Education Minister Musa Mohamad today lambasted critics of the meritocracy system saying that "it is very bad of them to hurl accusations without checking the facts".

"It is certainly a bad and wrong attitude for people to harbour suspicions against the system and the government without bothering to look up the facts behind the system first", he told a news conference today.

Musa, who was visibly upset, said he wondered why the parties who questioned the fairness of the newly introduced meritocracy system only did so after the results were announced.

Describing the reaction as "really bad", he urged them to approach the ministry for clarification if they are unhappy with the matter.

Since the higher bumiputra intake into public universities under the new system was announced last week, a barrage of criticisms, particularly from non-bumiputra groups had poured in. The ministry had introduced the merit-based intake from this year to replace the race-based quota system where bumiputras were allocated 55 per cent of the places while Malaysian Chinese took up 35 per cent and Malaysian Indians 10 per cent

Among those who voiced their objection on the new intake based on merits were Works minister and MIC president Samy Vellu, DAP chairperson Lim Kit Siang and educationist Dr Kua Kia Soong.

Samy said yesterday that his worst fears about the meritocracy system had come true with the drastic drop in the number of Malaysian Indians admitted into public universities.

He claimed that he had opposed the implementation of the system in Cabinet last year and that he had sought the entry of Malaysian Indians into matriculation courses but this was not considered.

Samy added that he had called Musa to express his concern and that of the MIC on the matter.

DAP's Lim asked for the setting up of an independent panel to study the transparency of the system.

Advantage to bumiputras

Meanwhile, New Era College principal Dr Kua has described as "unfair" the grouping of Sijil Tinggi Pelajaran Malaysia (STPM) students and those from the matriculation programmes "as this will give advantage to the latter, who are all bumiputras".

The figures announced last Thursday indicated 22,557 or 68.9 percent of bumiputra students with STPM qualification or equivalent were selected compared to 8,665 (26.4 percent) for Malaysian Chinese and 1,530 (4.7 percent) Malaysian Indian students.

Replying to a question on whether the intake into public university should be streamlined to ensure its "fairness", Musa explained that the admission was not only based on STPM or matriculation, but other equivalent qualifications such as A-level were also taken into consideration.

On the proposal to re-introduce English-medium schools, Musa said no decision has yet been made as the ministry is still gathering feedback from the people.

"The feedback can be extended to us in the form of letters or e-mails," he said, adding that opinion polls carried out in the media do not come under the ministry's purview.