2019/05/26 中国报/国内
（吉隆坡26日讯）早前因大学预科班固打制课题而炮轰教育部长马智礼的人权律师西蒂卡欣，她再度就教育课题发炮，指教育部由上至下，包括政府大学都必须获整顿，因教育部内有太多“无脑”的人在滥用职权，大玩种族及宗教牌。
她认为，任何类型的固打制度都必须停止，并让各族共享教育资源，获得平等机会竞争及就读大专；同时，她也为我国教育制度提出5项建议。
“回到大马教育难题，我们最后应做些什么？第一，停止固打制，任何类型的固打制，这完全不可行，也破坏了公共及私人领域的能力，绩效必须主宰一切。”
西蒂卡欣在《星报》撰文说，第二，我国教育必须回到基础，让各族人民透过中小学教育，以公平竞争方式争取入读技职学院和大专院校，孩子毕业后进入职场，一切将水到渠成。
“相信我们的年轻人，土著若有正确基础，将有能力达到优越水平。”
她指出，第三，教育部必须在小学及中学教育着重数理及英文课纲，让孩子自小掌握基础知识和批判性思维。
“第四，请把宗教留在家，你如果要教宗教也行，但必须在校外时间；让我们的孩子与同侪一样，毫无信仰区分地同在，让他们自己发掘各自差异，无需大人告诉他们谁比较优异；向他们展示他们拥有的美，无需批判。”
“第五，我们都是马来西亚人，我们流着同样的血。当我们因缺乏财力而无法实现潜能和目标，我们将流着同样的泪。不分种族帮助我们，（因）我们每个人都有缴税，没有任何一个群体因种族差异，而比其他群体受惠更多。”
（中国报）
附：【星报原文】
Malaysian education
and quota: The Endgame
Siti Thots Sunday, 26 May 2019
IN my last article, I took us along memory lane through the
60s and 70s when our education was world class. As I said, we prepared our
bumiputra students at foundational levels in secondary residential and
semi-residential schools to be able to competently compete on merit with
others, at primarily international universities overseas.
After the social engineering of the New Economic Policy
(NEP) quotas of the late 80s, our education system today is wrought by an
overabundance of religious indoctrination, overtly in the curriculum and
covertly in our public schools’ teaching environment. This was accompanied by
the forcing of unqualified bumiputra students into local public universities
that had to be graduated into the workforce in spite of them being mostly non
performing. Gradings and exams had to bent to ensure large drop out numbers do
not inundate the population. Instead, we flood the workforce with mediocre
graduates who today fill the ranks of the civil service and
government-link-entities top to bottom.
These graduates, in fact, today also fill up the whole
levels of our education administration, teaching workforce and universities.
Not all, but to most of them out there – you know who you are. Case in point
are all the so-called bumi-based NGOs heads, university administrators
including vice-chancellors who are somehow twisting their arguments into
pretzels to defend the hapless Education Minister who just put his black shoes
into his mouth with respect to the issue of a 90% quota for bumis in matriculation.
By now, everyone and their grandmother have seen the
video-clip of our supposedly esteemed minister justifying the existence of
matriculation quota in favour of bumis because the non-bumis are rich. To add
insult to the wounds, he proudly claimed that private universities are mostly
filled with non-bumis because non-bumis are better off than the Malays.
Let me today reiterate that this assumption can no longer be
left unchallenged. It is patently untrue that all or even the majority of
non-bumis are rich and are therefore of no need of government assistance. That
the Malays are indeed so poor, that they are the only ones who are
overwhelmingly in need of help.
This is a slap on the face of poor non-Malays and an insult
to the many hard-working Malay parents who do not rely on government handouts
and in general compete on their own merit.
Let us look at the reality, shall we?
Figures provided by Parliament in 2015, showed that
bumiputra households make up the majority of the country’s top 20% income
earners (T20), but the community also sees the widest intra-group income
disparity. According to data from a parliamentary written reply, the bumiputra
make up 53.81% of the T20 category, followed by Chinese at 37.05%, Indians at
8.80% and others at 0.34%.
So which groups overall are the top 20% income earners in
the country? Answer: bumiputras by a whopping 16.76% to the next group, the
Chinese!
However, when the comparison is made within the bumiputra
group itself, T20 earners only comprise 16.34%. The remaining comprises the
middle 40% income earners (M40) at 38.96% and the bottom 40% income earners
(B40) making up the majority at 44.7%.
This means that in spite of almost 40 years of affirmative
action, handouts, subsidies and quotas, bumis as a group has a large disparity
between its haves and the havenots. That raises the question if it means
practically none of the government assistance has in fact gone to help the
bumis that truly needed help but has gone to further enrich those who are
already having it all!
To the Malays, I say, “You should look into this disparity
instead of pointing fingers to other Malaysians who work hard to uplift
themselves without any help from their own government”.
Maybe because of your adulation of your Bossku, feudal
fealty or religious chieftains that they are the ones that are taking up what
is essentially yours to uplift your own lives?
