As a first step, rich bumiputras should not be granted scholarships. To make assessment easier, a means test should be developed and applied.

During my years in the civil service I have come across many bosses on different superscale posts who have had all their children study on scholarships, including one child who was born in a foreign country and whose mother tongue was not even Malay.

If all these abuses are contained, there will surely be enough funds for the really needy, whether in the public sector universities and the private sector universities. Millions of dollars of uncollected study loans have yet to be traced after decades.