Why do we go to university

I know that I said that I'll lay of the UiTM issue for a while but I can't help but publish this insightful letter written by Oon Yeoh, my partner in crime for our Malaysiakini Realpolitik podcasts. I've reproduced the letter in full below.

Why do we go to university?
Oon Yeoh | Aug 19, 08 5:08pm

University life seems like an eternity ago and I barely remember any of my professors or the subjects they taught me. There was, however, one memorable lesson given by a guest lecturer whose name I cannot recall but whose message still resonates with me until today.

In light of the controversy that followed Selangor MB Khalid Ibrahim's suggestion that UiTM open itself to some non-Malays, I would like to share what I learned from that guest lecturer who was invited to give a talk in the sports journalism class I was taking.

He was a baseball expert but when he took to the podium, he told us that he was not going to talk about America's favourite pastime.
Instead, he had a question for all of us: "Why are you all in college?"

That seemed like an easy enough question to answer. Several students quickly put up their hands.

"So we can get a good job one day and make lots of money!" said one student, to loud laughter.

The lecturer smiled and said, "Come on, we all know that there are many people who never went to college and are rich beyond imagination."

"To get an education," said another student.

"You don't necessarily have to go to college to do that," the lecturer said. "Many people get their education through the school of hard knocks."

Another student said, "To get a degree. You can't get that unless you go to university."

To that, the lecturer replied, "That's not true. You can take correspondence courses."

At that point, everybody seemed stumped so the lecturer finally said, "The main reason you go to college is to learn to socialise" and he proceeded to elaborate.

When you graduate and enter the work force, you will be surrounded by generally like-minded people with roughly the same educational background and social status.

If you are in banking, the people around you would have probably studied finance. If you are in the medical field, the people you mingle with will be fellow doctors and nurses. And if you are in architecture, your network of friends and associates will inevitably be those in the building and construction industry.

Unless you happen to have a very unique job that requires you to mingle with a broad range of people, the harsh reality is that your world will be constrained by your career choices.

College is the only time in your life when you are exposed to all kinds of people from all walks of life and from very different backgrounds – unless of course you go to UiTM.

While preparing to do a podcast on the controversy surrounding Khalid's comments, my podcasting partner, Ong Kian Ming, said something remarkably similar to what the guest lecturer had said. "The whole idea of a university is for different people to get together and interact."

He's spot on, just as the guest lecturer was. If you don't learn how to deal with a myriad of people and expose yourself to different worldviews when you are in the spring time of your life – when you are young and carefree – how will you ever be able to do so when you enter the "real world" and have to cope with the challenges and insecurities of carving out a career and struggling to make ends meet every month?

As mentioned earlier, your world will naturally constrained by the career track that you choose. But if you've had exposure to diversity early on, you would have a better chance of broadening your network beyond what would normally be the case – because you learned how to do so when you were young.

I was very lucky to have attended a cosmopolitan American university which had students from all over the US and indeed, the world. I had classmates from every continent. Some were rich, some poor; some were from developed countries, some from the third world. But in college, all of us were equals - we attended class together, we did assignments together, we played together.

Not to denigrate the value of academic lessons – they are important, of course – but my experiences in dealing with and socialising with classmates who were very different from me played a bigger role in my personal growth and development than any specific subjects I learned.

Granted, there are no universities in Malaysia that can offer the diversity you could find in popular American universities, which make it a point to take in students from all over the world.

But Malaysia does have a pretty diverse population. Even without the benefit of foreign students, there's a lot that our young people can learn from schoolmates of different ethnicity, religions and backgrounds. What a shame if we don't give them a chance to do that.

In our most recent podcast article, Kian Ming and I asked: "Can UiTM really aspire to be a world-class university if all the students there are of one particular race?" The people who are protesting Khalid's suggestion would do well to ponder upon this rhetorical question.

UiTM - The Political Angle

This will be the last post I will make on the UiTM issue unless something new crops up. In a piece written by myself and Oon Yeoh in Malaysiakini, as part of our regular Realpolitik podcasts, we examine the political angle of Khalid's statements.


Selangor MB's unnecessary honesty
Ong Kian Ming & Oon Yeoh | Aug 16, 08 10:39am

Sometimes, politicians make remarks which are calculated to win over certain political constituencies. At other times, politicians make remarks without much regard to the political impact of their statements.

