As teachers we always encourage our students to study hard, believe in god , work sincerely,love their parents and respect their teachers. We always say "If you practice all these good values in life you will achieve your dream". Mostly they ignored us but, some listened , believed in our words and studied hard , did their work properly and sacrificed many things the year they took their SPM examination. Again, this year we were proven wrong.
Unfortunately I had to witness another batch of Indian students who did extremely well in their SPM, excelled in co-curricular activities and championed in sport having had their dreams dashed. These bright , articulate and eager youngsters were turned down by almost all parties that they applied for furthering their studies or scholarships. Matriculation, pre-University programmes and last but not least the JPA scholarship slammed their doors shut to them. One particular boy questioned me,
" Why sir, when I scored 10 A1s , all the teachers (including this blogger) congratulated me and the school felicitated me with special dinner and award ceremony, promising me a bright future and just a few month down the road they let us down by rejecting all our application. Why did you promise us something that we would never have?"
I was without an answer.
This bring backs a lot of memory from my own school days. When I was the top scorer of my school and district for SPM, I was invited to many award ceremonies and made feeling special as though the whole world was at my feet. And a few months after that I was thrown down from the pedestal rather unceremoniously and left with no other option than to do my STPM. I wondered why is that my malay friends who achieved far lower grade than my own secured scholarship and some even flew to overseas. This left me puzzled and I had my first taste of disparity in this nation. I am not questioning the right of the government to help the malay to achieve higher education and socio economic status by empowerment strategies but this must not be at the expenses of other races who are clearly in more need of these empowerment actions.
Coming back to the boy who questioned me, i could see clearly that something had died in him that day....I was wondering...would he put his heart and soul into anything that he does in his future? or will me adopt a more 'tidak apa' attitude thinking that hard work will not yield the desired result. I tried to guide my students by pointing them to many overseas universities that offers scholarship and study loans. I told them that the world is their oyster and they should accept the rejection as a blessing in disguise . Go wherever you want to go and achieve whatever you want to achieve....human mind is border less and your intelligence will be respected if not here by everywhere else. Whatever I say and even when some of them looked as though they have accepted their faith...I can see that now, they are afraid to dream. A dream shattered by their own motherland. Will you blame them if they became less patriotic as they soar towards the outside world? May god gives them the strength to carry on..
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