Friday, June 3, 2011

Scholarships: ‘No difference’ if MCA in Cabinet, says DAP


















 The MCA’s failure to help 86 top SPM students secure scholarships for studies abroad proves there is “no difference” whether or not the party remains in the Cabinet, Lim Guan Eng said.

The DAP secretary-general said that instead of taking Barisan Nasional (BN) to task for its “unfair treatment” of top scholars, the MCA chose to attack the opposition party even though it was the Public Service Department (PSD) that withheld the scholarships.

This only showed that the MCA was “inarticulate, indifferent, indecisive and ineffective” when it came to righting wrongs perpetrated by the ruling coalition on students despite being “ever ready” to blame the DAP, Lim said.

“Must we wait until there is no MCA for there to be a final and permanent solution that would do justice to top students?” he said in a statement today.






Lim (picture), who is also Penang chief minister, slammed the MCA for taking a leaf out of Malay rights group Perkasa’s playbook by using race to cover up its failure to obtain the overseas scholarships.

He stressed the DAP has never turned the issue into a racial one as claimed by MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek, pointing out that of the 86 students who appealed three were Malay Bumiputeras, one Sarawak Bumiputera, 71 Chinese and 11 Indians.

“DAP has never turned this issue into a racial issue as claimed by Chua but considered this as a failure by the BN government to appreciate Malaysian talents regardless of race and religion,” he said.

Lim added while the MCA may be afraid to speak up on the scholarship issue, DAP lawmakers would pursue this matter at the next Parliamentary sitting this month.

Dr Chua accused the DAP yesterday of sowing discontent within the Chinese community and reminded the opposition party not to turn the government scholarship programme into a racial issue.

The MCA chief pointed out that 1,620 Chinese students received scholarships this year, the highest ever since the government introduced the PSD programme.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz announced two days ago that the 86 SPM top scorers who failed to qualify for this year’s PSD scholarships will be given places in local private colleges and universities.

He said by giving out scholarships to local private colleges and universities, the government will only spend RM21.6 million and not the RM52.1 million it would take to send the students overseas.

PSD currently offers overseas scholarships to 1,500 students with straight 9A+ and above, 2,500 local grants to those with minimum achievements of 8A+ and above and 8,000 local scholarships for diploma or matriculation courses to those who failed to qualify for the first two categories and others.




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