Selangor Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim's statement on opening up UiTM to non-Malays clearly falls in the latter category. While those statements were made in good faith, Khalid's political inexperience showed when he made those remarks, which does not win him additional non-Malay support and probably lost him some Malay support at a crucial time for PKR and for Pakatan Rakyat.

Khalid Ibrahim's statements were not intended to win over non-Malay support, contrary to allegations by some, including the UiTM vice-chancellor, that they were made in view of the Permatang Pauh by-election.

Non-Malays were not clamouring to get into UiTM in the first place and in all likelihood, even if 10 percent of the places there were opened up to non-Malays, it would not be filled up easily. The opening up of the Mara colleges to non-Malays is a good example in point.

Much more salient to the non-Malay community are the issues of the allocation of JPA (Public Service Department) scholarships and the quotas in public universities rather than the opening up of UiTM to non-Malays.

Ironically, Khalid's statements were made in response to a question on how the education standards at UiTM could be improved for the benefit of the Malays. All this nuance was somehow lost in the clamour of protests by certain groups of UiTM students, the vice-chancellor and a litany of other Malay rights groups.

Khalid quickly found himself embroiled in a situation which economists or political scientists would term 'an asymmetry of preferences'. On the one hand, there was a group of highly motivated individuals who strongly objected to the spirit of Khalid's suggestion (and it was only that, a suggestion) and who were ready to mobilise support against Khalid.

On the other hand, there are also Malays who feel that opening up the UiTM to non-Malays might not be such a bad idea but who do not feel strongly enough to mount protests in support of Khalid's suggestion.

This comes at a time when the 'Malay' credentials of PKR and Pakatan is increasingly under attack.

PAS' commitment to Pakatan has been questioned on the grounds that Malay rights and Islam had been sidelined, Ezam Mohd Nor quitting PKR on the grounds that it was becoming a multiracial rather than a Malay-led (albeit multiracial) party and the accusations by Dr Mahathir Mohamad that the Malays were losing their rights in their own country are all examples of politicians playing up fears among the Malay community, a fear which PKR and Pakatan cannot afford to ignore. Khalid's remarks just added more fuel to this already combustible mixture.

Lost amidst of the political rhetoric surrounding Khalid's remarks, was the larger question which he was trying to address. Can UiTM aspire to be a 'world-class' university if all the students in this university was of one particular race? Is this a realistic goal, especially given that these students are not admitted on a particularly selective basis?

This is akin to saying that we want to be Harvard but we don't care about the quality of the students admitted as long as they are from one ethnic group. Do the UiTM students suffer in any way in the long term, in terms of their career and their outlook in life, because they studied in a mono-ethnic, mono-religious environment?

These are certainly issues which should be addressed and these are challenges that will long remain after the political rhetoric has died down.

Symbolic measures won’t help

Even those who support Khalid's suggestion need to question the basis of their support. Will opening up UiTM to non-Malays necessarily improve the education standards there?

Our top public universities such as UM, UKM and USM comprise of students from all ethnic groups but that has not prevented the quality and standard of education there to plummet over the past few decades?

Do they seriously think that there will be a sudden clamour among the non-Malays to try to get into UiTM if spaces are made available, especially given the many other choices available to them?

Will there be beneficial interaction between the Malays and non-Malays if spaces are opened up?

The sad truth is that our public university system cannot be revived with just a few symbolic measures here and there. It requires an overhaul that involves many structural changes that goes far beyond changing just the ethnic composition of the student body.

Khalid is powerless in his capacity as MB of Selangor to enact any changes within UiTM which is under the federal jurisdiction of Higher Education Ministry. He was well aware of this when he made his now controversial remarks.

In view of the aftermath, Khalid would surely think twice before he says something which could be interpreted as equally controversial and political damaging, for him, his party and Pakatan. Sometimes honesty might not be the best policy, especially when you have others ready to pounce upon and exploit your statements.

Spotlight on UiTM - The Issues

After focusing on the UiTM VC previously, I want to touch on the issues highlighted by this recent controversy.

