I have heard that Universiti Malaya, the country's oldest university, has set a new policy of recruitment that starting from this year, those who intend to apply to become permanent academic staff must possess PhD degrees. This is one of the efforts undertaken by the university to upgrade its academic quality by recruiting more academic staff with higher qualifications. This is also in line with the government's move to promote the country as a higher education centre.

However, the new policy is also being criticised as unfair and biased against non-bumiputera candidates. The bumiputera candidates are eligible for the Skim Latihan Akademik Bumiputera (Slab) which aims to train more bumiputera academic staff. Under the scheme, the bumiputera candidates can get scholarships from the university to further their studies overseas.

But the non-bumiputera candidates do not have any such opportunity to get any funds from the university to pursue their higher degree as the university has not designed such a scheme for non-bumiputeras. Therefore, they have to finance their studies themselves or face intense competition in applying for scholarships from outside the university.

Therefore, UM's new policy will affect the chances of non-bumiputeras to become permanent academic staff in the university. In my opinion, in order to be fair to all candidates, the university should come out with a scheme that helps both bumiputera and non-bumiputera candidates. The scheme could have certain racial quotas like 60 percent for bumis and 40 percent for non-bumis.

I agree the university should recruit more permanent academic staff with higher qualifications in order to upgrade its academic standard. However, the policy must be fair to all candidates, regardless of their racial background.