COMMENT | What is a qualification? An academic degree or/and a wealth of experience that says one can get the job done.

I am prompted to consider this issue in response to PAS secretary-general Takiyuddin Hassan’s assertion that MPs are qualified to head GLCs because they are MPs.

The logic defies my comprehension, so I must resort to my university training in logic, start from the bedrock basic, as in the first sentence above.

Speaking from a wealth of experience teaching in various universities and colleges, I quickly dismiss the necessary importance of a degree setting you on a charted career.

Two examples. I taught and directed three young women, the first students of the Faculty of Performing Arts in UiTM, Shah Alam, till their graduation. A couple of years later, I met a couple of them. My top student, A, a captivating actor, was running an employment agency with her boyfriend, bringing in Nepali labour.

Her naïve dream of stardom had crashed against the hard reality of the Malay entertainment industry’s insistence on physical beauty for lead roles. This meant two despairing years of futile auditions, a couple of chorus roles in musicals, a few walk-on roles in television dramas.