OpinionIt’s time to end Malaysia’s educational apartheid facing students from Chinese, Indian, other minority groups

Affirmative action policies favouring Bumiputra at the expense of Malaysian Chinese, Indians, and indigenous communities are racial discrimination

The sad truth is that such a system benefits no one, as it engenders even those it privileges with a value system stuck in the swamp of racism and privilege

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Students at a school in Puchong, Malaysia. Photo: Reuters

Published: 11:00am, 20 Mar 2022Updated: 11:55am, 21 Mar 2022

This month is perhaps the most trying period in the young lives of Malaysians aged 16 to 17, given they are currently sitting for the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM), or the Malaysian Certificate of Education examinations.

For many teenagers, these exams will determine the course of their life, even their life ambitions: can I be a doctor, or a pilot, or a researcher in tropical diseases? Such dreams will be shaped by these exams, given the next critical stage of their young lives – the path to university education – is decided by their SPM grades.

Over half a million students will be sitting the SPM, in a year where they have had to endure studying through a pandemic that’s crippled the usual modes of classroom education and social learning.

Given all this, one would think that society at large, including the state’s institutions, would be well aware of the mental stress being imposed on this young generation and their parents, and thus understand they have an obligation to assist them in all ways possible.