After all the YAPEIM (Yayasan Pembangunan Ekonomi Islam),
yes, another institution in Malaysia using religion to sucker people, the
Director himself takes home RM400,000.00 in bonus and his senior executive
draws another RM250,000.00 all by themselves. Must be one hell of a
“pembangunan ekonomi Islam”.
The problem is not between the Malays and the other races.
The problem is clearly within the Malay community itself. The help is not
reaching the supposed target group. Why? So do not punish others with quotas
that penalise the excellence of others for your own dysfunctions.
Now, contrast with the Chinese and Indian communities, where
the M40 group makes up the majority.
Within the Chinese community, the T20 group makes up 29.66%,
followed by the M40 group at 42.32% and B40 at 28.02%. As for the Indian
community, the T20 group stands at 19.98%, followed by the M40 income earners
at 41.31% and the B40 at 38.71%.
It is so clearly not true that all non-bumis are rich and
therefore the quotas must remain to enable the bumis to compete on an equal
footing. The quotas are no longer justifiable if it was ever justifiable in the
first place. It is very clear from these data that equal opportunity to
university places must be provided irrespective of race purely on merit. The
help on the other hand must be in the form of scholarships or loans to those
deserving based on the financial capability of each successful university
entrant, as simple as that.
If a candidate does not qualify, he or she does not, race be
damned. That person must then take a different route – vocational or
skilledbased profession or any other road to success. There is nothing wrong
with not being a university graduate if one is not qualified. Find your
vocation and passion in a field that you will excel in.
The Government has no business populating a university and
later the workplace with a single race based on the criteria of fulfilling quota.
It makes no sense and it is the root of ensuring the downfall of both the
administrative branch of government or even the overall machinery of the
nation’s economy.
Maszlee claims that foreign university branches in Malaysia
are filled up by non-bumis, therefore Malays need more places in public
universities via matriculation. As such the Government instituted matriculation
in 1999. He cited Monash and Nottingham as examples. Unfortunately, Monash was
opened in KL in 1998 and Nottingham in 2000. That lie blew up in his face
pretty fast, didn’t it?
But really why would private universities be filled up with
mostly non-bumis? Can’t Maszlee see that if the local public universities are
providing only 10% quota to non-bumis to enter via matriculation, an even
tougher entry through STPM and none via UEC, that middle and low income
non-bumis will have no other choice but to opt for the less expensive private
local and branch universities to sending their children for overseas education?
They even can’t gain entry to public universities due to the
quotas despite having better results than Bumis. Where do you expect them to go
then Maszlee? I know of many non-bumis who are scraping their barrels to ensure
they send their kids to further their studies either local or overseas. Many of
them have fewer children because they know they will have to pay for their kid’s education in the future. With most if not all of
the scholarships given to bumis do they have another cheaper option?
How much more heartless is your assessment of our fellow
non-bumis’ predicaments can you get, my dear Maszlee?
I think Maszlee need to learn facts and have some critical
thinking before opening his mouth. Being the education minister is not like
teaching religion, where people are not going to fact-check you because they
think you are a gift from God. An education minister with such thinking cannot
be allowed to stay in that position much longer. It is untenable.
Interestingly of late, a number of those from the Malay
academia have come to the defense of the hapless minister defending
matriculation quota because of workplace imbalance in the private sector. I
have to ask is this proof that our universities are headed by Malays who have
no business graduating and being employed and now heading such academic
institutions and organisations? Do they even realize the tenuous relations
between entry quota into learning institutions vs recruitment variables?
We truly need to clean up the education ministry from top to
bottom including at our public universities. Too many people with no brains
sucking up to powers that be and playing the race and religion card. It’s
enough to make you weep.
Back to our conundrum that is the Malaysian education, what
then is our endgame?
1. Stop quota - period. Any type of quota. It does not work
and it will destroy the capability of our public and private sector to excel.
Merit must reign.
2. Go back to basics. Primary and secondary education are
the foundation that will allow any persons of any race to compete on equal
footing in order to enter vocational institutions, colleges, and universities.
The rest will take care of itself upon them graduating and joining the
workforce. Trust in our youth. The bumis are not incapable of excelling given
the right foundation.
3. Bring back a Science, Mathematics and English-heavy
curriculum for primary and secondary years. Go back to basics. These are foundation
years. Do not worry about having the latest technology. Children will absorb
that in their own time. Tertiary education is where skill-based knowledge is
acquired. Foundational knowledge and critical thinking is honed before you
leave high school.
4. Please leave religion at home. Teach it if you want but
do it outside of normal school hours. Let our children be among their peers as
human beings without any differentiation of beliefs and faiths. Let them
celebrate their differences without adults telling them who is better than
others. Show them all the beauty they possess without judgment.
5. We are all Malaysians. We all bleed the same blood and we
all weep the same tears when we are capable but are unable to fulfill our
potential because we do not have the financial means to achieve those goals.
Help us irrespective of race. All of us contribute to our taxes. No one group
should benefit more than the other because they are of a different ethnicity.
We will see that Malaysia will prosper with each race
helping each other as Malaysians once and for all.
