It doesn't require rocket scientists to tell us the purposes of the universities. Simply put, these universities are meant for students to acquire specialised fields of knowledge.

The students are therefore hard pressed for time to grab what they are taught and complete tutorials given to them by lecturers and professors.

I am a mechanical engineer graduated in the United Kingdom. I studied five subjects in the first and second year and in the third and final year we studied four subjects.

I found that all my classmates were struggling to find time to first understand the lectures and times to complete tutorials.

The subjects are very specialised in nature and it's very tough to grab the theories.

Therefore it required a lot of time to study the lectures over and over again and look up reference books from the library so as to understand and be able to tackle the tutorial problems.

All other professional courses, be it accountancy, be it physics, be it medical sciences, be it other engineering disciplines, etc, are the same. Sometimes many weeks in a row, I had hardly six hours of sleep a day.

Therefore it is not fair to overload the university students. Piling on many non-core subjects for the university students could well be the very reasons that our public universities produce very low standard graduates especially science and technology and engineering graduates.

The three subjects - namely Islamic and Asian Civilisation Studies, Ethnic Relations Studies and Malaysian Studies - can be easily understood subjects and should be studied at the upper primary and secondary levels.

It is wasting the precious time of the university students who are studying very advanced and specialised fields. Malaysia has been overtaken by many countries once behind or at par with us.

These countries are South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore, to name a few. Based on the international university ranking system, our public universities do not appear on the radar screen at all. It is a shame!

It has been purportedly claimed to instill patriotism among our students and to promote unity among the rakyat. This is not a rational excuse. Many lopsided policies to help only one race are the causes for racial polarisation.

If the power-that-be continue applying these polices, no amount of these subjects can alleviate the hatred brewing between the races. Patriotism must be earned and not by force. Fairness and reasonableness in treating all races are the very keys to achieving patriotism and unity of the rakyat, not otherwise.

Please don't deprive students in public and private universities of their precious time in order for them to achieve the best possible results and serve the country.

May I request for a trade-off in that the NEP or NEM and affirmative action policies are allowed to go on for another 50 years and reintroduce the English medium schools starting from 2014. This is a very fair deal and it is hoped that the power-that-be accept my proposal which is win-win.