Scholarships and Fairness

In one of our local news papers was a headline "Najib on the new realities - impossible to offer scholarships to all". This statement is from our Deputy Prime Minister. It is not a new reality. We have known it all along. It is just another political statement by a politician for want of something to say. In every country there will be winners and losers. Similarly, some will get scholarship and some won't, even if they are almost evenly qualified. The edge would have been in some extra-curricular activity. We understand that.

That is not the problem here in Malaysia. What is baffling is when students who get straight A's do not get the scholarship but those with less A's get the scholarship! The government has one policy for the media to publish but have a different one at the implementation stage. Either that or they have too many warlords who control the various departments who don't give a damn for the policies.

A perfect example would be the dressing policy. The government said there is no policy to force students to wear 'tudungs' (cloth to cover the hair on the head) but in so many schools the headmaster/headmistress or even the teachers think otherwise. Some teachers even pinch the students if the hair is not properly covered. They even ask the non-Muslims to cover during certain functions like school competitions in the name of uniformity! How cunning can you get. Another example would be the ruling by the International Islamic University for the female non-Muslim graduands to cover their hair on graduation day. When queried they say it is not religious but the university policy! When the French did not allow one student because she wore a scarf to school they were up in arms about freedom of religion. Hypocrites!

In some departments dealing with the public, the head of department even put up signs telling the public that they won't be allowed in if not properly dressed. The gall of some government servants. Properly dressed by whose standards? Who are they serving? Don't they know they are servants and not masters - hence government servants!

But I digress. The issue is about scholarships. We can only wait and see if this time around there is some fairness in the giving out of government scholarships. The intergrity of the Prime Minister is at stake here. He has made many statements about transparency and being fair to all the various races. We shall wait and see.