CURRENT ISSUES IN EDUCATION [EDU 646]1

2. FIX EDUCATION FOR THE BUMIPUTRA: ACADEMIC ARTICLE

SUMMARY

This article written by John Leem K. and taken from Infernal Ramblings;

A Malaysian Perspective on Politics, Society and Economics’ blog. If you look at the title
itself, you may think that the author is trying to blame on what has been done towards
the Bumiputra. However, this article is about blaming the Bumiputra for being
‘ungrateful’ towards so many advantages given for them in education system compare
to non-bumiputra. Even though they have been given many benefits, sadly, they are still
left very far behind the others. The author blames the education system that starts in
primary and secondary school. It is too late for the government to help the Bumiputra to
be competent and qualified if the government realized and making a lot of efforts at
university-level. Rather than giving them money for scholarships and so on, the author
suggests the ministry to invest the money into developing the education at the primary
and secondary school level.
 CURRENT ISSUES IN EDUCATION [EDU 646]2

STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

There are several strengths and weaknesses can be detected in this article. The
strength that can be seen in this article is the author says his point straight forward and
the use of language are simple and ‘hit’ directly to certain people and organization. It is
understood that the author wants the government to stop ‘babysitting’ the Bumiputra in
their education and give them improvement at the primary and secondary school
system.

The weakness is the author seems bias on the non-bumiputra side at the first
part of the article where he mentioned all the advantages that have been given to
Bumiputra compared to the non-Bumiputra. The author is being stereotype and put
exaggeration on the words ‘we do not see too many successful Bumiputra’ which is
untrue because they are many successful Bumiputra at the outside but they are not
promoted. Other than that, the author did not give the evidence what has been done to
the money on his statement ‘All the money we are pouring into helping the unemployed
graduates of our nation, who are mostly Malay…’ It is such an unfair statement.

Other than that, the author did not mention specifically what needs to be done at
the primary and secondary school system. He just mentioned to well prepare the
Bumiputra at the primary and secondary school level to handle the university-level work.
If the author tries to persuade and enlighten certain people and organization to open
their eyes and do something over this matter, he must provide much evidence on where
the money has been wasted and give statistic of unsuccessful and unemployed
Bumiputra. Many qualified and reliable researches also must been done to

POSSIBLE IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

CONCLUSION