Let's step away from the politics of the statement and examine the its implications. If the VC and some of the UiTM students want to maintain UiTM as a mono-ethnic institution, then they have to consider the following. They should abandon any pretense of trying to achieve a 'world class' status university. Not that this was achievable in the first place anyways. But there is no university in the world that comprise of only one ethnic group and can be considered anywhere close to first class. Furthermore, it's not as if UiTM selects the best and the brightest among the Malays / Bumiputeras in the first place. My understanding is that it's pretty easy to get in, as long as you are a Malay / Bumi. Being mono-ethnic and being non selective, this VC and others following in his footsteps should just give up the pretense of trying to build a 'world class' university.

I've not thought about this issue from this angle since I always assumed that one of the main pillars surrounding university life was the pursuit of scholarship in the midst of diversity, not just in terms of ideas but also amidst people of different ethnic groups, income levels, etc... The idea that a university can call itself as such but reserve its places totally for students of one ethnic group just belies belief in some sense. We've always had ethnic quotas in our public universities but there was always ethnic diversity. Walk into any university in the US, from the best like Harvard to some which have never been heard of in Malaysia, or go to any university in any developed country, you'll see students of different ethnicities and nationality.

For our Malay / Bumi readers who disagree with Khalid's suggestion, try to answer this question - Name me one other university in any country, developed or developing, where the students are of only one ethnicity. If you want to argue semantics in that UiTM comprises more than one ethnic group (Malays and the different Bumiputera groups in Sabah and Sarawak), then do this - name me one other university in any country, developed or developing, which does not allow members of a certain race entry into that university.

You had this kind of policy in the American South before desegregation and you had this kind of policy in apartheid South Africa. But now in South Africa, the only other country in the world that practices affirmative action for the majority population, universities are totally desegregated and there are no universities which are reserved only for the black population.

In other words, Malaysia is probably the only country in the world which restricts citizens of a certain race (in this care, more than one race) from applying and gaining entry into one of its universities (or in effect, the entire UiTM system).

In this light, one might even say that UiTM does not even fulfill the conventional understanding of what a university is, at least not by international standards.

Let's take this a step further. Let's say that 10% of the places in UiTM are opened up to non-Malays. What is the likelihood that these places will be snapped up in a hurry? My sense is that they will not. 10% of the places in the MARA colleges were opened up to non-Malays a few years back and indications are that this quota is nowhere near being filled. There are just too many options for non-Malays out there these days. The many public unis, the private colleges, the many twinning programs etc... makes UiTM probably one of the last places that they would want to go. If this is the case, then the argument that non-Malays would be somehow 'stealing' the places of Malays does not stand. In any case, the options for Malay students in terms of universities are probably more than that of the non-Malays. It is not as if a Malay / Bumi student who fails to get into UiTM will not have the option of going to another public uni.

This is not to say that I agree that Khalid's suggestion will necessarily solve the problem which he identified. His reasoning was that by allowing non-Malays and international students to gain entry into UiTM, this would increase the standards of UiTM as well as giving the opportunity for the Malay / Bumi students in UiTM to mix with students of other ethnic groups and hence be more exposed to the world and can have better career prospects.

This might be a nice ideal to have but I suspect that allowing non-Malays and internationals to gain entry into UiTM will neither improve the standards of education in UiTM nor will it necessarily be better for the Malay / Bumi students in terms of exposure. After all, UM, USM and UKM, probably the top three public unis in Malaysia are ethnically mixed but this has not prevented the standards there from dropping over the past few decades. And there is not guarantee that the current situation of de facto racial segregation in our public unis will not be replicated in UiTM if non-Malays are allowed in.

UiTM needs much more than just allowing non-Malays entry if it wants to improve itself. There needs to be wholesale structural re-arrangement is this is to happen.

Ultimately, the losers from this whole episode will likely to be the UiTM students. The other public unis, especially the research universities - UM, USM, UKM, UPM - are moving forward and trying to be more open. If there is going to be any improvement in our universities, it is likely to start with these public universities and not UiTM, especially given that it has a VC who is an UMNO 'lifer' and an ITM 'lifer'.

P.S. I think that another negative side effect of this episode is that some non-Bumi employers might discriminate, implicitly or explicitly, against UiTM graduates, exacerbating the already serious problem about unemployed UiTM graduates.

