A century ago, only scholars went to schools. Some 50 years later, only society's brightest stayed on campuses. Today, if you are a student in any of Malaysia's many public universities, you will most likely be known as a "product".

Mass produced at record rates to meet ever rising demands for manpower in an increasingly competitive globalised local market, the average make of Malaysia's human capital somehow falls desperately short of market wants. In fact, as high as an alarming 70 percent of them fail to find jobs that match their interests, field of study, or anything close to graduate level work, if at all in a supposedly thriving and bullish market that is Malaysia.

The Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) is quite aware of this reality and it has, over the last few years, been working overtime to rectify a problem that could derail the country's quest for First World glory. But like most doctors who not yet know the cause of a disease, MoHE has only successfully located the symptoms and start treatment on them, in hope for a miracle.

So far, these symptoms are pronounced but containable. In a situation that defines the average Malaysian public university student as lingually handicapped, socially inept, technically unskilled, strategically aimless, and arrogantly-unwilling-to-accept-low-paying-jobs.

Some probably believed such symptoms, collectively known as the "lack of soft skills", were easy to negate as long as the disease was made out to be a manifestation of the student's own apathy, and nothing to do with systemic failings of Malaysia's education "road map".

So the medication prescribed could only have been as comprehensive as MoHE's prognosis was, simplistic. And when graduate re-training schemes developed into the more pre-emptive natured "intensive soft skills seminar" that was compulsory for every student of the graduating class, it only meant one thing the situation is getting worse.

Wake up, Mr Minister

It is time Mustapa Mohamed, the Higher Education Minister, woke up. Malaysian higher education is drowning in her dream of lofty ideals such as internationalisation and trans-border collaboration.

More than half of our graduates can't find a job at home, the rest probably don't know what internationalisation is.

But what is there to internationalise but the culture of apathy so embedded in the hearts of our society's supposed intelligentsia? Surely, internationalisation could have been a way to learn from our more liberated foreign counterparts what can be done to correct our failings at home?

Alas, that would be imitating, copying, and plagiarising!

And the old rhetoric so synonymous with our ruling government is that Malaysia is a unique and fragile multiracial, multicultural, and multireligious community that will crumble at the very thought of liberation.

So our policy makers go on international trips, sample the best of foreign cuisine, shake bigger hands, and then come back home with a same report that "we will only adapt what is acceptable to our country's complex multiplayer situation".

At the end of the day, internationalisation is about attracting, with respect, more students from the cash-rich Middle Eastern regions. Internationalisation is also about sending our universities to expensive parades to win guaranteed prizes and, hopefully, recognition.

Internationalisation is then gloriously proclaiming the arrival of a new international collaboration hub that is Malaysia.

Do we learn?

The average student is seldom left out, often asked to perform cultural song and dance to entertain our international guests. But do we learn? Do we engage in discourse? Do we push the limits of thought our foreign counterparts do back in their countries?

Our policy makers probably forgot how to, for they are all part of a burgeoning state, which is increasingly repressive, too.

Mustapa's recent announcement that 58 students of public universities could be facing disciplinary action for supporting the wrong house of Malaysia's twisted political dogfight does not come as a surprise.

He is, after all, part of a government which needs to win elections to stay in power. And he better did his job right with the infamous Universities and University Colleges Act (UUCA) in hand.

The minister's job, the UUCA, and winning elections are all part of a vicious cycle. Mustapa's post is, theoretically, secured by his winning ticket that makes him part of a ruling elite, and, practically, fastened by the arbitrary powers that come with a draconian piece of legislation that guarantees the ruling elite's winning ticket.

If there is one thing MoHE has done so effectively, it is the desensitisation of students' emotion for their own democratic rights. Students today are too worried about where to head after university than to be bothered with what they can learn about democracy now.

The statistics of unemployable graduates are not on their side, but it is a good sign for Mustapa and his ruling mates as it all the more "justifies" the need for the UUCA to stay in place.

Such a legislation, although restrictive in nature, is said to be for students' own good as it protects them from evil forces, which usually takes form in the opposition, that are out to destroy their futures.

The average student knows...

The average student probably knows that fellow students who campaign for the opposition or criticise university authorities can, and usually are, prosecuted under the UUCA.

That almost literally defines the UUCA! But the average student today probably doesn't care enough to debate the UUCA anymore because they are unaffected bystanders apathetic to the Opposition's cause, and would rather start looking for a job.

The average student doesn't know it is an offense to work at a photocopy shop without prior written approval from the university's Vice Chancellor. The average student probably isn't aware that he or she can be prosecuted for chatting under a tree in a group of more than three without prior approval from the Student Affairs Department.

The average student probably doesn't know that he or she can be suspended for volunteering with your local SPCA, for becoming a member of a church, or for following mum to the social dance club unless approved in writing by his or her university. In fact, my writing of this article an expression of political thought can get me into trouble.

You will not hear of a student getting fined for flipping burgers at McDonald's and that, unfortunately, is exactly the reason why the UUCA must be abolished. As there is no legitimate reason why flipping burgers for anybody is unlawful or unconstitutional, surely then the only act that is against the Constitution of Malaysia is the UUCA itself.

While you would escape sanction for working at McDonald's, you could face disciplinary action for flipping burgers at Parti Keadilan Rakyat's annual banquet.

The government's justification for the repressive use of the UUCA has always been "students should study, not take part in politics". But to deny students' human right to political conscientisation is akin to brainwashing them and turning them into the very apathetic, uncreative, homogenous, and parasitic mushrooms they are turning out to be today.

The arbitrariness involved in the enforcement of the UUCA is so feudalistic in nature it is little wonder why our universities are churning out defective produce so inadequate for the new millenium's demands. Perhaps, in a time five centuries centuries ago, our graduates today would have made able serfs.

Abolish UUCA

After today, I might be branded as being one sided, anti-establishment, and pro-Opposition. But show me, Tok Pa, students who were prosecuted for supporting your government.

Show me, Pak Lah, your purported liberal approach that is supposed to tolerate dissent. Show me why I have to toe your line.

Students lack soft skills because it is a manifestation the government's institutionalised promotion of apathy.

As a group, our students are an intellectual vacumn, students cannot think out of the box because they can no longer think without a box a box, which has had its shape, size, and colour, been determined by the state.

The word "intelligence" in our public universities do not imply thought and reason. Intelligence in our universities today are espionage missions.

They spy on their own students, and make sure they do not go against the state. How sad is that?

Until and unless the UUCA is abolished, our young will remain apathethic to any sort of a revolution the government intends on creating in our hallowed halls of study. What a shame that would be.

NG ENG KIAT recently completed his undergraduate studies at the Universiti Sains Malaysia's School of Communication.