I read with interest an article on a proposal by the Malaysian Scrabble Association and Mattel (the toy company) to introduce Scrabble in Malaysian schools.

As a Scrabble fan myself, I was delighted to read the proposal. It is a great game, especially in times of boredom. My delight was however short lived when I read that the proposal involves an allocation of RM50 million to buy 114,000 Scrabble sets. This works out to RM438.60 per set (shock horror!).

A Scrabble original set in the UK can be bought for GBP20.00 and a Scrabble dictionary, for about GBP10. The total cost is thus GBP3,420,000, i.e. RM20,520,000. Take off the compulsory UK 'Value Added Tax' of 17.5 percent, we arrive at RM16,929,000.

Now that's a lot of money but is way less than the proposed RM50 million. Let us hope that the Education Ministry's procurement people are up to speed with their calculators.