PSD flip-flop must end

I REFER to Wong Chun Wai’s article “Our young talents, our assets” ( Sunday Star, March 26) with the standfirst: “We should treasure our up-and-coming bright minds instead of confusing them and making them feel unappreciated. We want to keep our brains in this country, remember?” This statement is precise, sharp and hits the right chord.

Year after year, our students are besieged by feelings of confusion and lack of direction because of the changing policies of the Government on the awarding of education scholarships especially for SPM candidates.

I believe many students who sat for the SPM exams in 2016 would have thought that with hard work and perseverance, they would be able to apply for JPA scholarships and go on to fulfil their ambition. They would have planned ahead, starting in Form 4, on the number of additional subjects they could take in order to obtain a minimum of 9A+ to apply for the Government’s JPA Bursary Programme. For two years, these students would have studied hard, survived intense class schedules, spent additional hours attending classes for the extra subjects, and did their best in their co-curriculum activities before sailing through the SPM examination.

When they got their SPM result, these hopeful students would have cheered and celebrated their achievements with family and friends.

But their joyful moment would be short-lived. Without any sign or notice, the Public Service Department (PSD) suddenly announced that only those who scored all A+ are eligible to apply for the JPA scholarship. This means that if they took 11 subjects, they would need to score 11A+ instead of the minimum 9A+ to qualify. These students would have felt like a nuclear bomb had been dropped on them.

And as Wong highlighted in his article, it was only after much intervention from Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong, Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Dr Ali Hamsa and PSD director-general Datuk Seri Zainal Rahim Seman that the issue was resolved.

Despite this, the damage has been done.

In future, uncertainty over the policy for granting JPA scholarships will hang over our students, parents and teachers. For families who can afford to send their children to local private or overseas higher education institutions, this so called flip-flop policy does not affect them. But it’s not so for the not so well-to-do families, who consider government scholarships as an important option to help them through tertiary education.

Instead of retaining our young talents, this flip-flop policy would drive them to look to neighbouring countries such as Singapore, Taiwan, China, and Australia, which offer attractive scholarships to high-performing students. Every year, these countries advertise aggressively to compete for our high achievers.

The lack of a clear-cut scholarship policy will only assist these countries to “kidnap” our high-achieving students.

I totally agree with Wong’s views that “Malaysia needs to encourage, recognise, support and keep our best young talents in this country. Make the best rule work to keep the best.”

Unless the Government introduces and practises a firm policy on the award of scholarships, our future students will continue to be confused, uneasy, and lack direction to chart their education path. And worse, the brain drain will continue in the coming years, and that would be a great loss to our nation.