Previously, we discussed the political implications of the change in the racial quota for the JPA overseas scholarship allocation. In this article, we want to bring up certain weaknesses in regards to this scholarship which many politicians and NGO representatives do not bring up when supporting or criticizing the latest policy change.
These weaknesses cut across racial lines which should tell us that often, we have to take off our racial lens and look beyond them in discussing issues of this nature.
JPA offers two types of scholarships. They offer approximately 2,000 overseas scholarships and 10,000 local scholarships. The overseas scholarship is obviously the more prestigious scholarship and garners most of the public press and dissatisfaction.
Most of the public is unaware of the cost of the overseas scholarships. A conservative estimate is that one overseas scholarship costs roughly RM200,000. A degree in a university in London or in a top private university in the US would cost more, perhaps between RM300,000 to RM400,000. Using the lower and more conservative estimate, one cohort of JPA scholars would cost the taxpayers roughly RM400 million. While this pales in comparison to the billions of ringgit spent on oil subsidies, it is still no laughing matter.
So if Umno Youth proposes an increase in the number of overseas scholarships from 2000 to 3000, we are talking about an additional allocation of RM200 million, not an insignificant amount.
In addition, the public is probably unaware of the fact that the return on investment, so to speak, from the JPA overseas scholarship is almost non-existent. Almost ALL overseas JPA scholars do not end up working for the JPA or the government. Many of them choose to stay overseas. Those who come back to Malaysia often end up working for the private sector which provides better pay, working conditions and promotion prospects. (Those who are sponsored to do medicine may be the only exception)
Furthermore, almost ALL of these scholars who break their JPA bonds do not pay a single cent back. It is a standing joke among some JPA scholars that when they go back home, they notify JPA that they are back, submit an application form to the JPA and then wait for them to ‘lose’ these forms and release these scholars from their JPA obligations.
In other words, these scholarships are given away, more or less, for FREE to these scholars.
No structure
One may ask – why doesn’t the JPA ask these scholars to work for them or to work for another government department or ministry? The sad fact of the matter is that there is currently no structure within the public service that can fully utilize the skills and smarts of JPA scholars. Unlike the Singapore PSC, the equivalent to the JPA, scholars are not rotated and fast tracked within the different ministries that they might be allocated to.
In addition, there is probably very little appetite among some in the public service who do not want to see smart and capable JPA scholars coming in to ‘shake things up’ and possibly outshine them. Hence the current ‘close one eye’ policy of not forcing these scholars to work for the government or to ask them to pay the bond back in any form or fashion. Again, breaking the JPA bond cuts across racial lines which is not surprising given the current state of our policies.
Can Malaysia really afford this kind of policy? Even Singapore, by far a richer country than Malaysia, is not so generous in giving out scholarships to its citizens without having them to work for it or to pay it back. The Singapore government is infamous for chasing down bond breakers and forcing them to pay back the value of their scholarships, often at punitive interest rates.
There is a school of thought which says that the social benefits of sponsoring these scholars to go abroad and then releasing them to work for the private sector is more beneficial to the country compared to forcing them to work for the government. This argument is flawed in many ways.
Firstly, it ignores the fact that many JPA scholars do not even come back to work in Malaysia. Given that JPA does not release figures of where these JPA scholars end up working (one doubts if they even know), we cannot even be sure of the percentage of scholars who come back to work in Malaysia.
Secondly, it assumes that these scholars would not have been able to obtain other scholarships either from Malaysia or from overseas if the JPA scholarship did not exist. There are many other organisations in Malaysia which provides overseas scholarships such as Bank Negara, Petronas, Telekom and Tenaga, just to name a few. Some, especially Petronas, have much better track records of keeping their scholars or asking those who break their bonds to pay it back.
Thirdly, it assumes that the social benefits accruing from these scholars going overseas to study is somehow higher than if they had remained in Malaysia and did their degree in a public university.
This is hard to justify since a smart and motivated citizen would be able to contribute to society whether he or she studies abroad or at home. In fact, one can make the argument that the social benefit of a scholar staying at home would be greater than going overseas since this would increase the overall quality of students in our public universities.
Look beyond racial quota
The social benefits argument clearly does not hold water.
Some of the other criticisms of this policy change also fail to look beyond the racial quota. An example of this is the statement made by ABIM addressing its concern over this policy change on the grounds that the poverty level among Malays is higher than the other communities and indirectly arguing that Malays should be given the larger share of these scholarships.
