Public Scholarships in Malaysia: What are the missing points?

By Wan Chang Da

Introduction

The Public Service Department (PSD) Scholarship, better known as the “Jabatan Perkhidmatan Awam (JPA) Scholarship”, is one of the most sought-after public scholarships[1] in Malaysia for students to pursue tertiary education abroad. In 2008, 15,200 applicants vied for the 2,000 scholarships. Due to the intensity of competition and the prestigious prize, the annual selection process has captured the public’s attention and there have been constant debates about the scholarship, specifically concerns about fairness and transparency.

These debates about the scholarship take place at every level of society, and as Malaysia is a multi-ethnic country, they occasionally go into political and racial aspects. Both government and opposition politicians, journalists, bloggers, parents and students, have all been actively engaged in these debates in one way or another. From the individual perspective, particularly that of parents, the lucrative scholarship package is increasingly being seen as an important career stepping-stone for their children. Furthermore, from the country’s viewpoint, these public scholarships indeed have a critical role to play in the development of human capital in a developing country such as Malaysia. However, within these debates, too little attention has been devoted to the educational and economic principles behind the scholarship.

Using the JPA Scholarship as a case study, this article will focuses on three aspects: purpose, evaluation and efficiency. The first section will briefly describe the JPA overseas scholarship to set the scene, and the second section will discuss the purpose of the scholarship. The third section will deliberate the criteria used in evaluation, particularly the educational values behind the selection criteria. The fourth section will then discuss the issue about efficiency. Through highlighting these three aspects, this article attempts to redirect the focus of the debates and contribute towards developing a more efficient and fair public scholarship system in the country.

The JPA Scholarship

The annual JPA Scholarship is administered by the Public Service Department, the human resource department of the federal civil service. It is open to students who excel in the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) examination, and awarded for studying in a specific foreign country and field of study. The recipients – known as scholars – will then undergo a pre-university programme such as the International Baccalaureate (IB) or prepare for pre-university examination such as A-levels at a local college, where academic matters are determined by the scholarship’s administrating body. A scholar will then apply individually to a university, taken from a list of universities in the country agreed upon in the scholarship agreement. The subjects sponsored under this scholarship scheme include: medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, veterinary science, agricultural science, biotechnology, engineering, actuarial science, accounting, quantity surveying, computer science, general science, architecture, town and regional planning, economics, tourism, the social sciences, the liberal arts and business management. At the end of the course, the scholar is bonded to serve the government for a period ranging from six to ten years.

In short, the JPA Scholarship covers the educational and living costs for the scholar, both for the pre-university course in Malaysia and tertiary education abroad for the pre-specified subject. However, in 2008, the Public Service Department introduced another pathway to the JPA overseas scholarship, for Malaysians who have successfully gained admission into an elite university. This alternative pathway is for those who did their pre-university education independently and receive an unconditional offer from either an Ivy League university, a top university in England or one of the Group of Eight universities in Australia. However, this alternative pathway seems to have been discontinued, as relevant information could not be found at the Public Service Department’s website at the same of writing – July 2010.

According to a press statement dated 6 April 2010 by the Deputy Prime Minister, also the Education Minister, the JPA Scholarship will be reduced to 1,500 overseas scholarships and limited to medicine, dentistry, pharmacy and engineering. The Prime Minister further announced on 10 July 2010 that all students obtaining 9A+ and more for their SPM examination would receive a JPA scholarship.

Point 1: The Purpose of the Scholarship

In the press statement by the Education Minister, it was revealed that the 1,500 JPA overseas scholarships for the year 2010 would be divided into four categories, each with a different weighting, to be used for evaluating the applicants (see Table 1 and Table 2). Although revealing the four categories and the weighting used for evaluation reflects a move towards greater transparency in the selection for the scholarship, one important factor remains unclear, which is the purpose of the JPA scholarship.

Table 1: Categories and their allocation of JPA Scholarship

In general, scholarships could be categorised into a merit-based, career-specific, need-based, and student-specific. A merit-based scholarship is often related to overall academic excellence, whereas a career specific scholarship is awarded to students intending to pursue a particular field of study, such as medicine or nursing. A student-specific scholarship, on the other hand, usually targets to a particular group of students based on ethnicity or gender, and clearly in this case, is the third category for the “bumiputeras” from the states of Sabah and Sarawak. A needs-based scholarship – often known as financial aid, is usually awarded based on the student and his or her family’s situation.

The JPA overseas scholarship has elements of all the different types of scholarship combined into one. On the one hand, this is a career-specific scholarship, as the scholarship is tied to the field of study, and on the other hand, is also a student-specific, merit-based and need-based scholarship. Such fuzzy and overlapping objectives, in a way, could easily confuse the application and selection process, and raised a question: “What is the purpose of the government in awarding the JPA overseas scholarship?”

If the scholarship is intended to assist the socially disadvantaged or target a specific group within the country, the terms and conditions of the scholarship could be adjusted accordingly to provide the necessary affirmative assistance in the form of a financial aid. However, if the intention of the scholarship is to recruit and develop the best talents for the country, particularly to serve the civil service, then, the scholarship should aim at recruiting the best students.

