JUNE 17 — The launch of the Program Ijazah Luar Negara 2014 (PILN) hailed the beginning of a new era — an era where scholarships to study abroad are awarded to students not based solely on the scoring of more than 9A+s in SPM, but also upon their acceptance into prestigious universities around the world. Students who excelled in the SPM examinations were granted small bursaries to fund their pre-university studies, but the acquirement of a bursary was not a criteria for the application of the PILN scholarship, nor was it intended to serve as a discriminating factor. This was strongly lauded as being a scholarship system superior to the one used by PSD before, as the ability to achieve 9A+s or more does not necessarily translate to a similar performance at pre-university level.

It is now 2014 and it seems like this noble project has yet to materialise. Bursary students are provided with a dedicated portal to apply for the PILN scholarship which will automatically be awarded to them upon receiving an offer from a recognised university listed by the PILN scholarship, and have happily trotted off to top universities in the UK, Australia, and more. On the flipside, a bunch of students who were not awarded the bursary have yet to receive any news from the PSD regarding the application for the PILN scholarship. Despite having performed excellently in their pre-university studies, they are left to ponder upon their uncertain fate. Whenever queries are directed to the PSD, these students are told to apply for the Program Universiti Terkemuka, a relic from the past, a system that the PILN is supposed to replace. What happened? Has there been some sort of misunderstanding? With the Program Universiti Terkemuka and PILN practising different selection criteria, bursary students are accorded preferential treatment. To exemplify this, non-bursary students are required to obtain offers from universities ranked within the top 10 in the world in their respective fields, whereas bursary students are only required to secure offers from top 50 universities globally. Furthermore, with the outcome of the Program University Terkemuka only being released in November, a time way past the deadline to accept offers to these universities, many students will have to forgo the golden opportunity to study in top universities.

In SPM, there used to be a classical emphasis on quantity over quality, with previous scholars attempting up to 20 subjects merely to increase their chances of obtaining the prestigious PSD scholarship. Such a practice was discontinued in 2009 when it was ruled that students could only take a maximum of 10 subjects. However, the quest for quantity remains. With many coming close to achieving the coveted 9A+s, and in turn the PSD Scholarship, the fine line between success and failure often took the form of a subject or two that some students just could not master. But is that truly a reliable measurement of competency? When high school flew by and pre-university came, students were at liberty to handpick the subjects that they are passionate about, and to apply for the courses that they intend to pursue. At times, these students would outperform the glorified 9A+ achievers in both results and university acceptances. Therefore, it is unfair to deny them a fair chance just because they missed A+'s in subjects that bear no relevance to their chosen paths. Perhaps in the transition between Program University Terkemuka and PILN, these students have been forgotten. Did less-than-spectacular SPM results destine these students to be neglected, never to be given another chance? Couldn’t it have been a catalyst to fuel their desire for success even more, inherently leading them to attain better university offers than peers who had procured the bursary? All we need and want, is a fair chance. Understand that there is no feeling more horrible than being stuck in a virtual labyrinth, having university offers in hand, but funding light years away at the end of the maze. Nobody is demanding to be spoon fed with a map out; just a simple opportunity would suffice. Please help us out of this mess so that we may be in a level playing field with our peers who were awarded the bursary in pursuing a higher education, that we may shed the feeling of inferiority planted deep within our souls. 

Please, don’t forget about us.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malay Mail Online.