I am a Chinese Malaysian in my early 40s. I took my MCE and HSC in the late 70s in Johor, graduated from the National University of Singapore, and now working and living in Singapore.

I know what race-based affirmative action is all about since the day I got my MCE result more than 20 years ago. My Malay schoolmates with poorer grades were awarded scholarships to further study in UK and US as well as matriculation programmes in local universities. They were the cream of the cream. The academically not-so-good Malays took HSC, but there were very few of them in my school then.

Is there any alternative? Allow me to make a few points:

1) Let's not kid ourselves. The current system without a common platform is not meritocracy.

2) Changing to 'real' meritocracy overnight will have catastrophic impact on the Malaysian society. If all the matriculation courses are abolished next year - and the only route to the local universities is through a common examination (let's say STPM) and university intake is base solely on the academic result of the common examination - what would the scenario be?

I would say no more than 25 percent (probably lower) of those qualified would be Malays. Would the society be peaceful if most of the doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers, managers are non-Malays?

3) Race-based affirmative system is still needed, but it has to be modified and gradually removed, say over the next 20-30 years.

4) Affirmative action based on 'need basis' regardless of race sounds great but is not practical. Race-based affirmative action is not unique to Malaysia. It is happening in the US too, for the African Americans.

So, what is my suggestion?

Instead of allocating a quota based on the population ratio, the system could be modified such that all Malays are given additional 20 points. Let's say the perfect score in STPM is 100 points, a

Malay who scores 65 points would have 20 points added to his score (i.e. 85 points) when he applies for a place in university or applies for a government scholarship.

The government should set a target to remove this 20 points gradually over one generation (say over 20 years). Hence, the Malay students who take STPM the following year would be given 19 additional points.

Of course, the implementation is not as simple as that. However, the main idea is that the affirmative programme ought to be reduced gradually. Permanent affirmative action and university seat allocation based on population ratio will have a detrimental impact on all Malaysian, including the Malays who are suppose to be the beneficiary.