When you cannot find the solution, goes an axiom in science, chances are you are tackling the wrong problem. This is clearly demonstrated in the current frustration over the behavior of our students. The issue is not how to punish lousy and rebellious students, rather how best to encourage and reward excellence among our young.

Judging from the current headlines, Malay students are dumb, lazy, and ungrateful. Were that to be true, all the more we should embrace and generously reward the precious few who are diligent and intelligent.

One, that would be a way of expressing our gratitude and appreciation for their efforts and two, it would hopefully encourage and inspire others. Alas, such is not the case.

A few years ago I was at a convocation ceremony at a Malaysian university. On finding some Malay names on the first class honors list, I inquired of them. To my surprise their professors and deans could not tell me what these top students would be doing after graduation.

They apparently had no interest or curiosity in the career paths of their top graduates. I would have expected the university to be enticing these smart ones with generous offers of scholarships to continue on with graduate work. That is how talented students are treated in America; they would be inundated with offers.

Similarly, when I visited our elite boarding schools, the headmasters could not name their current top students, much less tell me to which universities they were accepted.

Kucing kurap

Only recently a kampong girl who was accepted to Cambridge wrote me in a desperate attempt to find a sponsor. She had been given the usual Malaysian runaround. I would have expected her to be given the royal treatment.

How many Malays get accepted to elite universities? Yet, there she was, given the cold shoulder. When she applied to Mara, she was dutifully interviewed and then left to wait patiently for a decision. Mara should be jumping up and down to offer her a generous scholarship and not pretend that she was one of many. When you find a gem, quickly grab and polish it. Don't treat it like a pebble.

Not long ago a young Malay lawyer through his own effort was accepted into the prestigious LLM program at Harvard. But when he applied for a Mara scholarship, the answer was a curt dismissal: "We do not recognise American law degrees." Imagine!

These examples come readily to my attention even though I reside thousands of miles away from Malaysia. How many more such cases are being missed? In our obsession with rowdy and mediocre students, we ignore our best and brightest. We pay too much attention to the kucing kurap (scruffy kittens) and not enough to our more promising felines.

If we concentrate more on the overachiever and less on the underachiever, we would be much further ahead. Indeed if we ignore these low achievers, they may very well stop their attention-grabbing 'acting out' behaviors.

Obstacles, not opportunities

In our preoccupation to punish, we have lost the art of encouraging and bringing out the best in our young. We must encourage and reward excellence. This however, requires innovative strategies and more importantly, a different mindset.

Assume today that we announce a program to recognise academic excellence. Out of every 100 students, half will ignore that plea and assume that we are not serious, or that the game is rigged and the outcome predetermined, with children of 'big shots' the presumed winners.

The other 50 will try hard, and out of these, perhaps only 10 will succeed. To many, that would be a colossal failure: one in ten. To me however, that would be a great success. While before we did not have anyone achieving excellence, today we have ten - a definite improvement. But we should not stop there.

We should interview the successful students to find out their secrets. At the same time we should also study the unsuccessful 40. We should figure out the commonalities so as to help others. Nor should we ignore the 50 who did not respond at all. Were the rewards not attractive enough? Would higher or different rewards be more enticing?

If nothing else, studying these non-responders would sharpen our selection process so that we would not pick similar candidates in the future. What we would consider as rewards differ. To some it is money; others it is title and recognition. Indeed, many look upon money disdainfully, a form of bribery. Thus the more we offer, the less attractive it would be.

We should also be mindful that opportunities are often perceived as obstacles to those struggling. To an American inner city kid, a scholarship to Exeter (an exclusive private boarding school) may not be viewed as an opportunity but a huge cultural barrier.

Immediate rewards

Rewards too can take many forms. At the University of Michigan for example, students selected into the honors program live in beautiful dorms and are given special academic perks. At UCLA, honors students have parking privileges on campus. In car-obsessed California, that is some privilege!

They also get priority in course registrations. In Malaysia we should experiment, for example, with increasing the stipends of students who perform well. At present Malays who excel will have their study loans forgiven. That is commendable but this reward comes later, after they graduate. Psychologists tell us that immediate reinforcements are far more effective than delayed ones.

Going back to our program, having learned from the experience of the previous year, we should now be able to improve on it. We could alter the rewards to make them more attractive, or refine the selection process to be more discriminating.

With better selection, instead of only 50 students responding, we would now have a higher figure, perhaps 80, leaving only 20 loafers. Out of that 80, the success rate would also be higher. Instead of the 20 percent success rate (10 out of 50) of the first year, we would now have, perhaps, 30 percent.

Compared to the previous year when only 10 succeeded, now we would have 24 (30 percent of 80), more than double the previous year's results. In the third and subsequent years we would continue the refinements until the success rate is consistently high.

Disturbing signs

Unfortunately with many government initiatives, bureaucrats and politicians arrogantly assume their pet program is perfect and guaranteed to work right away. And when it fails, they blame their helpless subjects, be they clueless students, poor farmers, or hapless businessmen.

What these social engineers need is a reality check. They must be willing to critically assess and improve their programs continually. They should also be ready to abandon them should they prove to be ineffectual.

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad's recent outburst on his failure in changing the ways of the Malays is illustrative. He failed precisely because he assumed his bold plans and strategies were flawless. He didn't test his assumptions or refine his tactics. This hubris now engulfs him.

Had he been more attentive, he would have noticed the early disturbing signs. For example, his continued support of Malay corporate figures regardless of their competence and business acumen caused him and the country much misery.

Similarly, his relentless championing of special privileges came back to haunt him. He forgot that age-old wisdom: The road to oblivion is often paved with good intentions.