Qualified Students? Yeah right...

With regard to my earlier post, I have quoted facts and figures from various organizations (which are unknown to me until this morning) that are used mainly to pressure the present government for more financial assistance to the poor Malays in order to pursue tertiary education.

The question I would like to ask is: Why does the all the findings focused only on the Malays?

One of the headline stressed that 120,000 students are now in a state of "terbiar, menganggur dan tiada hala tuju" because they fail to get into the IPTA. I find this very disturbing if it is true.

I once went through similar experience where I fail in my application to IPTA after SPM. But that did not stopped me from sourcing for other avenues to further my education! I went to education fairs, listen to talks, even went through few weeks of Form Six before my application to a private university was finally approved.

Even when my application was approved, I was at another juncture to decide whether I should continue with my Form Six or to go for it. My parents actually pushed me to go for the IPTS that offered me although they know they will not be able to support me financially (as I have 3 more siblings that will graduate from their secondary education in subsequent years and they want to be fair to everyone). After listening to all sides including the headmaster of my school, I've decided to go for IPTS pre-U studies despite the financial burden.

Since then, I have to worry everyday on how to pay my daily expenses, hostel fees as well as tuition fees. There were no such thing as PTPTN back then during my pre-U studies and the scholarship offered were only to Bumi students. My father withdrew a third part of his EPF savings to help finance my studies for the first year in pre-U. We could not afford to borrow from the banks as the interest rate was very high and way beyond us.

After I passed my pre-U studies and started my first year in the undergraduate programme, PTPTN came to the rescue. Our badge of students was the first badge to apply for PTPTN loan. Back then, we were offered RM12,000 per year while our tuition fees alone are RM13,000 per year. However, our family did our best to overcome the financial burden and managed to push four of us through tertiary studies with additional help from relatives.

To me, if the so-called "qualified" 120,000 students are stucked with no where to go, then I guess they should do more research into the area. Instead of sitting there waiting for something to happen, why don't they do something about it. I am sure the opportunities available to them as Bumi cannot be less that what we non-Bumi are offered. If they still cannot see opportunities laid out to them (other than IPTA or MARA), then who are they to blame but themselves?

The government can only do so much, and the government coffers can only offer so much to the field of education. PTPTN was set up back then with initial funding from the government for the first few years of its operations in the hope of self-sustaining after the fund starts to receive payment for the loans given out. The aim of PTPTN was to help the poor and needy who have managed to secure a place in local higher institutes of learning be it IPTA or IPTS.

For the 120,000 "qualified students" out there, a piece of advise:

Failing to get into IPTA is not the end of the world, if you are truly qualified, you will be able to find other ways to further your study. If you continue to sit there and cry about it, I guess you do deserve to be where you are.

Do you think that everything will be handed to you on a silver platter?

Is time to wake up and smell the roses!