MAY 22 ― The matriculation issue has again ignited the polarised discussion among the Malaysia society. The colliding of different interest group will prolong and it might eventually grow to a cancerous, irrational conflict which halted Malaysia Higher Education Reform. The only way to solve this issue is to reconstruct Matriculation for Nation Shared Prosperity.
The very first question comes into mind is, whether it should be reconstructed under what principle? Pure meritocracy or shall there be an essence of equity? “Equity” looks similar to “equality” but by principle it is of different conceptual approach. In classical legal context, it quotes that “equity will not suffer a wrong to be without a remedy” and “equity acts on the person”. Put in modern context, it implies that one shall deserve external aid if his socio-economic background is not at equal par with the rest. Clearly it is unfair if we benchmarked the rural students who are lack of education resource at the same par with urban students who are generally interfaced with multiple educational aid, tuition etc.
So, it is crucial to understand the social wealth polarisation situation to understand further whether equity principle would need to take place in this reconstruction. With this, we would refer to the Gini Index, a measure of statistical dispersion intended to represent the income or wealth distribution of a nation's residents, and is the most commonly used measurement of inequality. According to World Bank data, in 2015, Malaysia’s Gini Index is at 0.42, rated as “high inequality”. Hence, from my personal point of view, I echo Minister of Education Maszlee Malik on his claim of enhance opportunity needed for those who are economically less capable in sustaining a higher education position.
If this is the case, let’s probe into the RIGHT PARAMETER to define the equitable principle. The hard fact is, with the New Economic Policy, the bumiputera community can no longer equate absolutely to poverty. At this point of timing, adopting solely the racial factor in matriculation intake is not just irrelevant, but in terms of management, it sounds so UNPROFESSIONAL. For the genuine reconstruction to happen, the average household income will be the best parameter. Matriculation shall be reconstructed into a public university intake system that focuses only on poverty alleviation. All students can enroll for matriculation intake as long as they attained the minimum results requirement, but all enrollments will be ranked by household income. The lower your household income, the higher you will be prioritised. This will be the ONE AND ONLY admission parameter.
The huge advantage of this reconstruction is it will attain the final vision of equal education opportunity, as well as enabling strong consolidation of education resource for real needs. But, let us not be surprised and disappointed as eventually we might likely see the matriculation bumiputera student ratio rise up over 90 per cent under the new system, or domination of admission by Sabah, Kelantan, Terengganu students, where those states belong to less wealthy category.
Nevertheless, the short pain is worthwhile for all communities, as it will trigger the domino effect of racial quota abolishment, starting from education, and slowly but progressively ripple across all corners of New Malaysia.
* Ooi Tze Howe is the president of the Higher Education Youth Association Malaysia (HEYA).
** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
