All my life, my education has been paid and taken care of by Mendaki, well that is up till now.
Currently I’m enrolled in one of the local Uni and currently, I’m no longer eligible for the free education Mendaki study subsidy due to certain clauses.
I’ve come to certain realisation that I’ve taken for granted during my schooling years when my fees was being handled by Mendaki, and the notion that Ill be financially insecure when pursuing my higher education didn’t even cross my mind.
Now that I’m no longer on the study grant, I’ve been placed on a study loan scheme by Mendaki and have since loaned some SG$11,000 plus for my studies.
Its a bit unnerving for me, to be in a position owning someone or in this case Mendaki money.
Its not small change eh, but in-fact the amount runs up to thousands.
The very thought of after graduation or if I even made it to graduation and not being able to repay the loan maybe due to unforeseen circumstances eg; economic crisis, jobs scarity for fresh graduates just scares me.
But what irks me is the fact that theres a lot of criticisms on the government position, granting us the Malays, Free Education.
This issue has been hotly debated ever since and I just wonder if abolishing the Article 152 would resolve such indifferences.
Well for the sake of foreign readers, we the Malays are given special position (eg; education grants) by the government due to our ancestors who was the original indigenous people of Singapore
Quoted from Article 152
Malays are the indigenous people of the island as per Article 152 of the Republic of Singapore Independence Constitution.
The special position of Malays and minorities in Singapore: the Singapore Government has interpreted its constitutional duty as providing opportunities for Malays to compete on equal terms with the rest of the population by providing assistance wherever needed.
This has largely been in the field of education, where up to recently, free education for Malays was one of the cornerstones of the Government’s policy
In my opinion, such treatment to us Malays gives grounds for non-Malays to criticise the policy as it opposes Singapore’s stand on meritocracy.
As my Malay friend soundly said, it creates a “crutch mentality” for the Malays.
Malays have been stereotyped as being buffoonery, emasculated, void-deck singers, mats who are loud & minahs who dresses up like pontianaks.
Yesh i must admit theres some Malays who are loud, the mats or minahs are still around but I believe most Malays have progressed from there.
My heart says, lets abolish the Article 152 policy, so as all races have equal footing in Singapore but my mind says that well always be a marginalized community in Singapore
