From: wslee@almond-frost.ai.mit.edu (Whay Sing Lee)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asean
Subject: Re: scholarship: a joke ? ( was: UM )
Date: 2 Oct 92 17:14:27 GMT

In article <1992Sep30.164105.15977@husc3.harvard.edu>, (Teck Loh) writes:
|> I cannot really agree with you. You and your friends may be the lucky ones
|> All I know is that my friends and I tried all possible ways to find a
|> a scholarship either to study in local U or go oversea. I think most 
|> schools will tell you what are the scholarships available. 
|> 
|> I have written before that I have been rejected many times applying
|> different scholarships starting from primary school to high school. All
|> I know is that my  skin color is different from the "lucky one". As a
|> chinese brought up in the slum area, top in the class, doing fairly
|> well in sports should make me more qualified than my  Malay friends in
|> my  class. I don't believe that I am so unlucky.

In article <3288@peking.gdwb.oz.au>, mlt@gdwb.oz.au (Mee Teng) writes:
|> Mr. Lee I have no intention of flaming you. Firstly, you are too young!
|> Secondly, you got the scholarships so you are quite contended ! Thirdly,
|> they may marked you if you dare to 'speak up ' especially a young man
|> with a bright future like you. But I have to stand up for those non-
|> bumis (tens of thousands I am sure !) who are accused of not getting
|> any scholarships because of their own ignorant ! (not reading
|> newspaper etc. etc. )  

        People seem to have missed my point. What I am saying is
merely "it is possible to get scholarships, if one puts in enough
effort. period".  Nothing more, nothing less.  

As with regards to what people imply with "speak up" above:
I am not a government scholar. Neither have I gotten a scholarship from a 
bumiputra-controlled agency.  Chances are I may not go back to Malaysia for 
work in the next 10 years.  In fact, considering the field I am in, I
would probably never go home to work.  
Thus, it seems to me that I have no need to "three-finger" the government,
as some may imply.

I am also not defending the NEP.  Neither am I saying that there are lots
of scholarships available out there.   I am merely saying that there are some
available. period.

With regards to Tek's discontent, perhaps my experience is not that different 
from yours.  Yes, I received 100% grant to come to this school, but only at
the 4th attempt ... (that's 4 years of time).  As Mee Teng pointed out, it 
is very very hard.  I don't expect everyone else to do the same as I did,
but merely pointing that it is possible.

I do not deny the fact that the government does provide a disproportionately 
large amount of financial assistance to the bumiputras.  But I am not going 
to discuss the rightness/wrongness of that policy in this thread.  For that 
is not my original point, which I like to emphasize above.  To discuss the
justice/injustice of the situation takes a lot more thought than what we 
have given here.   Take USA for example, many well-leanrt philosophers from 
Harvard, MIT and many other institutions have spent years debating whether 
the affirmative action (similar to the special-previlege clause in the 
M'sian constitution ) is right/wrong, and yet they still have no agreement 
on the issue.  Perhaps, as you say, I am too 'young' to be a judge of that issue.

But I am concerned about the situation too.  So perhaps I'll try to 
contribute my 1 cent's (or probably 0.5 cent) worth of opinion in a new thread.

BTW, I don't intend to accuse anybody of anything.  The fact that I am here on 
scholarship, while some others are not, logically points to one of these 
conclusions: 

a. that I did something they did not, .eg. look harder for resources. or
b. I was more "deserving" ( which may not be so, since I got fewer A's .. ),  or 
c. I had other strengths not shown on paper qualification, ( which, if true,
   indicates that paper qualification is not everything ) ...   or
d. I had "connections" ( I doubt that, but then, to borrow a computer science 
   jargon, this is an "undecidable problem" ). or
e. My mom went to the temple and pray for me ( which indeed is a fact ).
f. the financial officers had pity on me ..
g. others ?

It all depends on how you want look at things.

For example, Kuok foundation (an agency supported by a chinese family)
gave me a loan, and gave a friend (chinese) of mine a grant.  Using
the criterium used so very often in s.c.a, ie. paper qualification,
that friend was definitely "less deserving" than I was ... so what's
the point, you may ask.  I think the following are the possibilities:

a. There was bias in the administration of the fund.
b. There were other criteria to consider, which put me in a less favorable position.
c. There were other social factors to consider, which dictated that the society
   would benefit more if the grant was given to that other person rather than to me.
d. due to lots of exposure to the sun, my skin was darker than most chinese,
   and they mistook me for a bumiputra ... ?

Notice that only chinese are involved in this case.  Could it be an injustice ?
I personally don't think so.  My belief is that either (b) or (c) above 
was involved.  Or perhaps other factors were involved, I don't know. The point
is, we sometimes cannot take things at face value, but must rather look
deeper into the issue.

|> Consider the questions below, Mr. Lee .
|> 1. How many scholarships are advertised by all the hundred organisations
|> you mentioned ? Divide that by half (I assume half will go to non-bumis
|> . try to be optimistic :)) 

	My high school was a 99% chinese populated school.  There was no
reason for us to keep track of financial assistance not available to
us, was there ?

|> 2. How many non-bumis are fighting for the above scholarships ? 

	Many. As you have said time and again, it is hard.

|> 3. Do you mean that the bumis actually look out for the advertisements
|> more than the non-bumis ? 
	
	I have no statistics nor evidence on whether that is true or false.

|> 4. Shall we just look at the above scholarships at the most a couple
|> of thousands (try to be optimistics again !). ?
|> 5. Have you ever asked yourself why are there so many bumis on
|> scholarships in the local Unis ? Not to even mention the overseas ???
|> Are they all outstanding & needy students ? Why are we arguing about
|> the relatively small number of non-government scholarships and
|> shut our mouths on the big ONE ? Worst still admit that we were
|> sleeping and know not there are so many scholarships around to 
|> grap ? Why should only non-bumis be made to fight for the limited
|> number of places ?
|> 6. How many scholarships (call it loans if you like. The fact is
|> they are scholarships. ) are given out to the bumis ? Most of them
|> without them even do anything !! And are offered even to the PHD
|> level ? En.Othman can fool some people some time, but not all 
|> the people all the time. 

	What you are asking here is "Is it justifiable for the government
to provide a disproportionately large amount of financial assistance to
the Bumiputras ?" ...  that is not the original point of my post, which I
like emphasize above. 

	since this "scholarship: a joke" thread is beginning to degenerate 
into a name-calling war, following the great tradition of s.c.a,  I am out 
of here.  Perhaps we shall discuss the above question in a new thread.



Whay S. Lee