From: mlt@gdwb.oz.au (Mee Teng)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asean
Subject: Re: Civil Eng. in U.M. (RE. Elect. Eng. in U.M.)
Date: 29 Sep 92 00:47:05 GMT

eoahmad@ntuix.ntu.ac.sg (Othman Ahmad) writes:


>He may be applying the US sytem of averages. Don't you know that in UK the
>entrance requirement can be as low as CDD, or even lower and yet not all of them
Couldn't agree more !
>their lecturers that he had to fail them because he is discriminated in
I don't think thre is any element of truth in this case.
By the way En. Othman ( I respect you this time. Actually I expect a
big 'wild fire from you' but on the contrary you have turned over a new
leaf.), my main issue was to show that it was nothing new to find half
of the Eng. students in UM having 4 or 5As, be they in civil, or elect. etc.

>	Also I heard one case of a student who failed at UM but managed to get
>first class honours in UK.

Courses in UM were generally much 'tougher'(but not necessarily higher
standards) because lack of proper guidance. I know quite a few friends
who JUST managed to scrap through STPM but got 1st or 2nd class from
UK. It depends very from WHICH Uni. in UK.

>	I just quote you the views of the Malays. These cases only happen at UM,
>not at other local universities. These also happen a long time ago. It may
>change now.

>students outnumber goverment scholars(mostly bumis) although the number of
>government scholars was in 20,000.
May be true . But as I said the non-Bumi especially Chinese would
really do almost anything rather than just squeeze their income for
the sake of their children education.

>I met was a strong UMNO supporter. His family is a reasonably big shot. 
>I believe he was trying to get his scholarship if he got through his initial
>years.

>You have not disputed the fact which I quoted as saying that one non-bumi 
>actually got scholarchip when he was finally persuaded to apply.
No I don't. I just said that it is extremely limited. But again the 
gov't does relax the rules from time to time, perhaps has something to do 
with the economy of the country. If you are talking about the 70's
I have to say that you are being modest because many non-bumis
had not much problems of getting a scholarship, & if you get 4As, 
Bingo ! You just need to apply and you may get few offers ! I had
a couple of them too ! But the 80's were a different story .
>that a lot of non-bumis actually did not apply for scholarship.

>CAn some non-bumi quote instances of applying and how many they actually
>applied?
>I had to apply to a lot of scholarships

Many of the scholarships in the 80's were not even advertised. In fact
the scholarships interviewing board would go to the Residential Schools
to offer the Form 5 & 6 students scholarships. They need not take an
active role to apply. A friend who applied for a Colombo Plan 
scholarship was blatantly questioned how on earth she managed to
get the application form. (as they are reserved only for Bumis).
Through her father connection , she finally managed to secure
 a loan.

 En. Othman I think you based your experience from Sabah & not in
 Peninsula. I have to admit that the scenarios are quite different
 in Sabah & Sarawak. Perhaps too we are talking about different
 periods of time.