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06/11/2008? Tiong questions Education Ministry for turning down STPM excellent students to local Universities
  • Datuk Idris Harun, assistant minister of hi
 BINTULU: Bintulu MP Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing warned of serious brain drain in the country when STPM students with excellent results were grabbed by foreign universities after our own universities closed their door to them.

Speaking to the Borneo Post yesterday, Tiong, who is also the BN Back Bencher Club chairman, said foreign universities had not only happily grabbed our top students, they even offered scholarship to them.
He said after graduation, these students mostly chose to remain in those countries when they were offered good jobs.

"This is a very awkward situation that we have created for ourselves. We raised our children by giving them the best education. Then, we send them off to be accepted by foreign universities. 

"The situation is like marrying off our children when they reach adulthood."

In the telephone interview yesterday, Tiong said he raised this issue in the parliament on Monday, giving examples of medicine students being rejected by our local universities, only to be happily grabbed by foreign universities.

He appealed to the Education Ministry to explain the situation and spelt out steps they had taken to prevent this.

He said the ministry admitted medicine was a favourite course among top students. 

"Other favourite courses include dentistry and pharmacy."

To avoid disappointment, he said the education ministry had required students to fill in five courses of their choice, so that arrangement could be made for them to take up one of them when their first-priority choice was rejected.

Last year, he said the Education Ministry received 47,182 applications for local university entry.
"A total of 21,828 students were accepted."

Tiong said education remained an important matter of the people and he assured parents he would continue speaking out for their children in the parliament.