Times have changed ... a little

A friend of mine told me this story recently. She met a fellow Malaysian doing his PhD at Duke University. He got his medical degree from Taiwan, graduating among the top 5 or 10 students in his class at the National Taipei University. He went to a Chinese independent school and probably didn't get into the medicine program at a local U (my friend didn't ask). He's halfway through his 4th year here at Duke and he's ready to defend his PhD thesis. (For those unfamiliar with the US system, getting a PhD in 4 years is a remarkable achievement). But this post is not really about this guy. No, I'm not going into another one of those we've-lost-one-of-our-best-talents post.

Rather, I want to highlight his reaction when my friend, who's a Chinese, told him that she got a JPA scholarship to do her undergraduate degree here in the US. It was literally a jaw-dropping reaction. He couldn't believe that a non-Malay would have gotten a JPA scholarship.

In the midst of our griping, we sometimes forget to pause to notice small but significant changes in policy decisions. When my friend told me of this guy's reaction, I thought that it would be a good time for me to sit down and reflect on the specific issue of scholarships given out by the various arms Malaysian government. Instead of looking at the policies themselves, I thought that I would start by trying to remember all the non-Malays I know who have received government scholarships to study abroad.

When I was at LSE, I knew one MARA scholar who received a JPA scholarship to do actuarial science. He was part of a small group of non-Malays who did their A levels under MARA and later went to the UK for their undergraduate degrees. I met some of his friends, who were mostly non-Malay, who were at Manchester, Herriot-Watt and Imperial College under JPA. I knew of another non-Malay at LSE who was under a Telekom scholarship and another non-Malay in the year below me who was under a Petronas scholarship. One of the MARA scholars at Imperial later went to Oxford to do a PhD under another JPA scholarship.

Apart from the UK, I have a basketball 'kaki' who went to Purdue under a Tenaga scholarship. My cousin-in-law studied in NSW, Australia under a Tenaga scholarship as did another friend who studied in Sydney Uni.

Currently, all the JPA scholars who are in Duke (undergraduate) are non-Malays. I know of at least three of them. The friend of mine whom I mentioned at the top of this post did her undergrad at another US institution under a JPA scholarship (but is now supported by Duke). I know of another younger friend, also non-Malay, who's at Stanford under the JPA.

In fact, the experience of my Stanford friend showed an increasing sophistication in regards to JPA. He was one of the first batches which underwent a program after SPM specifically to prepare them to apply to the top schools in the US. He took preparatory classes in Sunway and was taught how to write essays in the US application process (which is much more strenuous compared to the UK process) and did a variety of courses.

Upon reflection, I have these two thoughts to offer. Firstly, I think there has been a change in JPA policy in regards to sponsoring non-Malays for an undergraduate education overseas. Granted, the bar for non-Malays is probably higher than for Malays, but a policy change is still a policy change. This probably explained the jaw-dropping look that the Taiwanese-trained doctor gave to my friend. Of course, I don't have the statistics to show if the number or % of scholarships given by JPA to non-Malays have increased over the past 10 years or so but my impression is that it has.

What prompted this change? Some people speculated that part of it might have been due to the 1999 elections. If this is true, then we should see the number of JPA scholarships given to non-Malays spike around 1999 and then drop for subsequent years. I don't have the statistics but I happen to think that this has not occured. Could it be that the people administrating JPA saw the inherent unfairness of not giving scholarships to well-deserving non-Malay candidates? Or was it political pressure by the non-Malay component parties within the BN? Or perhaps, the practice of giving out scholarships to non-Malays has always existed? It's hard to say without a more in-depth examination.

Opportunities for seeking scholarships from other government sources have also openend up. Petronas, Telekom and Tenaga are some well-known sources. There might be other sources which I'm not aware of (Bank Negara, the Securities Commission). If we expand the number of scholarships given to include local universities such as the ones linked to Petronas, Telekom and Tenaga, then I'm sure this figure would increase significantly.

Secondly, JPA is becoming more sophisticated in getting their scholars into top programs here in the US. As more and more scholars go through the US system, I expect the JPA staff to have a greater understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the different schools here in the US thereby allowing them to help their scholars 'target' certain schools rather than others for specific courses.

Times have changed ... a little at least. Maybe 5 years down the road, it won't be so uncommon for someone to hear that JPA offers scholarships to non-Malays.

Perhaps a more important question than who gets what is the question of what JPA and other scholarship offering institutions are doing to retain the talent which they have sent abroad. Our country needs their human capital back home, regardless of race.