Outcry over retaining pre-university ethnic admission quota

A recent decision by the Malaysian government to retain the ethnic quota for the pre-university matriculation programme to favour the bumiputras – or ethnic Malays – has been met with criticism from various segments of society, writes Tho Xin Yi for Channel News Asia.

Educationists, politicians and students alike said a reluctance to radically overhaul the policy goes against the Pakatan Harapan’s pledge of creating a merit-based society. The outcry began with the Education Ministry announcing that the quota – 90% of seats reserved for bumiputras and the remaining for non-bumiputras – would remain in place, and that last year’s 2,200 seats for Indian students and an additional 1,000 for the Chinese was only a “one-off” initiative.

The matriculation programme is a pre-university course introduced in 1998 to create more opportunities for bumiputras – sons of the soil – to seek higher education in science, technology and applied arts. Subsequently, 10% of the seats were opened up to non-bumiputras beginning 2003, hence putting in place the 90:10 ethnic quota.
Full report on the Channel News Asia site