The MCA president said the party fully supports the quotas set for Sabah Bumiputeras, Sarawak Bumiputeras and socially handicapped, but hinted the 20 per cent quota reserved for meritocracy needed to be expanded.
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Aziz, who is in charge of the PSD scholarships, revealed that the government had allocated 1,500 overseas scholarships to top students. Of this, only 300 were given entirely on merit to students scoring straight 9A+.
The remaining 1,200 overseas grants, he said, were distributed according to those qualified within four categories — Sabah Bumiputeras (five per cent), Sarawak Bumiputeras (five per cent), social composition or the population’s racial composition (60 per cent) and socially handicapped (10 per cent).
“MCA supports the 10 per cent for socially disadvantage group and also the quotas for Sabah and Sarawak group. This is only fair because you cannot have a school in Sabah and Sarawak with facilities that do not have the standard like in KL or even Ipoh.
“We also fully support the 60 per cent (racial) quota but I think there is a need to look into it,” Dr Chua told reporters during a press conference here, without elaborating.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak will meet with the Public Service Department (PSD) tomorrow to address the issue of mismatched scholarships and resolve the ongoing dispute.
However, Nazri has stressed that the department is not under investigation for alleged power abuse despite the allegations made by MCA Youth chief Datuk Wee Ka Siong.
Dr Chua also said he will raise the scholarship issue during the National Economic Action Council (NEAC) meeting with Najib tomorrow.
“Minor things I will raise together with the prime minister. For example, the 20 per cent quota for meritocracy (300 students) based on results, we feel they should go overseas; the rest can stay at home.
He added that highly-qualified applicants for degree courses should also not be diverted to diploma-level programmes.
MCA was the first to raise grievances about PSD’s distribution of scholarships this year, with Wee claiming that 363 straight A+ students had failed to get the scholarships despite Najib’s promise last year that all students scoring 8A+ and above would secure placements.