The mix-up in relation to the student who was expected to score 19A1 but ending with only 18As should serve as a timely reminder to those who put up banners and spend money in a public show of chest-beating. There is nothing wrong with that but the details must be accurate and this sort of expenses should not come public purse or village development funds. It's better to use the funds to award top students with cash prizes to help with their expected future expenses.

I also urge the state and federal education offices including schools to cooperate and make sure all the name of top scorers are published in the papers. Otherwise, a person who has scored 10A1 is splashed all over the papers but another scoring 12A1 is some obscure town misses out. Let's us treat all of them equally.

Then we come to the annual scholarship rigmarole. Too many local/state/federal government outfits are giving out loans to students and later go through nightmares in getting it back.

Even at the federal level, we have PTPTN (Perbadanan Tabung Pendidikan Tinggi Nasional) and JPA (Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam). Why do we need two bodies doing the same thing? In fact, students have to waste so much effort and money applying to each and every one of them. Surely it is best to merge all the loan-giving bodies under one entity so that students need only apply once.

The repayment then can be easily monitored centrally and the entire database can be combined.

I suggest the relevant ministries work on this and ask all government bodies including state governments to hand over all loan disbursements, giving malarkey over to one body. Since PTPTN is already there, use them as JPA has other duties.

This can also be taken and applied to scholarship handed out by government bodies like JPA, Petronas, TMB, TNB, PNB, MAS and Khazanah.

It should all be centralised and an advisory panel of professors and businessmen including social figures can that sit and choose and hand out these scholarships. Students need not waste time applying for tons of scholarship and go for tons of interviews. One interview is enough.

It is time we find a better way of dealing with this annual madness.