Rejected by JPA - what do you think?

In the midst of the media circus that is the UMNO GA, this humble letter in Malaysiakini.com caught my eye. Since letters to Mkini are open to the public (without subscription), I've decided to reproduce it here, point out a few issues and ask for your comments. I'll let you read the letter first after which I'll write my own comments.

M Rafee
Nov 15, 06 4:16pm

My child was born as an intra-uterine growth retardation (IUGR) baby. The doctors had advised us to always monitor her health as she grew. They were worried some of her organs might develop problems. In fact, when they induced her to be prematurely delivered, one of the doctors told me that they anticipated her to be born without limbs. I had nearly fainted.

But with God’s grace, my child was born physically complete. Among my three children, she grew up to be the smartest. She obtained 5As in her UPSR exams, 7As in her PMR exams and 7As in her SPM exam. She did her matriculation and got clearance from the Ministry of Higher Education to study medicine in Indonesia, her childhood dream.

Me and my wife, who are both government servants, had already paid the initial payment of RM60,000 which is part of the total cost of RM200,000. For the balance, we applied for a loan from the Public Services Department (JPA). But unfortunately, JPA rejected our application.

Now I want to humbly ask JPA, is a RM150,000 loan request a very substantial amount, compared to the billions of dollars that have been abused in our country? The irony is that when we appealed, one of the officers had the cheek to say, ‘If you all can’t afford, why send her overseas to study medicine, just make her study any of the courses offered by the local universities’.

God willing, my child will one day become a doctor and serve the Malaysian rakyat. And she will definitely pay the loan installments once she starts working. All types of loans are given to bumiputeras and if there is a political connection, some of them can borrow millions of ringgit without the need to pay them back.

It is a well-known fact that some of the banks went ‘kaput’ after providing huge loans which later were declared non-performing.

Here we as loyal and high-performing (cemerlang) government staff are imploring for aid to allow their child to achieve her dream of becoming a doctor, but the relevant authorities are so inconsiderate that they don’t even bother to consider the parents’ long-term loyal service to the government.

Subsequently, we had no choice but to mortgage our humble abode to finance our child’s education to see our IUGR baby beat all the odds and become a doctor. Though at a very high cost for we are paying a monthly payment of RM1,100.

Okay, now for my thoughts.

Firstly, I find it surprising that his daughter wasn't given a JPA scholarship. Her PMR and SPM results seemed pretty good. (I'm assuming that M Rafee's daughter belongs to the Bumiputera category when it comes to scholarship allocation purposes) 7As is not 11As but I would have thought that it should be sufficient to obtain some form of government scholarship.

Furthermore, he mentioned that his daughter had obtained permission from the MOHE to go to Indonesia. I'm not sure what the implications of this are, but if MOHE grants you permission, isn't that a tacit approval of your chances to obtain a scholarship? (Most of my friends who went to England or Australia to study medicine didn't have to seek MOHE approval)

Secondly, M Rafee wasn't even asking for a scholarship but for a loan (usually JPA loans have lowere interest rates but they do have to be paid back).

Thirdly, both M Rafee and his wife are civil servants which makes JPA's rejection of their loan request seem even more implausible.

Fourthly, I'm not sure if JPA knew of his daughter's childhood health problems (I must admist I don't know what intra-uterine growth retardation (IUGR) is or what debilitating effects it causes) but if they did, shouldn't they take this into consideration when processing M Rafee's loan application?

Fifthly, I applaud M.Rafee for making a substantial financial sacrifice (by first, paying the 60,000RM initial payment out of his own pocket and secondly by taking out a mortgage on their house when the JPA application failed) to make her daughter's dreams come true especially given the fact that civil servants are not the most well paid of workers in Malaysia.

Sixthly and lastly, I posit this scenario for our readers to reflect and discuss. If we were posed this exact scenario and was told at the end that the letter writer and his daughter belong to the non-Bumiputera category, would our reaction stay the same or would it change?

Some food for thought.