With reference to the letter National schools must reflect racial diversity , I beg to add my two-sen's worth. The issue is not that national school must reflect racial diversity but that all schools should reflect racial diversity.

This becomes apparent when children at the age of 12 notice that most of their brighter bumiputera friends go to 'special' schools, eg, Mara Junior Colleges, Science Schools, reserved boarding schools.

However, they're stuck in the normal schools where there is supposed to be diversity and integration. The normal schools offer lower teacher to student ratio, poor facilities, insufficient funds, insufficient teachers and more.

Then, in Form 3, they notice a second cohort of students leaving for those 'special' schools again. The national schools are left with the riffraff. In Form 5, the process repeats. And the non-bumi students realise that national schools are no place to be in.

Imagine - special schools do not reflect the nation's diversity. There is only a token number of other students, eg, 10 percent. How do these bumi students get to integrate with anyone?

When these 'special' and privileged students go for matriculation, they mix with their own kind. They go to university and also mix with their own kind. Where is the integration?

The non-bumi students realise that there is no real integration. So why should they care about this integration business? All they care about is their results and the hope that they get into some university, either local or overseas. And they hope to get out of the apartheid school system that has handicapped them all their school life.

So, of course, their children and their children's children do not believe in integration.