Government scholarships

Our government has decided to scrap the number of scholarships given to those who want to pursue undergraduate studies overseas. There are two main reasons which prompted government to take this measure. Firstly, the government is facing financial constraint since the number of bright students keeps growing each year. Secondly, they wanted to improve the standard of local universities which also will help in resolving the issue of brain drain.

I have no idea about how much we have been funding our students every year, but they definitely would not simply come out with this unpopular decision. They might have done a thorough research in reaching this decision, so their calculation might be true. But how can we view by funding a group of bright students can be considered as a burden? This is what we called investment. We invest in those who possess potentials and talents. Government spending on human capital is a must as we can enjoy the long term benefits.

While I laud government's intention in solving the issue of brain drain, but one cannot avoid but to question about the practicality of the solution. Retaining bright students alone would not solve the crux of the problem. We must address bigger problems like providing first class facilities, recruiting more lecturers and producing more research and development. These are core issues which need serious attention from the Ministry.

Solving these structural problems would transform the universities to be more prepared to accept and more importantly nurture our local talents to their maximum potential. In order to achieve this, we need more credible lecturers so that a very productive learning environment is created. This is how it is done in overseas as providing the best support system remains the number one priority.

I am saddened by the fact that we prefer to live in denial. Every year, when we look at our university ranking, we are always at the bottom. Whenever we raise a question how this could happen, we answered by telling that the indicator was irrelevant and thus, it did not fit with our education system. How on Earth an instrument which is globally accepted is not suitable when it is used to a country called Malaysia? We must catch up with other countries as even our own neighbours are already far ahead of us.

Why we need a good university? It is because maybe among those who may be sent to local universities are actually Oxbridge/Ivy League materials. If they live in a right environment, they might create something difference here.