Conspiracy among private institutions of higher learning

A week ago I wrote in jest about Orang Tionghua disalahkan lagi because the Chinese are convenient punching bags since Merdeka and indeed way before. It might have been in jest on my part but others obviously don't think so.

Read this extract from the Malay Mail Online:

The convention of Malay rights group (National Unity Convention) ..... alleged of a possible conspiracy among private institutions of higher learning (IPTS) to grant non-Bumiputera students higher grades, which it claimed could escalate into a racial issue that can disturb national unity.

“The Malaysian government must study the reasons behind the academic decline of Bumiputera students in public tertiary institutions, compared to non-Bumiputera students,” read a draft of the memorandum prepared during the convention today.

I suppose that explains the real reason, the conspiracy behind non bumis getting higher grades, and that it wasn't about the culture of placing importance in education as well as parental and society's support. Maybe an alien from Alpha Centauri star system had provided tuitorial help as well.

On Chinese culture which places humongous importance on education, it explains why education reigns paramount among the many needs of Chinese society in Malaysia, and thus becomes a very sensitive issue with Chinese Malaysians. That also has been why the Chinese in Malaysia have virtually abandoned the national education system which they consider to have dodgy standards.

Chinese parents are known to mortgage their houses and worldly possessions to send their children abroad for tertiary education in Australia, New Zealand, UK, Canada, USA, China, Taiwan, India, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, etc. Many others have also left very comfortable positions and upper middle class lives to migrate abroad for their children's educational needs.

The reasons for seeking university education abroad even though the financial cost threatens their economic position are three-fold – the dodgy standards of local universities, difficulties of getting a scholarship, but most significant of all, the very slim chance of even securing a place in a university study of their preference because the government’s affirmative action have marginalized many Chinese and Indians.

On parental and society's support for the education of the young, the people of the Far East in particular, these being the Chinese, Koreans, Japanese and Vietnamese, those steeped in Confucian doctrines, take their children’s education very very seriously.

It's taken so seriously that, for example, a TV documentary informed us that in Korea, during high school or college examination days, government and commercial offices reschedule and stagger their business hours so that morning traffic would be decently light in order not to delay the aspiring scholars when they travel in their cars or taxis to the examination halls.

Meanwhile in China, the authority has taken the precautions one step further, by considering the feng shui aspects of the very important examination days.

During the day prior to school and college examination days, taxi companies in Shanghai would recall all taxis with the number ‘4’ on their licence plates so that the budding scholars won’t be hexed with the ‘shi’ (or in Cantonese ‘sei’) word. That's because the word sounds like ‘death’ in Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien and Japanese, and ‘loser’ in the Shanghai language.

Nothing must be left to chance to affect the examinees’ prospects, not even a word pun which could invoke bad feng shui.

And don't forget we are talking about China, a communist ruled country viewing and considering Confucian doctrines on education and feng shui seriously during school & college examination days.

But hey ho, we Malaysians don't worry about such silly stuff because tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of our school students could easily attain 17 A's in their final school examinations. I'm ashamed to say in my days I attempted only 9 subjects. We, that is excluding kaytee, are f**king smart lah!

So there you are, where undeniably the convention of Malay rights group in its allegation of a possible conspiracy among private institutions of higher learning (IPTS) to grant non-Bumiputera students higher grades can only be spot on in their suspicion.

However, on 2nd thoughts, maybe the alien tutors were not from the Centauri star system but the Andromeda Galaxy.