I refer to Tanglimara's 'Crippled by policy makers' (Sept 13). I wish to lend support to his/her view although I believe the prescription is inadequate.

The local education system is designed by bureaucrats who are not proven experts in education. To be fair, bureaucrats are bureaucrats. During the 1980s and 1990s, the zealous national goals dominated everything. Hence the bureaucrats are at best inferiorly academically trained personnel more interested in pandering to their political masters than being competent in building a good education system.

The political masters are not unaware of the damage they have done. Premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad's appointment of Musa Mohamad as Education Minister is an attempt to change the status quo.

However, it will not be sufficient because, as always, politics is more important than real change. The root of our evil is the inclusion of politics in our education and our willingness to compromise it for the sake of national social and political engineering.

Only the wholesale embracing of meritocracy in education, its administration and teaching material, will result in real change. Anything else will only bring further disappointment.