Scholarships Reform

According to the Public Service Department's (PSD) corporate communications chief Hasniah Rashid, 15,388 applications had been received by the Wednesday closing date. This was reported in the Star Education Supplement yesterday.

There are however, only some 1,300 scholarships available. Hence that works out to a 8.4% chance of success. Note also that there were 945 straight As students for SPM last year, of who 448 scored straight 1As. These numbers don't include those who actually had like, 12 1As and 1 3B in their results. Or even the top student who wasn't a top student with 15 1As and 1 2A.

Hence, it will not be a surprise if there were going to be some hoo-haa sometime later when the scholarship shortlists are announced. With some 14,000 "top" students missing out, there are bound to be more than a couple of hundred who will feel aggrieved.

And with the slightly more transparent evaluation system (its still fairly opaque, but more transparent than before) where PSD has announced the key criteria being academic performance (65%), interview performance (15%), extra-curricular activities (10%) and family background (10%), be prepared for some of these 10 1As performers to fail in their quest for a scholarship.

Without going into the ability of our PSD to execute the interviews and evaluation in a fair and transparent manner by giving them the benefit of the doubt, the "aggrieved" outcome which will be experienced by many is practically and realistically unavoidable. The nature by which the scholarship awards are being carried out is a clear-cut case of recipe for public relations disaster. From this perspective, I do not envy the task which PSD or its Public Relations department has in hand.

Soon enough, as per previous years, despite being managed a tad better for the current year, journalists will seek out top scoring academics individuals who failed to land a scholarship and make their case, justified or otherwise, heard nationwide. Some will have valid reasons for being bitter, while others are just cry-babies with parents who think the world of them.

Why the hell would the government want to go through this mess every single year especially when elements of it has "inevitability" painted all over it, no matter how fair and transparent the PSD eventually becomes. And with the number of top scoring students increasing on a yearly basis at a faster rate the scholarships are available, PSD is fightly a losing battle.

I say, scrap the award of scholarships for university studies for post-SPM students. Besides the fact that it'll save the government a lot of unnecessary PR headaches, the move will have plenty of other valid reasons supporting it as well.

For one, SPM is probably too early a stage to be deciding if one is deserving of a scholarship to be sponsored for studies overseas. There are many real and practical reasons why SPM is the wrong yardstick for evaluation:

- SPM rightly or wrongly, do not yet fully test the critical thinking and analytical faculties of the students. One is able to score As because one is truly smart, or because one memorises pre-written essays. I would say that STPM is a better barometer for students' intelligence and their ability to cope with more difficult principles and concepts, which powerful memory capabilities will find it harder to compensate.

- And as per the above, that would be one of the reasons why there are just so many SPM top scorers with 448 scoring straight 1As. There are if I'm not wrong, only 20 students with straight 5As in STPM, with another 427 scoring 4As. With fewer "top scorers", scholarship outcomes will often be less controversial. For with less students' pool to evaluate, the risk of total subjectivity in the interview process will be significantly lower.

Top students for SPM should instead be offered just a 2 year pre-university scholarship at the top local schools to enhance their ability to perform further, whether for STPM, 'A' Levels or even Matriculation. These scholarships will hence cost a lot less, and more top SPM students will a cut of these scholarships. After all, I find the process of allocating the RM1 million per student for medicine courses to a SPM student a almost a pure lottery and may not be the most the best of choices.

I think the above proposal is seriously worth some serious thoughts by the various Government agencies.