Another controversy is sweeping through the nation. This time around it is about "meritocracy". It is now common knowledge to many Malaysians that the recently announced result of admission to our public universities is the source of the controversy.
The differential numbers of admissions in relation to the various ethnic groups to the 11 universities and six university colleges is seen to be unfair to some young Malaysians in contrast to others.
A cursory examination of letters, news items, articles and editorials in the various media indicate that the differential admission of our young people for university education is perceived to be ethnically discriminatory, indicating or resulting from a poorly worked out and managed meritocracy system or from a carefully planned unfair "meritocracy system without merit".
Meritocracy is a component of our present mode of governance in matters dealing with education, particularly in relation to the distribution of opportunities for university education. Since the target of governance is always a population, meritocracy refers to the distribution of university education to a population. Is this population a general one, i.e. all eligible young Malaysians? And, does this mode of governance adequately address the tertiary educational needs of all our young people?
The literature on the issue of distribution of educational opportunities in a highly stratified and unequal multi-cultural society suggests two key debates. The first debate is about "quota vs. merit". Ensuing from this is a mode of governance oriented by affirmative action policy and equality.
Fixed offer
Affirmative action policy forms a mode of governance of the rights of a segment in a population that has suffered historically in social, cultural and political sense. A quota system offers a social corrective — providing a historically disadvantaged group a fixed offer in a planned strategy of opportunity distribution and not through a competitive measure.
In Malaysia, as it many other countries, the quota system has a political function. In Malaysia, the quota system is offered to the majority and politically powerful, ethnic community. This has created a query on the real purpose of the quota system, which has led, among other things, to see the system as promoting Malay hegemony rather than addressing a social disadvantage.
In recent times, there has been an effort in Malaysia to change the distribution of tertiary educational opportunities from quota to merit system, which brings us to the second debate and the centre of the present controversy.
The second debate relates to "equality vs merit". Ensuing from this are three alternative modes of governance available for redistribution of (tertiary) educational opportunities — egalitarian, moderated meritocracy and unrestricted meritocracy.
A vision of a society that celebrates diversity and differences and systematically undermines patterned and inter-generational forms of social inequality is a social potential that is yet to be realised, making equality achieved through recognising differences in abilities, differences in contribution and differences in needs a non-existent one. Thus, presently the egalitarian mode of governance is non-existent.
Similarly, a society of radical individualism in an imagined libertarian future, in which the state/bureaucracy is reduced in size and scope, makes unrestricted meritocracy — minimum restriction on the fittest to reach the top — an unrealized mode of governance.
Selected few
Only liberalism and/or conservatism supports state-directed meritocracy i.e. moderated meritocracy, which we are accustomed to here. Against the equality-merit spectrum, liberalism slants towards equality, in the attempt to generalise educational opportunities from the rich to the middle classes and downwards while the conservatism slants towards merit, maintaining that educational opportunities be available to a selected few in society.
Both liberalism and conservatism work within an elite model of education, the former maintaining a "soft version" while the latter maintaining a "stronger version" of the elite model. Our notion of meritocracy seems to slant towards the stronger version of elitism.
Our present mode of governance of tertiary educational opportunities through a meritocratic system will minimally work if there is a level playing field between the players, a common university entrance system and transparency to examine the processes that contribute to the moderated meritocratic system. Unfortunately, we have a situation where none of the above is applicable.
How can we create a meritocratic system with affirmative action policy that is based on exclusive category of ethnicity? A level playing field can never be established in this way. In addition, we do not have a common entrance system. Two systems operate to distribute tertiary educational opportunities resulting in an outcome that hardly realised the principle of merit. Malaysia is never known for its transparency. We as a people have hardly been active subjects of policy making but merely the passive objects of policies.
This situation disadvantages some segments of the Malaysian population in contrast to others. First, meritocracy is based on the "survival of the fittest" formula and contributes to a social Darwinist future ("the fittest have the right to survive and the others can be damned!"). Meritocracy is essentially elitist and disadvantages certain segments against an elite few. In this case, it is possible that a meritocratic system can exclude not only members of the poorer community but also such groups as women.
Level playing field
In a highly unequal society with vast differences in income differentials, a level playing field cannot be established, thus making meritocracy actively contribute to elitism.
