Many Malaysian leaders are fond of talking about the Ivy League and Oxbridge universities like they are goals that they want to set. But do they know how to send students there? Do we have to wait long before we can find more Malaysian students studying at such universities?

What does the government do with them when theY are there and mostly when they return? Ivy Leaguers especially are not supposed to be trophies; they should be put to good use.

I am writing this from personal experience, as the only Ivy League-trained filmmaker of Malaysia.

I don't suppose there will be anyone who will ever get the opportunity to study film at such an Ivy League university in America especially since it is very costly to do so now at RM150,000 a year, and when there are many universities and colleges in Malaysia that offer film courses of various degrees of competence.

I find some of the courses these colleges are offering to be wanting and not comprehensive enough to develop the students' full potentials. Many of them will end up producing silly videos that can still get some attention at some minor film festivals abroad and distract the public's and film officials' attention.

The problem is that these universities and colleges do not stress the importance on the study of world film history so they can tell if what they are doing has any historical relevance or not. If they do not do that, they will end up producing small videos and films that are not original but like many of those that had been produced elsewhere decades ago. Any film that does not aim to push the cinema to a higher plane will not become important.

And what have I got since I returned to Malaysia after completing my studies from the government and its relevant ministries and agencies? Sabotage! And my presence is frowned upon with total disdain.

Malaysia does not have any place for a person with my academic background, yet the government was willing to establish a national film agency at huge costs, and say they want to develop the film industry. Yet it does not have any use for such a person. They do not have any admiration for a Malaysian who has such a background. I find this to be pathetic.

No wonder I find the statements by some senior government officials on how they want to see more Malaysian students to study at such universities to be highly amusing.

Prestigious universities

Do they know what they are talking about? Does the government have the list of names of those Malaysians and especially Malays who had studied at such universities and know how to utilize their experience? I doubt it.

If they do not have such a list, then how can they find out how many Malaysians we have who had studied at such universities and can engage them in any way they can and entrust them to lead the development of the industries where they have the qualification and expertise to do it?

Lately, I read and heard some senior government leaders making front page headlines again trying and even urging Malaysian students to get admission into the eight Ivy League in America and two Oxbridge universities in England. They are Harvard, Princeton, Cornell, Yale, Columbia, Dartmouth, Brown and UPenn and Oxford and Cambridge universities.

This is comforting, especially to those who are academically inclined and not happy just getting admission into any other university abroad, just to study there.

There are a host of reasons for any student in Malaysia to want to do that - they want the foreign exposure, be in an alien environment and compete with other international students on their own terms, and to see how they fare.

I suppose it is not too difficult for any student who got a string of 'As' for STPM to gain admission into any of the universities. So each year there will be scores if not hundreds of young Malaysian students who can gain admission into such prestigious universities.

The question is: Does the government have the allocation to pay for the expenses of these students? Do we have a need for them to be in our midst? What if their ideas are too radical and smart, that they will make the senior officials feel small and unimportant, uneducated and old-fashioned? Will they be faulted for being blunt and intelligent?

How are they going to be treated when they are studying and afterwards when they return to the country? What posts are they going to be given? Are they expected to start from below, as all fresh graduates are given and treated the same way, where they will feel frustrated until they finally decide to quit their jobs to teach at the universities where many of our Ivy Leaguers are at, so they can be in their own world and deal only with their own type who understand them more than the others outside of academia?

If this is how the government and the other relevant ministries and agencies are going to do things, then there is no need for the government to encourage Malaysian students to pursue their education in all fields at such universities, since their expertise can never be fully utilized and they are not respected or acknowledged and their presence not needed.

No need to pretend

The talk about encouraging students to excel in their studies so that they may study at prestigious universities will be nothing but an empty talk that we have heard many times before.

And worse; there is no need for the Ministry of Higher Education to pretend to want to encourage students to study hard so they could get admission into such universities, since the level of expectations from university graduates is not expected to be high anyway. It seems those who have a degree from any reputable university either abroad or locally, can perform the necessary functions that they have been entrusted with since not much is expected of them anyway.

Ivy Leaguers and Oxbridge graduates must be given special attention, or the education and experience they had managed to get will be useless to the cause of public good for the nation.

