EACH year we hear and read about issues and problems regarding the award of PSD scholarships to bright and deserving students.

The plight of many straight A1s students who were not successful are highlighted in the newspapers, much to the chagrin of public.

Political parties have fought to champion the rights of these students. Discussions and debates have been going on on how to select the best students fairly based on the limited financial resources the Government has in hand.

This whole issue is indeed being caught in a vicious cycle year after year, increasing public anger. I would like to put forward a very simple solution to this issue – transparency.

As a practicing educator, I know for a fact that the A1 can range from 60 to 100 marks, and that’s the reason many students find it so easy to score all A1s. During my time, if you got 5 As out of 9 subjects, you were considered exceptionally bright and you would find there were extremely few students scoring straight 9 As.

So are we saying that students nowadays are much brighter than students of yesteryears? Absolutely not. Teachers nowadays are very surprised that students who get 60 to 65 marks in a subject during the trial examination may end up getting an A1 in the SPM.

I would strongly recommend that the Education Ministry revamps the grading system of public examinations by reverting to absolute scores.

This has been implemented in many examinations overseas, such as GCSE, Australian Matriculation, ACCA, the Edexcel A-Levels, etc.

Release the absolute scores of each subject for every student in the public examinations as is done for the trial examinations in the schools.

In the awarding of PSD scholarships, I would like to propose that there be two schemes – one based totally on merit and one based on racial quotas. In the first scheme, I would propose that the 500 best students based on the average scores of the 10 best subjects be given scholarships to any top university in the world of their choice.

In order to force them to serve the country after they have graduated, they should be bonded for a number of years and if they break the bond, a penalty of RM2mil to RM3mil be imposed. This will prevent international companies from “buying” them out.

Of course, if the Government wishes to interview them in the selection process, it can do so, but I am very sure most of these students will pass the interview without any problems.

In the second scheme, with each racial group, the selection should be based on a combination of merit, social background, and other suitable criteria with weighted scores for each criteria.

To appease the public, the Government should release the list of successful candidates for the two schemes together with the weighted scores of the criteria used, and the total weighted scores.

Finally, I would also propose that students be still allowed to sit for as many subjects as they wish but for the purpose of scholarship selection, only the 10 best subjects be considered. Academic excellence must not be suppressed.

the star

Wednesday , 3th June 2009

PRACTISING EDUCATOR,

Petaling Jaya, Selangor.