Spotlight on UiTM VC

After reading about UiTM students protesting against the Selangor MB's proposal to open up 10% of the places at UiTM to non-Malays, I decided to do a bit of 'investigative reporting' on UiTM. Initially I wanted to write about the philosophy of UiTM and how it might or might not be compatible with allowing non-Malays into UiTM. I'll write about this in part II of this spotlight but for Part I, I want to point our readers to the qualifications of the current VC of UiTM, Dato' Seri Prof Dr Ibrahim Abu Shah.

The esteemed VC lashed out at Khalid Ibrahim saying that "UiTM was the last educational bastion for the Malays and other Bumiputeras to help change their lot, hence no quarters should interfere with its founding objectives and administration."

So I thought that it was fair game for us to take a closer look at the qualifications of the VC. It is not the first time that the VC has appeared on this blog. Tony has highlighted him before here, here and here.

His VC webpage can be accessed here and he has been the VC of UiTM since 2001. He is an UiTM 'lifer', if you will. He graduated with a Diploma in Public Administration from ITM in 1971 (before ITM achieved its current university status). He then worked as an Executive Officer in the Malaysian Treasury from 1971 to 1972. He then left to further his studies in the US and obtained his BA in Economics from Ohio University in 1974 and an MA in Sociology from the same university in 1975 (must have been a good student to finish a BA and MA in 3 years!).

He then came back and was the deputy dean of students affairs at ITM Shah Alam, the site of its current flagship campus from 1976 to 1982. He then transitioned to a senior lecturer from 1981 to 1991. During this time, he took leave and obtained his PhD from the University of Maryland in Government and Politics. (For those of you who don't know, Maryland is a pretty good state university and I know that their polisci department is pretty good as well)

The title of his dissertation was:

"The use of higher education as an intervention strategy in the economic development of a plural society : a case study of Mara Institute of Technology in the economic policy of Malaysia"

In fact, this piece of work is the only academic reference I could find for the esteemed VC when I did a google scholar search under his name.

Upon his return from the US, newly minted PhD in hand, he was made the Provost of ITM Sarawak. During this time, I'm guessing that ITM expanded throughout the country in an aggressive manner. He was made the Deputy VC (Academics) in 1998 and because VC in 2001.

So, let's summarize his work and life experience thus far. He got his diploma from ITM and apart from one year at the Malaysian treasury and his time in the US, he has worked in an ITM all of his adult life.

His homepage gives a list of his publications including the must read "Gaya Hidup Remaja Masa Kini. (1997) Shah Alam: Biroteks, Institut Teknologi MARA" and "Pendidikan Bermutu Masyarakat Sejahtera. (1990) Kuching: Education Department, Sarawak". None of his publications are with a recognized refereed journal or publisher. Most, if not all of his publications, are with local publishers including UiTM, his own institution. Almost all of his publications have to do with his favorite subject, you guessed it - ITM.

Having established his academic credentials, which are of course worthy of a Professorship, let's examine some of his other, "credentials". This is what is listed under 'political contributions'.

1. UMNO Member (1968 - present)
2. Youth Leader, UMNO Kg. Pulai (1981- 1983)
3. Committee Member, UMNO Youths Jasin, Melaka (1982 - 1983)
4. Chairman (Founder) UMNO Club, Carbondale USA (1983)
5. President, UMNO USA Club (1985 - 1987)

So apart from being an ITM 'lifer', he is apparently an UMNO 'lifer' as well including being the founder of the UMNO Club in the US, probably in the first year of his PhD in Maryland.

Under 'outside contributions', he is listed as being an "Exco of Alumni UMNO Club (oversea) (1995 – present)". Ironically he is also a member of the "Committee of Advisor National Unity (Panel) February 2007 – December 2008" and an occasional speaker at BTN forums. Boy, what would I give to be a fly in the wall in one of his BTN lectures.

Under 'forums and talks', the following is listed:

"Talk to all Malaysians UMNO division heads about "Gerakan Anti Kerajaan Pelajar-Pelajar di Kampus-Pengalaman UiTM" – 15 November 2001"

If having an in-depth knowledge of the inner workings of UiTM and being a loyal UMNO supporter are qualifications for the position of the VC of UiTM, the esteemed VC is probably the most qualified person in the universe. But if academic experience and an open outlook are the criteria, then... you guys finish the sentence.