual’s agenda or to make one person look good.

“There must be strong institutional foundations to make the programme sustainable and successful.” – August 16, 2017.