Give top students scholarships !

 Let top scorers study in private institutions, Malaysian govt urged

PETALING JAYA: Top scorers who fail to get into popular courses in public universities should be offered places in private institutions on scholarships provided by the Government, said MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek.

Dr Chua said MCA understood that there had been a high demand for popular courses such as medicine and pharmacy, and that the public universities would not be able to accept all the top scorers due to limited places.

“In such cases, the deserving students should be offered places in private universities via scholarships provided by the Government.

“Since the Government has stopped awarding scholarships to SPM graduates unless they are accepted into reputable universities, it now has the means to provide these to students who obtained a cumulative grade point average (CGPA) of 4.0 in their STPM examination,” he said in a statement here yesterday.

“Each deserving student must be assured of a place in university and they should not be turned away unless they do not have the required entry points,” he added.

Dr Chua was commenting on the hundreds of students - including 55 with perfect CGPA of 4.0 - who had not gained places to study medicine and other courses of their choice in public universities.

He also urged the Government to admit all top scorers with a 4.0 CGPA into public universities without further delay as they had rightly obtained the perfect cumulative grade point average.

This was in line with the country’s agenda of grooming local talent to cater to its development and vision to become a high-income nation by 2020, he pointed out.

“MCA stands firm that the Government should provide tertiary education to all students based on meritocracy. I would like to remind students with CGPA of 4.0 that they could also opt for other courses of their choice and not merely popular ones like medicine and pharmacy,” he said.

Dr Chua said that he had also conveyed this issue and the students’ grievances to the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister for further action.

Meanwhile, another 33 STPM top scorers, who met with problems in their applications to enter public universities, have also asked MCA for help after the party highlighted some 108 appeal cases on Tues-day.

Its Youth chief Datuk Dr Wee Ka Siong said that they were the latest batch, adding that he expected more to come.

Pointing out that most of the 88 top scorers had opted to study medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and engineering, he said he would “analyse on case by case basis and see how to help them.”

To date, Dr Wee said 14 of the ca­ses did not get any offers, 12 were given courses which were way off from their choices while the rest did not get what they wanted.

He said that there was also a very small number with what he des­cribed as an “unreasonable re­­quest”, such as wanting to do medicine in Universiti Malaya despite being offered places in Universiti Kebang­saan Malaysia.

By FOONG PEK YEE and EILEEN NG
newsdesk@thestar.com.my

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Top Malaysian Chinese students rejected by public universities

KUALA LUMPUR: Chai Yee Lin had always wanted to be a doctor since she was young.

She studied hard and was over the moon when she found out she had obtained a perfect 4.0 cumulative grade point average (CGPA) in her STPM examination.

The excited teenager from Puchong, Selangor, immediately applied for medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and bio-medical courses with Universiti Malaya, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Universiti Kebang­saan Malaysia and Universiti Putra Malaysia.

But her excitement turned to sadness when she was offered a course in veterinary science at Universiti Ma­­laysia Kelantan.

“Yes, I did state veterinary science as one of the secondary courses in the admission form, but I was confident that with my good results, I could get medicine or dentistry,” she said.

Chai said what hurt her most was when her friend who obtained a CGPA of 3.92 was offered dentistry in USM.

Her mother, housewife Tham Ah Yeing, said her daughter studied hard as she wanted to support the family.

“She was very sad when she found out she was offered only veterinary science. She could not accept it,” she said.

Choong Yong Sheng was one of the 4.0 scorers who was not offered any place at public universities.

“I was very happy after receiving my STPM results, and I had high hopes of gaining a place to study medicine at one of our local universities.

“I didn’t expect to be left out and given nothing,” said Choong.

The 20-year-old from Penang added that he only applied to study medicine at public universities offering the programme, and would not accept any course that was not among his options.

Matriculation student Deveshini Uthandi, 20, who scored a CGPA of 3.96 was devastated when she learnt that she did not make it to the list of successful applicants to the IPTAs.

“I had wanted to make my family proud by being the first in the family to enter a public university.

“I always wanted to be a doctor and because it is not cheap to study medicine privately, I worked very very hard to do well in my studies,’’ she said.

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Life is not meant to be lived alone

Aunty is not just talking about any Tom, Dick or Harry. It’s husband material she’s looking for!
  - Life is not meant to be lived alone. No matter how many friends and relatives you have, there is nothing like someone to grow old with.