They cannot be lumped into the group of other graduates who scrapped through university with a general degree and are not at all impressive. Many do not even like to tell anyone which university in America or England they had studied at.

I personally find this to be disconcerting when graduates of such prestigious universities are not given any priority that they deserve. I have not heard of any government agency saying that such graduates are preferred when they offer jobs for posts that are vacant and they are paid better than those with ordinary qualification.

How many Ivy League and Oxbridge graduates are there in the Prime Minister's Department and Foreign and Finance Ministries, for instance?

It is crucial, especially now for the Prime Minister's Department and Foreign and Finance Ministries to have many more graduates from Ivy League universities, as it will enhance the image and credibility of these ministries, especially when most of the international issues affect what America does. Therefore it is crucial for the Prime Minister's Department to engage many Ivy Leaguers who can better relate and think like their counterparts in America and even outwit them on their own turfs if necessary.

These are crucial ministries in the government. Therefore, it is important for the government to secure the employment of people whom many consider to be brighter than the others, if the government and especially its senior leaders and those who are in charge of the ministry of education and higher education really want to encourage Malaysians to get their education at prestigious universities.

There is no point in making official statements in public which are never meant to be implemented anyway.

When I was studying at the School of Mass Communication at ITM, Shah alam (now UiTM) majoring in advertising, I heard some senior Malay leaders saying those Malay students who managed to gain admission into prestigious Ivy League universities, would get full scholarships, no questions asked.

Application rejected

Yet, when I finally got into such a place to study for my Master of Fine Arts in Film Directing at Columbia University in New York City, my application at a government agency was rejected outright. I had to work as a journalist for a year, before being given a study loan instead.

Bear in mind that ITM was not a well-known institution at that time, yet Columbia still chose to admit me, the first student from Malaysia that they had ever admitted into their graduate or master's film programme with a diploma in mass communication with no work experience to support my application for admission to talk about except for some internship training that I had during the few semester breaks at ITM.

They sent the letter of admission at short notice, even when I was still in the final semester and had not taken the final examination or graduated with the diploma yet. Whereas the other non-competitive universities I had applied to took a much longer period of time to reject it. I find this to be amusing.

I thought ITM and Mara would be delighted with my acceptance at Columbia as it could also be seen as the acceptance of ITM as a recognised institute of higher learning that has an international standing.

And I am happy that till now, I am the only Malaysian who had such an opportunity and had in a way created 'history' of some sorts.

Unfortunately, the Malaysian film agency called Finas and the Ministry of Information had chosen to be aloof to my presence. No wonder Finas and the ministry are not able to develop the film and television industries simply because they do not know how to do it since their officers are not trained in film or have the necessary expertise to do it.

I dare say that Malaysia should have by now a more vibrant film industry than what we have now if they had taken care of the small number of qualified filmmakers that we have, many of whom had studied in film schools abroad, including America, England, India, Japan, Canada and Australia. We can have the most important film producing center in the Entire Muslim World that provides materials to the world Muslim ummah and the others.

RTM could have become a bigger television and radio station and not what they are now after being in the business for so long.

It is unfortunate that RTM now has to compete with the smaller private stations that are only half its age whose staff were mostly those who did not have prior experience in running such a station, and panting as it goes along. The situation is not getting any better for RTM, and we won't be surprised if the station is looked down upon. They are in a pitiful state.

What RTM needs is a CEO, and not the minister of information to run it, who can turn it into the Malaysian International Television or MI that serves a wider audience and higher cause, so that it does not have to compete with any private station which only has a certain aim in mind to attract the widest audience attention and make profits every year.

This is what happens when the film and television industry refuses to get the best ideas from the best qualified people in the field that we have in the country and continues to rely on those who are not formally trained in it and be aloof to the needs and demands of the industry and especially audiences in Malaysia as well as abroad.

MANSOR PUTEH is the only Ivy League-trained filmmaker of Malaysia. He is currently working on my master's thesis film called 'Malaysian Snow' (Kampung Serkam, USA) for my university in New York City. He has also written 60 books in Malay and English which he wants to publish in a special world record edition. And he plans to embark on an expedition to drive up to six months around America in an expedition called the Malaysia-America Friendship Tour to promote his books, films and mostly greater understanding between Malaysia and America and especially between the Entire Muslim World and the West.