Meritocracy

Excerpts taken from The Malay Ideals (2002) ; Chapter 8 : Wealth and Poverty

Other than this, the culture of meritocracy has to be introduced after the targets of the NEP have been achieved. The NEP in education has indirectly made the Malay students more complacent in the academic area because they know that they will be favoured when it comes to job selection and opportunity in government service. Therefore there is no need to strive hard for a good degree and this eventually makes many of them second-class workers in terms of quality and professionalism. The culture of mediocrity does not guarantee that the best brains get to develop their potential. Students may be dismissed because the places for them may have been taken by less able candidates. Therefore, even if a person were capable, he would not get anywhere had he not been able to educate himself through other means. Thus, his potential and the country's potential progress has been jeopardised by limiting the number of the most able candidates into higher education.