What these critics conveniently ignore is the distribution of these scholarships among the Malays. In most countries where affirmative action is practiced, it is usually the middle and upper middle class of the targeted community that benefits from these policies. This is certainly the case in the US where minority students (Black and Hispanic) who are in the top universities come disproportionately from middle and upper middle class families. We would not be surprised if the same is found in the Malaysian context – that the JPA scholars, including the Malays, come disproportionately from middle and upper middle class families. Hence the argument that the previous racial quota should be maintained on the grounds of helping poor Malays is not a sound one.
It is a little saddening that ABIM, a well respected Muslim NGO, would want to deal with this issue that does not directly deal with the issue of Islam. Even from the perspective of justice, it seems that they like other Malay organizations, only care about the issue when changes in racial quotas are involved and totally ignore the distributional impact of policies within the Malay community.
Such arguments also ignore another related change in the JPA policy which is to automatically provide a scholarship to those with 10A1s and above and whose families earn less than RM1,500 a month, regardless of race. Surely such a means tested policy is more just than a blind racial quota from a progressive and an Islamic perspective.
More information is always better than less especially for those interested in researching this area. If the JPA were to collect and then release relevant data on the allocation of these scholarships – race, SPM results, family income, university, whether they return to Malaysia, where they end up working, etc… - then perhaps some of the doubts surrounding the JPA scholarship could be quelled. More importantly, it could guide us towards making better policies in regards to the JPA scholarship.
To summarize, there are more important issues surrounding the JPA scholarship other than the racial quota. Most important is the fact that the returns on investment from these scholarships is almost non-existent since these scholars don’t return to work for the government (if they do come back at all) nor do they pay back their bonds. Given the high cost associated with these scholarships, this situation is not tenable in the long run.
Showing posts with label Scholarship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Scholarship. Show all posts
Sunday, June 08, 2008
JPA scholarships - who loses, who wins?
Why this sudden increase in the non-Malay scholarship quota? What are some of the political implications arising from this policy change? Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz, the minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, announced last week that the JPA (Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam or Public Service Department) overseas scholarships allocation would be changed from a bumiputera-non-bumiputera ratio of 90/10 to 55/45.
This is a subject which is close to the heart of Kian Ming, who runs a blog covering education issues, together with PJ Utara MP Tony Pua. In this first article, we discuss the political rationale underlying such a move and what the political impact might be. In the next article, we move beyond the racial and political rhetoric and discuss certain shortcomings of this scholarship, none of which have been brought up by those who are supportive or protesting against this policy change.
The allocation of the JPA overseas scholarship is of symbolic importance for the Chinese and Indian Malysians, since year after year, complaints about top SPM scorers who are of Chinese and Indian descent failing to obtain the JPA scholarships are always featured in our newspapers. Indeed, Malaysiakini has seen a deluge of such letters from disappointed students and parents in the past month or so. (The actual number of non-Malays affected by this particular policy is actually quite small when considering the number of SPM students in one cohort).
This is not the first time that the BN has shifted its policy on the racial allocation of the JPA overseas scholarship. It was widely speculated that after the 1999 general elections, the number of JPA overseas scholarships given to non-Malays were increased. But that was never publicised in the same manner as this policy change and the more than four-fold increase in the number of scholarships given to non-Malays took many people by surprise, including Kian Ming, who has been following issues to do with education in Malaysia for some time.
Why this sudden increase in the non-Malay scholarship quota? What are some of the political implications arising from this policy change?
A charitable view of this policy change is that the government finally succumbed to public pressure and to rejecting the large number of otherwise qualified non-Malays and listening to their appeals, time and again.
Of course, one can also see this as a political move to appease the non-Malay voter base which abandoned the BN in large number in the previous election. By changing a policy which has symbolic value in the eyes of the non-Malays, the BN is hoping to win back the hearts and minds and votes among members of these communities.
A more cynical and perhaps nefarious view of this policy change is that it is a subtle political strategy by BN, more specifically Umno, to create a climate of fear among the Malays that their rights are slowly being eroded because of the rise in the power of Pakatan. Of course, this would require a lot of subtle maneuvering on the part of the BN since they are the ones who actually approved this policy change and not Pakatan.
Protests from the usual suspects
To be fair to the government, there actually has been a subtle shift in the language used in defining education policy over the past decade or so. While we may debate the comparability of the matriculation course which is largely taken by Malays, and the STPM course which is largely taken by non-Malays as the entry requirements to our public universities, the word used to define the entry process has been ‘meritocracy’ in the past few years.
This despite the initial protests by Umno Youth which still surfaces from time to time. One does not anticipate that the meritocracy process for entering our public universities will be changed in the near future. Similarly, one does not anticipate this JPA scholarship policy change to be reversed any time soon despite the protests from some of the usual suspects including Umno Youth, Abim and GPMS, just to name a few.
