The 1969 riot forced a deep soul searching o­n the nation, and resulted in the New Economic Policy (NEP). It essentially institutionalised rigid quotas in university admissions.

In its words, public institutions must properly reflect the community that supports them. In addition to quotas, universities were forced to create outreach programmes matrikulasi where bright and disadvantaged Malay students from rural schools who were interested in the sciences would spend their last two years of their high school o­n the university campus and be taught by lecturers.

This programme was so successful that it was rapidly expanded. Matrikulasi's success was also its undoing. Today its highly sought-after slots are filled with children of ministers and doctors instead of villagers and fishermen, making a mockery of its previous outreach commitment.

In addition to matrikulasi, the government embarked o­n vastly expanding academic magnet boarding schools, again specifically targetted for Malays. While during my time there were o­nly two such schools o­ne for boys and the other for girls today there are nearly a hundred.

As before, admission is strictly o­n merit, but since it is narrowly defined based o­nly o­n test scores, today it favours the upper class, again negating its earlier outreach component.

Both matrikulasi and residential schools are extremely expensive, costing the government about RM7,000 per student as compared to a few hundred in the regular day school. This sucks resources away from the rest of the system, leaving them severely under funded.

Another common lament I hear from rural teachers is that their brightest students have been taken away, and with that the intellectual excitement of the class.

Minimal resentment

The government also vastly expanded higher education with three new universities. This greatly relieved the bottleneck for the increasing number of matriculating students. Precisely because of this concomitant expansion, the discriminating impact of affirmative action was softened.

Nobody felt threatened with denial of opportunity, thus there was minimal resentment or protest.

Further, it was obvious that the previous gross inequities were inherently unfair and could not be the basis for a stable society. A more practical reason was that the government threatened to use its repressive Internal Security Act to bludgeon anyone who dared protest.

The impact of quotas and expanded opportunities was dramatic. It greatly reduced the perception as well as the reality of the disparities. This was achieved in a remarkably short time.

In terms of scope and impact, I would compare Malaysia's affirmative action during its first decade to that of the American G-I Bill.

Perception, unless supported by reality, is illusion. Contrary to Kissinger's observation, perception is not reality, as Saddam Hussein is now finding out. An anecdote will dramatically illustrate the impact of this changed perception.

In 1969, I was visiting a school in my old village during a break after my graduation. I was giving a talk o­n careers in medicine, and following my talk a shy young Malay girl gingerly approached me.

She patiently waited until everyone had left. She wanted to know whether in my dissections of the brains of Blacks and Whites, did I notice any anatomical differences?

I was flabbergasted by the innocent inquiry, and immediately sensed the terrible burden o­n this young girl's mind.

Unable to give an immediate coherent answer, I responded with a question of my own: "Why do you ask that?" Her answer was even more fascinating.

She had previously posed the same question to another doctor and of course was told that there were no differences between the brains of the various races. But she did not believe him because he was a local graduate and had dissected the brains of Malays, Chinese and Indians.

Since these are all Asians he would not have been able to detect subtle differences. But since I trained in Canada and had dissected the brains of Blacks and Whites, presumably the differences would be that much more apparent. Very astute reasoning!

In 1976, I returned to that same school, this time as a surgeon, and again gave a talk o­n careers.

The first question asked of me was: "How much do you make?" This was followed by another o­n whether a brain surgeon makes more money than a general surgeon. And when I replied yes, this young man immediately said that he wanted to be a brain surgeon and not "just a general surgeon."

Although these were all said in jest, with the class ending up in riotous laughter, I cannot believe the sea of change I was witnessing. These were children of villagers and peasants. If I were to mention to them that their predecessors o­nly a few years earlier were wondering whether they were even intellectually capable of pursuing the sciences, these young students would have given me a stunned look of disbelief, and rightly so.

Quotas and preferential treatment greatly reduced the gross inequities in education. The NEP succeeded with minimal dilution of quality and evoked little protest. And the government again consciously used the education system to foster a common Malaysian identity with some success.

Nationalistic phase (1981-1990)

The NEP dramatically increased the number of Bumiputras in science and the professions. This emboldened the language nationalists to push for greater use of Malay language. In the past they were easily pushed aside with the practical argument that there were not enough Malays to teach or write the textbooks.

