The government’s removal of the barrier for high-achieving non-Malay students to further their studies in matriculation programmes is “meaningless” as long as the 90 percent quota for bumiputera is still in place, said Lawyers for Liberty.

According to the human rights group’s director Zaid Malek, this is because the quota system disregards the rights of the non-bumiputera to education as guaranteed under Article 153 of the Federal Constitution.