In addition, it may be more efficient to have several different types of scholarship each clearly defined to enable a more precise matching of the expectation and criteria of both the applicants and the scholarship. At this point, I would argue that there should be at least two types of JPA scholarship: a merit-based scholarship that targets the best students in the country regardless of ethnicity, state of origin or family background; and an alternative financial aid for socially disadvantaged groups. The two schemes should have different objectives and criteria. In the subsequent part of the article, the arguments will be based on this distinction between a scholarship and financial aid.

Point 2: Evaluation

The second point that may be missing in the debate about public scholarships and specifically the JPA overseas scholarship, is the principle used for evaluation. Table 2 illustrates the existing evaluation criteria used in the selection process for the JPA overseas scholarship.

Table 2: Weighting used in each category for evaluation

Within the current evaluation structure, the largest component for evaluation is academic performance, which is based on the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) examination. The SPM is a national examination in Malaysia, and generally regarded as the minimal leaving school qualification. However, since the last decade, the SPM examination has suffered from massive grade inflation. Since the introduction of the “open paper” system in 2000, students have the flexibility to choose the number of subjects. As a result, there were students attempting more than 20 subjects, hoping that by gaining more A's, will present a greater chance for them to receive these public scholarships. Therefore, in 2009, the Education Minister proposed to introduce a cap of ten subjects for SPM examination, an attempt to discourage the phenomenon of merely chasing for A’s.

In addition, the SPM grades were also highly inflated to the point that it was almost impossible to distinguish the students academically through the examination. Although more than 400,000 students sat for the SPM examination nationwide annually, in 2008 alone, 6,277 students scored straight A’s. The number of straight A’s students has clearly exceeded the number of public scholarships available. Thus, as a way to overcome the grade inflation, in 2009, the Ministry of Education introduced an additional grade, known as A+ with the intention to distinguish further those who score an A in the SPM examination.

Due to these developments, it may be argued that the SPM examination may no longer be appropriate as the sole evaluation criterion of academic excellence.

Besides, it is important to point out that the JPA overseas scholarships, as well as other public scholarships, are scholarships for tertiary education. This raises a question about the evaluation criteria, whereby the scholarship selection criteria for tertiary education is based upon the academic performance in secondary school, instead of pre-university.

Evaluative criteria based on co-curriculum and interviews are highly subjective. The former is based upon the applicants’ involvement in extra-curricular activities within the last two years in secondary school, whereby students only indicate their participation and position held. As such, the criterion may fail to take into account the scale of involvement and commitment of the student. For example, a President of 100-member Science Society is assumed to be equal to a President of a 5-member Gardening Society. This again, questions the suitability of this criterion to constitute between 5% and 10% in the evaluation framework.

This is the same with the interview criterion. However, this will be difficult to discuss, as there is no information provided by the Public Service Department. Information could only be gathered informally from the applicants who have attended these interviews. Similarly, it is also beyond the scope of this paper to discuss the evaluation of the socio-economic status of the applicants and their families.

As a whole, the scholarship evaluation framework is highly dependent on the education system. More precisely, the student’s performances in secondary school, where the academic and co-curriculum criteria are formulated, constitute a significant part of the evaluation. As the concept of path dependency suggests, it is unlikely that an evaluation structure or the educational system could transform itself radically to provide an alternative assessment. It is likely, therefore, that subsequent improvement and changes to the JPA overseas scholarship evaluation criteria will continue to be closely associated with the educational system and thus continue to be academically driven by examination results. This therefore argues for a need of an alternative evaluation to select the best talents for the country.

Two questions emerged from discussing the current evaluation framework for JPA overseas scholarship. First, “What are the appropriate criteria to evaluate applicants for a career-specific scholarship?”, and second, “Who should be evaluating these applicants?”

An ideal implementation to the questions raised, in fact, has close resemblance to the alternative pathway introduced in 2008. This initiative, in part, has shifted the duty to evaluate the applicants from the Public Service Department to the various universities. Furthermore, being accepted by a top university is clearly a much more convincing criterion as compared to secondary school achievements.

In this case, the Public Service Department need not worry about the evaluation of the applicants, but instead, could concentrate on making strategic planning regarding the future needs of the civil service and the career development of the scholars. The Public Service Department need not select 1,500 students who excelled in their secondary education or SPM examination, but rather, concentrate on deciding what are the areas required by the civil service and proceed to establish 1,500 scholarships in various subjects across the major universities around the world for Malaysian students. These scholarships should then be communicated to the public. The applicants will apply directly to these top universities and the JPA overseas scholarship will be awarded upon their successful admission to the specific course in these universities. On the one hand, the Public Service Department benefits through a more precise yet independent evaluative structure to award the scholarship, and on the other hand, concentrate on administering and managing the scholarship as well as the subsequent career development of the scholars, in a more efficient manner.

