On Saturday, I read two very interesting articles in two different media. One in the New Straits Times and the other in malaysiakini .

In the NST there was a column by Dr Farish Noor on Islamisation and democracy. He came out with a relevant point in that any party which claims to be democratic should be willing to accept the views of everybody and not just the views of the party members. He was commenting on the reluctance of Islamic parties to accept the views of non-Muslims; however, I think that statement is also relevant to other parties in this country.

In his article, Farish pointed out a few things about the increasing Islamisation going on presently in Malaysia and at the same time the quotes by the two students of the religious schools in Kelantan and Terengganu in an article on the same subject in the recent issue of Time magazine were frightening, especially to non-Muslims.

The second interesting article was that of Dr M Bakri Musa in malaysiakini on student excellence, 'Student excellence - sorting the gems from the pebbles', (Sept 3).

It is true what he says, that excellence is not rewarded in this country. Children do not have any role models. Every year the top graduates leave their various universities while the mediocre and even more mediocre graduates rejoin our local universities as academic staff. Subsequently there would be laments by the powers that be on whether Malaysians are capable of getting the Nobel prize.

After every major school examination, the local media would be splashing across a few pages, news on those who achieved top marks, but there would not be any reports a few years later on how these kids turn out.

The authorities should look into the suggestions given by Bakri rather than ignore it just because his article was published in malaysiakini .