MY daughter just changed jobs. I called her at the end of her first day to enquire how it went. She started telling me about how pleased she was with her new office and her immediate supervisor.

I couldn’t contain myself and interrupted her: “Okay good, but are there any nice guys around?”

That stopped her in mid-sentence and after a moment of silence, she sighed and said, “Oh Mum, give it up, will you?”

Yes, I was more concerned about my daughter’s dating prospects than her job prospects.

Why am I worried? Because she’s 25, single and not dating. As my friend intoned: “If they don’t meet the right guy in college or university, it will be very hard for them to do so later on.”

This may be true once but it is now debatable since women overwhelmingly make up the number of undergraduates in our public universities.

So London mayor Boris Johnson couldn’t be more wrong when he said Malaysian women were entering university in droves because “they have got to find men to marry”.

He made the quip upon hearing Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak say women make up 68% of the latest public university intake at the launch of the World Islamic Economic Forum.

And that is really the biggest obstacle to the dating-mating game – this changed power structure between men and women.

As I have said before, thanks to education, job opportunities and contraceptives, women have the means to shape and control their own destiny.

They are on the rise and taking over in many fields. I attended a meeting recently at a top local bank to discuss a project and in the room were representatives from the bank, the advertising agency, a TV station and my own media company – all women except for one chap who didn’t say a word throughout the meeting. I never found out who he is and what he was doing at the meeting.

That meeting wasn’t the only one I have attended that was dominated by women; it happens all the time.

Women are so high-achieving at a relatively young age – VPs or senior managers before they are 35 – that they are leaving the guys in the dust, both in the career and marriage stakes.

A dear friend who is very pretty, has a great personality and just turned 40 is a top manager in her company. She is single and, over coffee, she agreed that dating in the 21st century is complicated for this very reason.

Because she is able to more than provide for herself, she isn’t willing to settle for just any guy. And she doesn’t think it’s worth the effort.

And really, where have all the men gone? They can’t all be chefs or mobile phone salesmen and repairmen, can they?

According to a 2011 report, globally, attitudes to sex and marriage have changed under the pressures of wealth and modernisation.

In Western society, it has led to divorce and illegitimacy; in Asia “later marriage, less marriage and (to some extent) more divorce”.

The Economist goes on to say that in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong, women were marrying later (at 29-30 years old) and more and more are simply not marrying at all. In 2010, it was found that one-third of Japanese women in their 30s were single.

Not only that: 37% of all women in Taiwan aged 30-34 were single, as were 21% of 35 to 39-year-olds.

“If women are unmarried entering their 40s, they will almost certainly neither marry nor have a child,” said the report.

It went to say that the “Asian avoidance of marriage is new, and striking” because 30 years ago, just 2% of women were single in most Asian countries. Now it’s closer to 25% among women in their 30s.

Basically, Asian women are quite content to stay single because they don’t see a lot of benefits in getting hitched. They seem to take quite well to the celibate life too. At least that’s what the Economist says.

And it shows no sign of levelling off, according to Prof Gavin W. Jones of the National University of Singapore. In an April 2013 report, he says this East Asian trend in singlehood has accelerated in Japan and South Korea over the past decade, leaving the governments “nonplussed” as to how to reverse it.

In Malaysia, the situation may not be so dire but I am anxious for my daughters (my other daughter is 22 and not dating either) who, I think, are just not trying hard enough. They would rather chill at home than party or go clubbing.

I thoroughly irritate them with my attempts at match-making but I persist. After much prodding and telling them they were getting fat and unhealthy, they both joined a gym. It hasn’t helped in getting them dates though. Maybe most of the guys who love working out are not into girls.

Why do I persist? It’s not because I have no faith in my girls to take care of themselves; they are well educated and already hold decent jobs.

It’s because I believe life is not meant to be lived alone. No matter how many friends and relatives you have, there is nothing like having someone to grow old with and to be there for you no matter what.

True, marriage may not be for everyone and it doesn’t always work out. But I want my kids to have a shot at it. Like the wife of the protagonist in the movie, Shall We Dance?, says: We need a witness to our lives. There are a billion people on the planet ... I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage ... You’re saying ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness.’”

Where have all the young men gone? 

SO AUNTY , SO WHAT? BY JUNE H.L.WON

> The writer confesses she would be a much better witness to her own spouse if she didn’t spend so much time at work. Feedback to junewong@thestar.com.my or tweet #JuneHLWong