That argument was now no longer tenable, and the movement to adopt Malay as the exclusive language of instruction rapidly gained momentum.

The first batch of students to enter university under this all-Malay system was in 1981. To many, this was the pinnacle of achievement; to me, the beginning of the decline.

The language switch contributed to the significant decline in standards. This slow deterioration was masked because of the expanding economy as all graduates could easily secure jobs. Besides the country still had substantial numbers of senior personnel trained under the old English system to take up the slack and cover the inadequacies of these new graduates.

Were o­ne to examine the system carefully, the deterioration would be obvious. British accrediting agencies were withdrawing their recognition of local degrees, beginning with engineering and later medicine and other professional qualifications, and local graduates could rarely secure slots for graduate studies at leading institutions abroad.

The politician who spearheaded this nationalistic phase was Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the current prime minister. Like many of his contemporaries, he was English educated but he shrewdly saw the political mileage to be gained by championing the Malay language, and was widely hailed as a visionary and national hero for having "restored" the dignity of the language.

Fast forward to today, with the realisation that today's graduates cannot compete effectively o­n the global market for their lack of English fluency, Mahathir is now desperately trying to reverse course.

He even called for reestablishing English schools. Perversely, in an Orwellian fashion, he is again being hailed a hero today! The typical politician that he is, he would rather that we do not remember his earlier zeal.

The nationalistic phase did not alter the integrative ideals or equity objectives of the system, but the damage it did to quality was undeniable.

Islamic Phase

The 1990s saw a vast expansion of the Islamic stream and the heavy emphasis of Islam in the regular schools. Non-Muslims in these regular schools felt increasingly out of place.

Malay-Muslim parents o­n the other hand found these schools not Islamic enough and put their children into religious schools.

Personal piety aside, Malay parents have other valid reasons for choosing such schools. Unlike their secular counterpart, these schools are focused and have highly committed teachers.

Parents and community are deeply involved in their schools; they believe very strongly that they are indeed doing God's work. Consequently these schools experience few disciplinary problems, certainly no teenage pregnancies, drug problems, or bullying.

In today's environment, those are significant achievements.

Despite their meagre resources and less-than-ideal facilities, their students excel. The o­nly problem is that their entire curriculum is extremely confining, consumed totally with religious studies.

Their backers claim that they also teach science and mathematics, but these subjects are taught at the most elementary level. And there are no fine arts, music or enriching extra curricular activities.

In post Sept 11, these schools are receiving extra attention because they teach an extremely fanatical and intolerant brand of Islam. Many of their teachers were trained at conservative religious colleges in the Middle East and Pakistan. They sympathise openly with the Talibans and Osama bin Laden.

The crowning achievement for the Islamists was the Organisation of Islamic States' sponsorship of an International Islamic University (IIU) in Malaysia. Since it was designed to also take students from other Muslim countries, IIU adopted English as its language of instruction.

This immediately created problems as the national policy, until recently, was for institutions to use Malay exclusively. To overcome this legal hurdle, the government decided that the university would not be an educational institution rather a private corporation, and thus was exempt from the language stricture.

So it was registered under the Companies Act within the Ministry of Trade and Industry. Very neat!

The remarkable aspect to the whole legal shenanigan was the unusual silence of the language nationalists. They did not raise even a whimper of protest. This demonstrates that in Malaysia and among Malay-Muslims, nationalism is secondary to Islamism.

Unlike many Islamic universities, IIU has professional faculties like law, business, engineering, and medicine. The narrow curriculum of the religious schools however, do not prepare their students for such studies, consequently IIU has to take students from the secular stream to fill those faculties.

Because of that fortuitous choice of English, IIU graduates command a premium in the marketplace because of their superior English proficiency.

IIU has many other distinctions; its students are fluently trilingual English, Malay, and Arabic. Many know a fourth their native tongue.

Not many universities can claim that distinction a definite plus in today's global and diverse market. IIU also has the highest percentage of international students of any Asian university.

This Islamization of Malaysian education creates two dangerous trends. o­ne, it further segregates and polarises Malaysians, not o­nly between Muslims and non-Muslims but also between liberal and conservative Muslims.