But even the reservations expressed by Umno Youth were couched in terms that were more ‘flexible’, in a manner of speaking. Their representative did not ask for the quotas to go back to the 90/10 allocation but instead proposed that the total number of scholarships should be increased and the allocation quota revised to 70/30 so that no scholarships would be taken away from the Malays while giving an additional allocation to the non-Malays.
Do we expect the non-Malays to respond to this policy change by swinging their support back to the BN? We think not.
It would take more than just one policy measure of this nature to win back the hearts and minds of the non-Malays. While this may have worked in the aftermath of previous elections when the non-Malay opposition parties performed well, we are in living in a different political environment. Pakatan can always respond to this by promising the non-Malays that they would implement a more equitable allocation policy across the board and not just for the JPA overseas scholarship.
One strategy used by PAS in past elections has been to ask voters and its supporters to take whatever goodies which the BN offers them, including free rice and the like, and then vote for PAS in the voting booth. It is not hard to imagine the non-Malays behaving in a similar fashion.
The reaction among the Malay grassroots has been harder to judge. Kian Ming senses a subtle and gradual shift in the Malay ground in terms of coming to terms with the eventuality of competing on a more level-playing field with the non-Malays beginning with the education realm. The fact that there has been a noticeable increase in the number of Malays performing well at the SPM level has perhaps helped assuage the fears among Malays that they cannot compete with the non-Malays.
The noticeable silence among the Pakatan parties will probably help in not making this issue one which the BN can capitalise on. DAP has not made any statements either in support of this policy perhaps because they do not want to give undue credit to the government, and PAS, not wanting to incite the Malay ground, has not made any statements critical of this policy.
Pakatan has also been helped by the fact that this issue has been overshadowed by other more demanding and headline grabbing issues such as the petrol price hike and the on-going speculation of political crossovers. Under more normal political circumstances, this policy change would have had much more political coverage.
Even more changes to come?
Is this a sign of the things to come, that there will be similar liberalisations in racial quotas in other areas be it in the education or the economic realm?
We are more guarded in this respect. As mentioned before, the push for more ‘meritocracy’ has been an ongoing initiative in the education realm. It would be a stretch to extend this to the business and economic realm, for example, at least in the near future. One would not expect government contracts or top government positions to be suddenly allocated in a more equitable fashion, many of them which currently are not even distributed according to a 90/10 ratio.
One also cannot discount the role of government agency here. Nazri has been consistently unpredictable in his policy statements and decisions but one thing that has been consistent about him is his desire for publicity. He could have pushed for this policy change not only because he felt that it might have been the expedient thing to do but that it would also garner him positive publicity, especially from the non-Malays. Other Umno politicians, who might not want to stick their necks out on the chopping block, would likely not do the same in other policy areas.
To summarise, the significance of this policy change should not be discounted, even if it is limited to one small area of education policy in this country. It is part of a more gradual shift in defining the terms of competition, at least in the education realm. Whether this will translate into the business and economic realms is harder to predict.
While the non-Malays would welcome this policy, the political circumstances of the day will limit the swing in their support back to the BN. The effect on the Malay ground is harder to judge but so far, the grassroot reaction seems slightly muted. It probably helps that the hike in petrol prices quickly knocked this particular issue of the front pages and minds of voters.
This is a subject which is close to the heart of Kian Ming, who runs a blog covering education issues, together with PJ Utara MP Tony Pua. In this first article, we discuss the political rationale underlying such a move and what the political impact might be. In the next article, we move beyond the racial and political rhetoric and discuss certain shortcomings of this scholarship, none of which have been brought up by those who are supportive or protesting against this policy change.
The allocation of the JPA overseas scholarship is of symbolic importance for the Chinese and Indian Malysians, since year after year, complaints about top SPM scorers who are of Chinese and Indian descent failing to obtain the JPA scholarships are always featured in our newspapers. Indeed, Malaysiakini has seen a deluge of such letters from disappointed students and parents in the past month or so. (The actual number of non-Malays affected by this particular policy is actually quite small when considering the number of SPM students in one cohort).
This is not the first time that the BN has shifted its policy on the racial allocation of the JPA overseas scholarship. It was widely speculated that after the 1999 general elections, the number of JPA overseas scholarships given to non-Malays were increased. But that was never publicised in the same manner as this policy change and the more than four-fold increase in the number of scholarships given to non-Malays took many people by surprise, including Kian Ming, who has been following issues to do with education in Malaysia for some time.
Why this sudden increase in the non-Malay scholarship quota? What are some of the political implications arising from this policy change?