The meritocratic system will eventually benefit the middle classes and the richer lot and men among them. This mode of governance thus presents a high social risk for members of the poor and the tribals in Malaysia. What happens to those outside the merit system? What do we have in place for them and their well-being?
Second, while the above discussion present the meritocratic system itself as a serious problem in distributing educational opportunities to the young, the situation is further aggravated by a careless and poorly thought out approach to organising meritocracy in contemporary Malaysia. We do not just have one problem in establishing a level playing field. We have economic status, gender and ethnicity all contributing to maintaining a much-skewed playing field.
From critically examining the outcome of the state-managed moderated meritocratic system, we know that the young among the Malay Malaysians — and particularly the well off among them — have better opportunities and more certain future than the young of other ethnic communities.
Added to this, the differential system for university entrance has also contributed to their well-being. The lack of transparency, the third important factor, in a highly controlled political environment harms the critical social learning feedback mechanisms and consequently increases the social risks of an uncertain future for the young non-Malay Malaysians.
Moderated meritocracy is a component of our present mode of governance in matters dealing with education, particularly in relation to university education. Among the critical objectives of governance in any society are ones that attempt to reduce social security risks of its members so that they may have a future, realise their potentials, achieve a meaningful and secure life (and in the process provide legitimacy to the regime).
Increases social risk
However, meritocracy as it is practiced here today reflects a mode of governance that systematically increases the social risk of a number of non-Malay Malaysian segments of the population while reducing it for the Malay Malaysians.
Against this background, there is an argument that is appearing in some quarters that relates to the fact that tertiary education is now available not only at the 11 public universities and six university colleges. It is also available at the 600 over private institutions of higher education i.e. private colleges.
It is assumed that tertiary education can be more equitably distributed among young Malaysians by the mix of public and private institutions of higher education and also by different entry requirements. While this is reasonable enough, the real issue of the distribution of educational opportunities among all young Malaysians from the perspective of "education as a right" is not addressed or resolved by such an argument or strategy.
Three unfortunate developments can be discerned in relation to the above, which have created a high social risk environment, particularly for a number of ethnic and poor communities. First, sadly in Malaysia, the public institutions serve the needs of the young Malay Malaysians while the private institutions serve the young Chinese Malaysians, with the other communities, including young Indian Malaysians, running between these two sites.
Notwithstanding the rhetoric of "Malaysia as a regional centre of excellence for higher education", private institutions are hardly a solution to a problem of equitable distribution of educational opportunities but are more reflective of an adaptive strategy of the Chinese Malaysian community to a lack of it and to the critical educational needs of their young.
Second, much to the "success" of the government's privatisation policy, the creation of educational opportunities has transformed over the years from a social objective with economic implications into a thorough economic activity.
Another commodity
The privatization of education has reduced the government's responsibility and redistributive role and shaped education into just another commodity, governed by the vagaries of the market. For many among the poorer communities, it is still difficult to get into private institutions. And those with the opportunity for education ask a very disturbing question: "Which is the easier course to pass, ah?" Education has become a 'thing' you can buy and sell.
Thirdly, education has moved from a national concern to a communal one, again removing government's responsibilities in a multi-cultural society. If communities are forced to look after themselves, why do we need a national government then?
Notwithstanding our vision of a "caring society", increasingly the modes of governance that is adopted by the government seem to suggest that even as we are "moving" towards a developed society status, we are also moving towards an unsustainable high risk society. We are becoming a society with modes of governance that puts huge sections of our population without a future, at the social risk of being unable to take care of themselves and/or their families or realise their potential or participate fully in national life.
Our peculiar kind of moderated meritocracy just as is our tax system, which seem to be moving towards giving more importance to indirect than direct taxes, or our strategies for the post-retirement period of millions of workers all show unsustainable modes of governance that increases social risks.
Some segments may be getting richer but we are increasing the vulnerabilities and risks of many other segments. Among these are young Malaysians and their delicate futures. A meritocratic system that systematically increases the social risks of sections of young Malaysians is hardly practical or moral.
M NADARAJAH is a sociologist by profession. He works on sustainable development issues and is presently the deputy co-ordinator of a virtual organisation called the Asian Communication Network, with an anchor in Bangkok, Thailand.
