Merit or Demerit?
Ahhh…Meritocracy…A wonderful utopian idea that has been bandied around by the government recently but never implemented…Wait a minute, I got it wrong? It has already been used for the past two intakes of university students? Students are picked solely based on their academic proficiency. Nothing more, nothing less. Oh really? Are we really so ignorant to believe that? I don’t think so.
Consider this. Previously there was a quota of 55% for the majority population and the rest shared among the other races (Chinese:30% Indians:10% Others:5%). Now that quota has been abolished and everyone is thrown into the same selection pool. Good so far.
But here comes the interesting part. There still exists TWO separate(read:different) examinations and syllabus. Even the academic calendar differs. STPM (which is still considered one of the toughest examination in the world at this level-remarkable when compared to the rapidly falling rankings for our universities), is spread over a year and a half with the final exam at the end of it. If you screw up in that final 2 weeks of exams, tough luck. On the other hand,matriculation is only for a year and is run based on the semester system (3 semesters) whereby the results of all three semesters are averaged. Less taxing?!! It’s blatantly so. However when people noticed the discrepancies between the grading of the two exams, points were introduced for the different STPM grades ala the cumulative grade point average (CGPA) system practiced in our universities.
I’m neither a pro-opposition activist merely trying to stir up a situation nor am I a government pacifist. But I find it disturbing when friends and acquaintances receive offers of a place in a course that wasn’t even part of their top 8 choices. Even more mind boggling is when students who took biology,chemistry and mathematics in Form 6 are offered places to do engineering-which requires a basic pass in maths and physics. And have you heard about the student whose 5A’s in STPM were just not good enough to get the first choice of university? Well, I guess there were just too many straight A students competing for the same limited places. But then again who knows?
The government has, on its part, tried to appease all parties. 10% of all places in matriculation were offered to the non-Malays. And then the authorities chided the non-Malays for not taking up fully the places on offer. Maybe they didn’t take it because it was only in limited faculties as was recently published. I’m not supporting the quota system but I deplore that act of calling it something its not. At least when the quota system was in place, we knew when things weren’t fair. There is no such thing as semi-meritocracy. And until the government is prepared to implement a totally fair merit based selection system, stop lying to us. We are not stupid.
*all reference to the word university implied local public universities.*
posted by Desmond S.D. @ 3:15 PM
1 Comments:
some interesting facts:
Fact 1. For matriculation students, their eventual CGPA is not comprised solely of final exam results. Depending on the subjects taken, up to 40% is based on continuous assesment (i.e attendance, class participation, tests, etc.)
Fact 2. All exams are marked internally, by the same lecturers who teach you and who would be in hot soup if the percentage of passes fell.
Fact 3. In the UM Faculty of Law this year, there are students who studied science in matriculation colleges.
Post a Comment
<< Home