KUCHING: Sarawak Dayak Graduates Association (SDGA) calls on the government to put greater emphasis on rural students in the awarding of Overseas Scholarship Programme (PILN).
The association is requesting for sponsoring agencies, Majlis Amanah Rakyat (Mara) and Public Service Department (PSD), to exercise flexibility by giving scholarship to rural students who scored at least 6As in their Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) to be considered for the Program Ijazah Luar Negara scholarship.
SDGA president Dr Dusit Jaul said the 9As benchmark to apply for the scholarship often posed a great disadvantage to rural students who had to compete against their urban counterparts who enjoy better schooling facilities, greater access to education materials and information technology.
Furthermore, rural students would have to compete with excellent achievers who were mostly products of high performing schools such as Maktab Rendah Sains Mara and SM Sains, among others.
Dusit said it was a fact students in rural schools were in a position of disadvantage, the not-too conducive study environments and much-lacking infrastructure and facilities.
Hence, for a rural student to obtain 6As was already considered an excellent feat considering the lack of facilities in the interiors and this should be seen as equivalent to their urban counterpart who achieve 9As.
“It is also a well known fact that the PILN programme is very competitive.
Each year, this programme draws thousands of applications from qualified students.
“Each year, SPM performance of students from rural schools has been average. However, this couldn’t be attributed to lack of talent or efforts in the part of students or teachers. It is more of an environment factor these students are exposed to.
“Against the above backdrop, it is a real feat indeed for rural students to score 9As in their SPM examination,” Dusit said when met by The Borneo Post here yesterday.
He added that the association’s request was made only as a temporary measure until there was some improvement in facilities provided for rural schools. The association believed the request a move to assist the rural community, regardless of ethnic background, in getting the best of educational opportunities.
“If the request is not considered, it would be a great loss to the rural community at large, for we will have a situation whereby rural students will forever miss out on the continued.
Dusit said the association and the largely rural-based Dayak community had no qualms for the continuation of the scholarship programme which had brought tremendous benefits to the nation in terms of youths acquiring the right expertise overseas.
“The programme is no doubt very expensive, costing millions of taxpayers’ money every year. Costly though, it has thus far sent thousands of our students to acquire the right knowledge overseas. “The future competitiveness of this county to a very great extent depends on the local workforce.
“For instance, are we able to produce many highly trained and professional workforce? Against this backdrop, the Dayak community foresees that the PILN programme is a worthy move on the part of the government.”