Stop harping about scholarships given to Palestinian youths
By Stephen Ng
A banner circulated widely on chat groups complain that
Palestinian youths are given scholarships, while local students, especially the
non-Malays, get crumbs.
I have been observing a certain trend when one issue
after another issue is played up to create people’s dissatisfaction against the
ruling coalition.
While I have expressed my disgust with education minister, Maszlee Malik over his insensitive remarks lately, and have urged him either to resign or face the sack over his incompetence as a minister, we have to be fair to him.
Giving scholarships to foreigners is a good initiative
if we believe that the world is indeed a global village. It is better that the
youths from Palestine are given a good education than to be recruited by terrorists
to carry out their agenda.
Before this, the private universities have also given
ASEAN scholarships to deserving students in other ASEAN countries. The argument
that our children should be given the priority over foreigners is therefore an
all too self-centred worldwiew.
In the past, missionaries collected donations to build
schools in Malaysia. If the Britons had complained that young people in the Far
East were being treated much better than their own children, most of us would
still be living on tree tops.
Many Malaysians have also benefited from Rhodes
scholarships and ASEAN scholarships offered by the Singapore government. Even
universities in UK, Australia and the United States offer scholarships to
Malaysian students. One of my nephews studied medicine on scholarship from John
Liverpool University based on his results.
Just as the nation progresses, we should be called upon
to help the youth in war-torn countries like Myanmar. And, Palestine is no difference!
The scholarships are in fact given by the private
universities. Does the argument that local students have to pay for the
scholarships given to these Palestinian youths? Truth has to be told that a lot
of the scholarships given by private universities are, in fact, not out of their
bursaries but merely student numbers. The students only get a small stipend to
spend.
All private higher education institutions operate on a
fixed operating cost. After the fixed costs are met, whatever they earn minus
the variable costs of each enrolled student is their profit margin.
Therefore, to run a Business lecture for a hundred
students is the same as to run one with 90 students. The only difference is
that the lecturers have to mark the additional ten examination papers. Without
going in depth, this may sound like a simplistic answer but it is meant for the
ordinary people who have no financial background.
Therefore, when universities claim that they have given
away millions of Ringgit in scholarships, this is nothing more than just some
variable costs and their investors’ lower returns.
Most private universities do this as a gimmick to
attract the good students which will ultimately boost their ranking. Without
denying it, most of the entrepreneurs do it out of a sense of corporate social responsibility
to help the marginalised community.
Hence, when I read the explanation that these
scholarships were whipped up from the private universities themselves, I cannot
but agree with Maszlee that it was a good foreign policy to give away
scholarships to the Palestinian youths.
STEPHEN NG is an ordinary
citizen with an avid interest in following political developments in the
country since 2008. After May 9, 2018, he is now involved in contributing ideas
towards rebuilding of the nation.
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