COMMENT | Permata, which means ‘gem’ in Malay, is a programme launched with the aim of uncovering prodigious talents in Malaysia.

While Permata does not appear to have a workable definition of what "genius" constitutes, or should be, not unlike the MacArthur Foundation in United States that gives out the annual "genius" awards, where recipients are allowed to spend up to US$1 million a year to write their books or produce their films, the end goal of Permata appears to be rather run-of-the-mill: students should just get into the top-tiered universities.

But this is what 55,000 students from all over the world tried to do when they tried to be one of the 4,500 elite students to be in the freshman class of Harvard University each year. What makes Permata so different from the methods and pedagogy attempted by the 55,000 students? No one knows, since Permata has never truly measured up.

If anything, Permata confused mere aspiration with an actual plan. Indeed, if more has to be said, Permata wanted all the glitter and the gold, without knowing how to get there; which in turn resulted in questionable programmes like training students to have a Noble Prize mindset. But, seriously, how?

Noble Prize winners are divided into six categories - the promotion of peace, economics, physiology, medicine, chemistry and physics. Research, hard work, persistence and imagination are the stuff of creative breakthroughs. No one knows if the winners had excelled in emotional, intelligence and adversity quotients merely, or better yet, all three.

There are, of course, Nobel prize winners of questionable repute, such as Aung San Suu Kyi, who has stayed silent on the plight of the Rohingya Muslims. In all fairness, perhaps even former US president Barack Obama felt that he didn’t deserve to win it when he matter-a-factly urged an end to nuclear arms, a goal he failed.

Thus, if there were any tangible indicators, Permata just wanted more students in top-tiered universities, such as Harvard, Princeton, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Dartmouth, University of Pennsylvania, Yale University, Cornell and Brown University. To the degree permitted, students of Permata were encouraged to apply to University of Cambridge and University of Oxford too; and one would assume, Sorbonne and Sciences Po in Paris as well.

But with the exception of one Permata student at Cornell University, one wonders what more did Permata achieve?

Invariably, this is a cause of great concern, even after Permata has been absorbed into the Education Ministry. Does the Education Ministry know what it has got itself into?

In principle, there is nothing wrong with aiming high. All ambitious students and institutions do the same...