People who do not see the value of nurturing our young through education should not be allowed to hold top posts in the Education Ministry. For the past two years, the situation has gotten worse and people who deserve to be given the chance to continue their education, were not.

All of us know that politics has played a major role in our education system for a long time now. But it has gotten to the point where there are outright injustice and inequality.

I am not referring to the university entrances alone, but to the whole education system, too. The people in charge, be they the educationists or the policy makers in Parliament, seem to create policies to suit their whims and fancy, as if they are fashion trends that change from year to year.

I hope that these people realise that education is not some sort of secondary school science experiment. I find it totally revolting that the ministry decided to 'experiment' with the meritocracy system at the drop of someone's words without doing an in-depth study first. No one seem to take into account that the playing field level is not at the same for the different students here.

Matriculation and science schools enjoy better facilities than normal secondary schools; not only in the infrastructure alone, but in the teaching workforce as well. Matriculation students sit for internal examinations with questions set by their own lecturers.

Secondary school students in Form Six have to cover a wide range of topics and sit for a common examination set by external sources. With this sort of unfair playing field, how then are we to compare the results of both these camps?

The education minister said that the method used to compare the examination results of STPM and matriculation students is the same one used by their overseas counterparts. That might be true, but he did not mention that in other countries, there is no such thing as 'quota system' and 'special privileges' accorded to certain groups of students.

Where in the world can you find people of one ethnic group being invited into special science schools during their early secondary years while the rest are forced to study in the normal schools? Can you imagine how degraded I felt, when some of my classmates who had academic results on par or lower than mine were given the chance to study in these special science schools?

Education opportunity should be equal for all races. After more than 40 years of independence, I am sure all of us Malaysians — be they Malay, Chinese or Indians — are able to compete with each other fair and square. Open up all schools and colleges, with equal chances of getting in for all races. Only then can Malaysia progress.