Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak just doesn't seem to get it - that a higher education system based on meritocracy but infused with racist policies just won't work. In fact it just won't do at all. It's totally unacceptable to all Malaysians, including those born in Malaysia, whatever their race.

The meritocracy system - apparently having supplanted the old quota system of admitting Malaysians to the country's tertiary education institutions - is nothing more than a Badawi government fix: it hasn't supplanted the old system but merely had the old system grafted onto the meritocracy one.

Try picking it apart. You can't. Which is why Najib then tells those who failed to gain entry into a Malaysian university that they may appeal their case to the higher education ministry. Najib says: "I'm sure the ministry will consider their appeal".

'Sure'? That's it? And we're supposed to take his word on this given the track record of the Barisan Nasional government since the education system was overhauled - for the worse?

Don't believe me? Here's proof (in the pudding): Of the 779 candidates who got into medicine in public universities, 439 (56.4%) were Malays, 297 (38.1%) Chinese and 43 (5.5%) Indians.

And here's another typical bit of Najib doublespeak on public policymaking: "But we cannot review the system now. We have begun implementing it. We should give it a chance. After that we can evaluate the system."

Don't buy that one, either. Because a good piece of public policymaking is processorial, and by definition, it constantly undergoes critical monitoring, evaluation and policy correction. That's what a competent bureaucracy would be doing. Except we've never had a competent bureaucracy in Malaysia since 1957.

A public policymaking system isn't one where one waits for disaster to happen before acting, which is the hallmark of Malaysian public policymaking at its best.

Relatedly, in recent media reports, so much emphasis was placed on new blood taking over the helm of public and semi-public corporations. This new blood is invariably of the Oxbridge variety.

No doubt about Malaysia still suffering from the cultural cringe, for all its post-colonial whining, but it's a damning indictment all the same on the real value of higher education among Malaysia's tertiary education institutions.

For only Oxbridge graduates - and they'd have to be bumis of course - get the plum state-backed jobs. So why even bother having a higher education ministry at all?