Point 3: Efficiency and Effectiveness

The implementation suggested in the previous section – where the scholarship is established in a particular university and course – besides being more objective in terms of the evaluation, is also arguably more efficient. In this regards, universities already have an evaluation system in-placed to evaluate students for admission. The Public Service Department (PSD), on the other hand, specialises in recruitment and management of human resources for the civil service. As such, the theory of opportunity cost may suggests that in this case, specialisation of tasks is a more efficient solution to the implementation, i.e. evaluation by universities and the PSD concentrates on administration and management.

Besides, the debates about JPA overseas scholarship, in part, have also been pre-occupied with the issue of scholars breaching the bond after their studies. As reported by The Star, in 2007 alone, more than 100 scholars who studied in the UK, breached their bond and stayed on to work in the UK. Such acts by these scholars, it is claimed, cost the country more than a million Malaysian ringgit each. This phenomenon, in a way, raises questions about the efficiency and effectiveness of the scholarship scheme, and the notion of efficiency and effectiveness will be explored in a number of ways.

First, in view of the increasing incidence of scholars breaching the bond, a primary consideration would be to minimise the cost of each scholarship. The current package of the JPA scholarship funds the foreign pre-university programme at a local private college and tertiary education abroad. However, it could be argued, that if these scholars were the brightest students in the country, they should have the capabilities to academically achieve excellent results at any given pre-university programme, even without the support of the scholarship. After all, there are, at least two publicly available routes of pre-university education in Malaysia, the Malaysian Matriculation Programme and Sijil Tinggi Persekolahan Malaysia (STPM) – formerly known as the Higher School Certificate (HSC). The STPM pre-university programme is taught in public secondary schools, and the only notable cost involved is the examination cost. More importantly, the STPM is an internationally recognised pre-university programme. As there is an existing internationally-recognised Malaysian pre-university programme, and comparatively more cost-effective, this perhaps provides an alternative for the Public Service Department to consider only funding tertiary education abroad.

Thus, by lowering the cost involved through scrapping the pre-university component and subsequently reduce the length of bond, this will provide an incentive for scholars to honour their bond to serve in the civil service. Arguably, this in a way could counter the phenomenon of bond breaching and in the long run enhance the efficiency of administrating the scholarship.

Second, as suggested previously, having clearly differentiated schemes for both a career-specific scholarship and financial aid may also enhance the efficiency of the funding system as a whole. While reducing the length of bond may decrease the propensity in bond breaching, the career-specific scholarship scheme could also include other career-related incentives for these scholars in the civil service, such as direct admission and a more clearly defined career trajectory within a particular area in the civil service. At the moment, scholars upon completion of their studies, are not assigned to a particular area within the civil service, and have to re-apply to join the civil service in a particular position. For example, a scholar with a law degree could possibly join the Attorney-General Office, Administrative and Diplomatic Service, Police or Judiciary, but he or she will have to apply for the positions individually and compete with all other applicants. In the event that they failed to do so, these scholars will have their bond release unconditionally. With such a huge amount of public money invested, the over-supply of scholars, in part, reflects a certain amount of inefficiency of the strategic planning for a career-specific scholarship.

In the case of the financial aid scheme, where the objective is to provide the necessary support for the socially disadvantaged or specifically cater for the needs of a particular community, an interest-free loan instead of serving a bond may be a more appropriate measure. Furthermore, these loans and financial aids need not be tied to a particular course, university or foreign country, but such funding instead, should be made publicly available for individuals with the pre-specified criteria that are able to gain admission into tertiary education, both locally and abroad. Clearly, as the goal of the financial aid is not to a career-specific scholarship, but to provide affirmative assistance, therefore, a lengthy bond may not be an efficient repayment for both the civil service and the scholar.

Concluding Remark

As a whole the JPA overseas scholarship, as with other public scholarships, has an important role to play in the development of human capital in a developing country like Malaysia. While the public has been concerned about the issue of selection criteria, fairness and transparency, that go into political and racial sensitivity, this article has raised three points that have remained unclear or missing in the discussion about these public scholarships: the fuzzy and overlapping purpose; an inflated and subjective evaluation criteria; and the notion of efficiency.

Without a clear understanding of the purpose of these scholarships, it is difficult to examine the evaluation framework for selection. The article points out some weaknesses of the existing evaluation framework, and at the same time, argues that there is an alternative way that is more objective and independent to select applicants for these scholarships. In addition, a clear distinction between a career-specific and merit-based scholarship, as well as a need-based financial aid, may enhance the efficiency of managing these scholarships, which also have implications to counter the increasing bond-breaching among scholars. Through recognising and putting more thoughts into these points, this could contribute towards developing a fairer and more efficient public scholarship system in Malaysia.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[1] The PSC scholarship, which this article focuses on, is a public scholarship for Malaysians to study abroad for the undergraduate degree. Other Malaysian public overseas scholarships are predominantly awarded by government-linked companies, e.g. Khazanah or Telekom; or government agencies, e.g. the Central Bank. In addition, there are also 10,000 local PSC scholarships awarded annually to students studying in Malaysian universities.

________________________________________________________

Chang Da is a D.Phil. candidate at the University of Oxford with a fellowship from the National Higher Education Research Institute in Universiti Sains Malaysia.

Back to Top