If Praba Ganesan were right

that the majority of the teachers in national schools today are Malay, reared on the New Economic Policy, and sub-consciously they want to promote Malay students to progress further, this dynamics would be applicable not only in the unsatisfactory national primary schools system but also in the secondary school system and tertiary institutions, civil service and so on and on.

What it implies is that if the weaknesses in implementation of the affirmative action programme under the NEP are not mitigated, it will be self-perpetuating of discriminatory practices against minorities that undermines the stated national objective of national integration and the NEP itself.

Besides that, it aggravates problems of brain drain of minorities. Even amongst the beneficiaries of the affirmative programme, arbitrary distribution of largesse without rational differentia perpetuates class divisions, leads to over-dependence on such programme and in some cases breed corruption amongst those who feel entitled to handouts as of right, and resentment amongst those not so distributed due to want of connections and loss of self-esteem of benefited group(s) from reverse discrimination by competitive others outside it, etc.

In the longer run if all citizens of a nation are not provided with access to equal opportunities to succeed, it will suffer tremendous long-term economic and social costs as a nation. These long-term costs greatly outweigh any short-term effects of affirmative action-type policies that are based on race.