A charitable view of this policy change is that the government finally succumbed to public pressure and to rejecting the large number of otherwise qualified non-Malays and listening to their appeals, time and again.
Of course, one can also see this as a political move to appease the non-Malay voter base which abandoned the BN in large number in the previous election. By changing a policy which has symbolic value in the eyes of the non-Malays, the BN is hoping to win back the hearts and minds and votes among members of these communities.
A more cynical and perhaps nefarious view of this policy change is that it is a subtle political strategy by BN, more specifically Umno, to create a climate of fear among the Malays that their rights are slowly being eroded because of the rise in the power of Pakatan. Of course, this would require a lot of subtle maneuvering on the part of the BN since they are the ones who actually approved this policy change and not Pakatan.
Protests from the usual suspects
To be fair to the government, there actually has been a subtle shift in the language used in defining education policy over the past decade or so. While we may debate the comparability of the matriculation course which is largely taken by Malays, and the STPM course which is largely taken by non-Malays as the entry requirements to our public universities, the word used to define the entry process has been ‘meritocracy’ in the past few years.
This despite the initial protests by Umno Youth which still surfaces from time to time. One does not anticipate that the meritocracy process for entering our public universities will be changed in the near future. Similarly, one does not anticipate this JPA scholarship policy change to be reversed any time soon despite the protests from some of the usual suspects including Umno Youth, Abim and GPMS, just to name a few.
But even the reservations expressed by Umno Youth were couched in terms that were more ‘flexible’, in a manner of speaking. Their representative did not ask for the quotas to go back to the 90/10 allocation but instead proposed that the total number of scholarships should be increased and the allocation quota revised to 70/30 so that no scholarships would be taken away from the Malays while giving an additional allocation to the non-Malays.
Do we expect the non-Malays to respond to this policy change by swinging their support back to the BN? We think not.
It would take more than just one policy measure of this nature to win back the hearts and minds of the non-Malays. While this may have worked in the aftermath of previous elections when the non-Malay opposition parties performed well, we are in living in a different political environment. Pakatan can always respond to this by promising the non-Malays that they would implement a more equitable allocation policy across the board and not just for the JPA overseas scholarship.
One strategy used by PAS in past elections has been to ask voters and its supporters to take whatever goodies which the BN offers them, including free rice and the like, and then vote for PAS in the voting booth. It is not hard to imagine the non-Malays behaving in a similar fashion.
The reaction among the Malay grassroots has been harder to judge. Kian Ming senses a subtle and gradual shift in the Malay ground in terms of coming to terms with the eventuality of competing on a more level-playing field with the non-Malays beginning with the education realm. The fact that there has been a noticeable increase in the number of Malays performing well at the SPM level has perhaps helped assuage the fears among Malays that they cannot compete with the non-Malays.
The noticeable silence among the Pakatan parties will probably help in not making this issue one which the BN can capitalise on. DAP has not made any statements either in support of this policy perhaps because they do not want to give undue credit to the government, and PAS, not wanting to incite the Malay ground, has not made any statements critical of this policy.
Pakatan has also been helped by the fact that this issue has been overshadowed by other more demanding and headline grabbing issues such as the petrol price hike and the on-going speculation of political crossovers. Under more normal political circumstances, this policy change would have had much more political coverage.
Even more changes to come?
Is this a sign of the things to come, that there will be similar liberalisations in racial quotas in other areas be it in the education or the economic realm?
We are more guarded in this respect. As mentioned before, the push for more ‘meritocracy’ has been an ongoing initiative in the education realm. It would be a stretch to extend this to the business and economic realm, for example, at least in the near future. One would not expect government contracts or top government positions to be suddenly allocated in a more equitable fashion, many of them which currently are not even distributed according to a 90/10 ratio.
One also cannot discount the role of government agency here. Nazri has been consistently unpredictable in his policy statements and decisions but one thing that has been consistent about him is his desire for publicity. He could have pushed for this policy change not only because he felt that it might have been the expedient thing to do but that it would also garner him positive publicity, especially from the non-Malays. Other Umno politicians, who might not want to stick their necks out on the chopping block, would likely not do the same in other policy areas.
To summarise, the significance of this policy change should not be discounted, even if it is limited to one small area of education policy in this country. It is part of a more gradual shift in defining the terms of competition, at least in the education realm. Whether this will translate into the business and economic realms is harder to predict.
While the non-Malays would welcome this policy, the political circumstances of the day will limit the swing in their support back to the BN. The effect on the Malay ground is harder to judge but so far, the grassroot reaction seems slightly muted. It probably helps that the hike in petrol prices quickly knocked this particular issue of the front pages and minds of voters.
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