Dr Musa Mohd Nordin's contention that 4As are not a divine right to study medicine is true. Neither is race.

Every year the same problem rears its ugly head. Always it is the Chinese and Indians who have good results that suffer. No Malay with the same results has that problem. The silence from the Malay students over the past one month is very significant.

They don't have a problem, and even if they did, it would have been solved at source and by policy. They would all be overseas on Public Services Department scholarships.

No doubt that good academic results are not everything but what have we got to replace them? In developed countries, academic results from common examinations are used; interviews are done and then the criteria is set in stone. If you meet it, you get in. Period.

Having interviews to assess suitability is good on paper - but who does the interviewing and what criteria do they use to assess suitability? What's the composition of the interviewing board? If there is no transparency or objectivity then credibility will suffer.

Dr Musa must be aware that Malay students have a different access route to university. The matriculation examination is designed to increase the number of Malay graduates at double the rate, i.e. two batches of matriculation students to one batch of STPM students.

Surely he must be aware, not only of different content of the courses, but also in the pass rate. Previous statements from members of the Universiti Malaya staff union have said that Malay students are pushed through to pass. I presume that this also happens to the matriculation classes.

Dr Musa's statement that some universities in the UK take in students with less than 1A. True, but if you give them a student with straight As, they would immediately accept this student in double quick time.

For many years, universities in the UK accepted Malay student for diplomatic reasons, and even then these students had passed the STPM and had been sent to study for the A-Levels in the UK.

Of course, the A-Levels pass rate cannot be controlled from KL.

That is the main obstacle to Malay students achieving 'parity'. Hence the dependance on local controls for the pass rate and admissions to local universities. This is an important strategy to acquire Ketuanan Melayu .

Lastly, I would just like to remind our government that in one of the editorials of the New Straits Times , the Americans are told: 'Don't think the rest of the world are stupid' (with regards to their policies on Iraq).

Our government should realise that the people of this country are also not stupid with regards to the policies on 'meritocracy'.