Quality & Merit Over Free Tuition

By: Natalie Shobana Ambrose

theSun, Malaysia (pg 10)

April 19^th,  2012
http://www.thesundaily.my/news/340297  

The debate between free and fee education has been ongoing for years in many countries. America at one point held the gold standard of having an enviable higher education system, until many graduates entered the workforce in huge debt from student loans. In recent times, images of students in Europe taking to the streets after many felt they were being priced out of getting a degree have appeared in our newsfeeds. These scenes have become all too familiar on our side of the world.

Let's face it, when choosing a course of study, affordability plays a very important part and is a deter-mining factor for many in which university and course to apply for. Only a privileged handful have the luxury of not needing to weigh the cost.

Student loans and rising tuition fees have been the bane of many – a burden even America's first couple has in recent times admitted to – stating it took them 10 years to pay off their student loans. They were paying more in student loans than their mortgage, and were still paying off the loans when they were meant to be saving for their daughters' university tuition.

It's understandable then why thousands of students from different latitudes have marched against rising tuition fees and student loans, and this week those voices are heard in Dataran Merdeka.

Yet I can't help but ask should education be free in Malaysia. In a country where there are too many disparities in university entrance qualifications based on race, and where multiple affirmative action mechanisms hold strong against entrance through merit, the fight for free education seems superfluous compared to the struggle for equality and university entrance based on merit.

However, the question remains – should tertiary education be free and loans taken be forgiven? It is a known fact that many countries burn borrowed money on wars and yet the education sector fights for scraps and is left wanting. As the saying goes "It'll be a great day when education gets all the money it wants and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy bombers"; though in our context, more money is poured into the pockets of corruption and that's where the problem lies, not in free education.

Human nature is such that when something is free, we value it less. So perhaps in the case of students having their "week of action" in the middle of Kuala Lumpur, instead of insisting on no fees, start demanding a higher quality of education. Demand intellectual honesty from yourselves and of your lecturers.

And insist that the bar be raised and our institutes of higher education be of a standard we can be proud of – at par with our Asian counterparts at the very least.

Who wouldn't want free tuition? Right now, however, it is not a workable solution – that is a fact. It may be a political pawn, but the reality of this promise is elusive at best. Having all student loans forgiven is also not a sustainable resolution. What happens to those who went through the system, paid their loans and are now forced to pay more taxes to support a growing generation with a sense of entitlement?

This does not mean that student loans should be high – they however should be paid. Government agencies giving out loans are not in place to be money makers and wheeler-dealers funding the many under-qualified private higher education institutes mushrooming around the country. They are in place to help students achieve their dreams, and instead right now, are leaving students under-qualified and in deep debt.

It is agreed that a better system needs to be in place and that has to be worked on now, not tomorrow or after the election. Free tertiary education is sadly not a basic right or an entitlement. Loans taken and unpaid only deprive and steal from the next generation – a legacy I'm sure this socially aware generation would not want on its conscience.

Many countries around the world are shifting from free to fee education, not the other way round. As it is, educationists are paid far too little and are undervalued in our society. What will happen then if tuition fees are binned?

As we grow as a nation, there are three goals that we might agree upon according to economist Jeffery Sachs – "efficiency (prosperity), fairness (opportunity for all) and sustainability (a safe environment for today and the future)". Perhaps then the bottom line is no to free tuition but yes to equality first, a raised quality of education received and paying back loans taken in order to achieve these goals.

Natalie admires those who match action to their words, but hopes that these causes being championed are not hijacked by political parties diverting focus away from the real issues at hand.                                                   

Comments: letters@thesundaily.com

From Diversity To Unity

By: Natalie Shobana Ambrose

theSun, Malaysia (pg 10)

April 5^th,  2012
http://www.thesundaily.my/news/340297  

Oftentimes I’ve found myself in a little bit of a pickle, feeling “in- between” when it comes to my identity. Where I am from is contradicting to where I belong, and I suspect I’m not alone in this conundrum. I look Indian, but when I’m in India – the conversation goes something like this.

Shopkeeper: Aap kaisey hain? (How are you?)

Me: Sorry, I don’t speak Hindi. I’m Malaysian.

Shopkeeper: (Shakes his head) No? Aren’t you Indian? You look like one of us. But your parents are Indian ... you should speak Hindi.

Me: No, they were born in Malaysia and I speak Malay. 

The shopkeeper looks confused, and I find myself feeling frustrated.

But when I’m in Malaysia, my Indian friends call me a coconut or more specifically “a black-bottomed white chick”, but to the other races, my racial designation is very much Indian.

My problem, however, is that I’m not at all comfortable being defined only by my race; but that is what our Malaysian definition of multiculturalism has shifted towards.

Multiculturalism has been the stamp of our nation and a brand we proudly sell of what Malaysia is. While some neighbouring countries chose the path of nationalism, emphasising unity and civic nation-making, we were determined to highlight our differences and decided that ethnic nation-making suited us best.

We chose to recognise, appreciate and celebrate our diversity, packaging it as a unified front. However, the foundations of human inequality lie in the fact of human diversity (Kukathas). And inequality is something that is less and less tolerated in this day and age.

It is implied that there was some sort of agreement to do so. Yet, if we were to imagine a social contract of any sort, what principles would we use?

Each of us would have a different preference depending on our background, ethnicity, religious beliefs, social standing and so forth.

Obviously a compromise would have to be made and some would have better bargaining skills than others.

So then, can we assume that the agreement was a just and fair one?

Michael J. Sandel who teaches Justice at Harvard University takes it further in a thought experiment suggesting the outcome we would chose having not known our ethnic, religious or social standing in society would be an original position of equality. Meaning, all of us would choose equality above all; equal basic liberties, social and economic equality.

But how does equality fare when we are all situated differently?

That is where we are in Malaysia. Wanting equality but denied it because of race when equality should be the collective privilege of all Malaysians. So instead of moving towards being a more unified nation, pockets have given up on assimilating and unifying because at the end of the day, it is drilled into you that you are different, even though Malaysia is the only home you know.

One basic illustration is a simple analysis of the newspaper circulation figures from Malaysia’s Audit Bureau of Circulation which is categorised by language. A rough count shows that there are 13 Chinese newspapers with the highest circulation compared to the five in Bahasa Malaysia and seven English newspapers. It’s not that we should abandon our mother tongue; the thorny question is, how does this reflect a shared destiny, a sense of belonging and common identity?

If what we keep emphasising is how different we are, what unifying ground do we share? Conceivably in the past, communal frameworks seemed successful, but in today’s world, “the majority-minority distinction works against building cohesive nations” (Alagappa).

What then is the key to moving from diversity towards unity? A slogan doesn’t do much, but a change in mindset, speech and policies towards an equal society makes a marked and sincere difference.

Perhaps the key is not to see ourselves in terms of pockets of ethnic groups and emphasise our diversity, but to follow a more patriotic path. Then maybe we’d be on the same side, bettering our nation and not feeling like in-betweens.

Natalie is encouraged by the words  on the Great Seal of the United States:
“E Pluribus Unum” (Out of Many, One).

Comments: letters@thesundaily.com