Four students from Selangor and Johor, who scored 11 or 12 As in the SPM recently brought their grouses to Parliament about not getting the Public Service Department (PSD) scholarships. They represent only a small part of the many disappointed students who bring up such complaints every year.

Is it only me or do you notice that all of complainants this year and in other years seem to be non-Malay ? Perhaps some will end up in Singapore, where their bond is for seven years after which the bondholder may be offered the option to take up Singapore citizenship, and perhaps one day be a part of a stellar legal team representing Singapore in a territorial dispute decided by the ICJ against a team of mediocre Malaysians who cannot get their act together.

And when they are defeated by the Singaporeans, an equally mediocre Malaysian minister can then declare that it is ‘a win-win situation’.

DPM Najib Razak was quoted as saying: ‘Top students should be prepared to be disappointed as we must realise that the number of those who scored well in the SPM and STPM examinations was much higher than the (scholarship) allocation provided."

Dear cousin of the Education Minister, you have spent RM2.37 billion for 339,186 National Service trainees. This comes to RM69,000 for each trainee.

Just scrap national service and give the money to the PSD. Then there will be enough funds to give scholarships to all the 15,000 applicants and even to offer scholarships to senior citizens who feel like studying as well.

I assure you it will make many Malaysians happy, except, of course, for defence and NS-related contractors. In my opinion there is no reason to expose our youth to military-type training. We should teach them wholesome values and critical thinking with the hope that when they attain voting age , they don't elect stupid governments.

Education Minister Hishamuddin Hussein seems to be keeping a low profile on this issue. I challenge the government to make a transparent list of the 2,000 recipients on the very criteria set by the PSD which is academic excellence (70%), interview (10%), socio-economic background (10%) and co-curriculum (10%).

You either make it transparent or we will think that all your talk about meritocracy is bunkum.

The other day a distinguished looking ‘Pigeon’ told me a story of Dave and Mona (not their real names). Dave does not know what he did wrong. After slogging for his Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) examination last year, he achieved 11A1s and was awarded the Tokoh Pelajar in his school.

To guarantee his chances of obtaining a Public Service Department (PSD) scholarship, the former head prefect threw himself into his school's co-curricular activities despite his heavy workload. He represented his school in debating and hockey, clinching many awards at the district and state level. Coming from a lower-income family, Dave was hopeful of winning a PSD scholarship to study medicine as he had dreamt of.

Unsurprisingly, he was heartbroken to find out that his application for a scholarship under the PSD’s Foreign Degree Programme had been rejected. Mona on the other hand hails from rich family background; her father is a ‘Datuk’ living in Damansara Heights, KL. She couldn’t give a damn about co-curricular activities. She would rather spend her time sipping a latte at a high end cafe or going on shopping sprees financed by the supplementary American Express card her daddy had given her. She managed 4A1's but still got a PSD scholarship despite being filthy rich.

So make the list public and open it to scrutiny - giving an explanation is not enough or you just don't want to just admit that the selection process is biased. You can have either the enforced privileges or the moral high ground but not both.