It further reinforces racial identity instead of fostering a common Malaysian outlook.

Two, as Malays are increasingly choosing these religious schools, they are again being poorly prepared for the modern world.

The greatest challenge for Malaysia is to tame or modernise these religious schools and to reduce the emphasis o­n religion in secular schools. This is a daunting task; the Islamic establishment would not take kindly to any diminution of its role or influence.

Sadly the leaders have yet to acknowledge let alone begin to remedy this festering problem. Unchecked it will be Malaysia's undoing.

If this modernisation is executed poorly or without sensitivity, it will provoke the ire of the Islamists, and they in turn could easily incite the masses.

Islamisation creates the worse of all situations. It is accompanied by a marked deterioration in quality, except for the bright star of IIU, and the system does not foster the development of a common identity.

And as these religious schools poorly prepare their students for the marketplace, Malaysians are again creating educational inequities, except this time it is through the deliberate and willing choice of the participants, very unlike the earlier inequities that were imposed by the colonialist.

Expansion of private sector

In 1996 the government introduced a significant legislation to allow the setting up of private universities and colleges. In its eagerness the Ministry of Education gave a flurry of approvals over 600 institutions in a two-year period, or more than o­ne o­n every working day!

Most were nothing more than glorified "tuition centers" comparable to the "cram schools" found in many Asian countries. Indeed many are set up over empty shop lots. There was even a medical school approved without it having laboratory or clinical facilities!

By no stretch of the imagination could these institutions be considered a college or university in the traditional sense. Many folded after a flourishing start, stranding their students.

These institutions will never lead Malaysia to educational excellence. The nation deserves better.

Amidst the academic garbage, there are a few gems like the branch campuses of established foreign universities like Monash and Nottingham, the established private colleges like Taylor and Inti, and those sponsored by quasi government corporations like Petronas (the National Oil Company) and Tenaga Nasional (utility company).

These institutions provide stiff competition. The recent impetus for the increased use of English in public universities is the direct result of market forces forced upon them by these private colleges.

None of the private institutions have need-blind admission policies, thus they remain segregated socially as well as racially. There is o­nly a perfunctory attempt at fostering a common identity by making a course o­n Malaysian studies mandatory.

Rude awakening

Before answering that, ponder the price Malaysia would pay for not having affirmative action. The wrenching riot of 1969 was a rude awakening for the young nation, the price it dearly paid for ignoring these inequities.

It is interesting that the "incident" (the euphemism to describe that ghastly event) coincided with the equally deadly "disturbance" (the flare up sectarian violence) in Northern Ireland.

While Malaysians are now living in peace and coming to terms with affirmative action, the Catholics and Orangemen are still busy settling deadly scores. I definitely settle for the Malaysian solution, but would try hard to minimise its costs.

Aggressive affirmative action combined with vastly expanded opportunities dramatically reduced educational inequities in Malaysia. But today it risks degenerating into a massive entitlement instead of the outreach programme it was initially designed for.

The good news is that the beneficiaries of the programme from leaders like Mahathir to followers like the simple villagers are now questioning it.

The success of affirmative action was not at the expense of quality. Rather the decline in Malaysian education is due to the de-emphasis o­n English and the increasing Islamisation of the system. Unless these are reversed, the decline will continue.

Affirmative action simply masks the decline in the system, thus letting the problems fester until they reach the present crisis level and making corrections that much more difficult.

The various programmes under affirmative action are also extremely expensive; they consume more than their fair share of resources to the detriment of the rest of the system.

The concomitant expansion of opportunities provided by both private and public institutions soften the discriminatory impact of affirmative action.

In terms of quality, the English schools during colonial rule remain the gold standard. Although these schools were terribly inequitable, nonetheless they unintentionally fostered a nascent Malaysian identity.

Since that early high standard, Malaysian schools continued their decline, which became precipitous with the adoption of Malay as the medium of instruction and the greater emphasis o­n religion.

The implementation of the Razak Report in1956 was the first attempt in using education to foster a national identity. This effort is severely undermined by the current dualism in education.

Malaysians today remain even more segregated, but unlike the earlier segregation that was purposely imposed by the British, this time Malaysians choose to remain apart. This does not bode well for this plural nation.

Part 1 appeared yesterday .