Prof James Chin keeps his “shadow quota” debate alive; turns to TunM admitting matric is “backdoor” in degree pursuit

“WE decided to have matriculation classes because we found Malays did not take the Higher School Certificate (STPM) and cannot enter university,” twice former premier Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad told the media soon after assuming his second prime ministerial stint on May 6, 2019.

“So we provided a back door for them. It was entirely meant as a back door for the Malays,”

Fast forward six years later, renowned political analyst Prof James Chin is on a crusade to checkmate detractors who accused him of as a racist, playing victim or even assuming that his race is an entitled lot with data from the powers that be as he is adamant that “shadow quota” exists in the Malaysian education system.

In fact, Chin is not the only academician to voice discontent over the state of meritocracy in the Malaysian education system given former Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) political scientist-turned-politician Prof Ramasamy Palanisamy has previously slammed the Higher Education Ministry for continuously repeating untruth that public university admission is merit-based..

“How come the right-wing cybertroopers do not attack Mr Ketuanan? Isn’t he telling the same thing I am saying?” fumed the inaugural director of the Asia Institute at the University of Tasmania in a recent social media post.

Recall that Chin had earlier cited a recent Dewan Rakyat debate of Bayan Baru MP Sim Tze Tzin who lamented that despite STPM being deemed as the “gold standard in Southeast Asia”, STPM pupils are often marginalised.

Sim who is also the political secretary to the office of the PKR president had claimed that data from the Higher Education Ministry’s response to his query showed that the percentage of outstanding Matriculation students achieving a 4.0 CGPA is approximately 16% whereas that of STPM students is only 3.09%.

“In other words, a Matriculation student is about five times more likely to achieve a 4.0 CGPA compared to a STPM student. This is very surprising,” asserted Sim. “As a result, admission to public universities is highly disadvantageous to STPM students.”

Detractors feeling the heat

Based on Dr Mahathir’s statement, Chin went on to highlight that “Putrajaya was sticking to the 90% quota for Bumiputera students in the matriculation programme” but announced an increase in the number of students from 25,000 to 40,000 as a mitigating measure.

According to Dr Mahathir, the government’s decision to increase the intake was in response to complaints that non-Malays who performed better could not get a place in the matriculation programme.

“So the whole idea of trying to increase the number of Malay students in the universities via matriculation is nullified because even the Chinese and Indian students go through the back door,” he justified.

Whether such policy is still in place is anyone’s guess but what is certain is that detractors of Chin who is also the senior fellow and the Governance Studies director at the Jeffrey Cheah Institute on Southeast Asia at Sunway University have begun to play race card themselves following his empirical exposure.

This includes “maybe the Chinese culture and belief system doesn’t contain the concept of  rezeki (sustenance)” or “while majority of the Chinese are taught that hard work is only way out, they fail to grasp the intricacy of maintaining a delicate balance in a multi-racial country”.

Or that “unfortunately 99% (of Chinese) are not taught that life doesn’t revolve around them, hence cognitive dissonance hits hard”.

As Chin told FocusM, “the more the KMI (abbreviation that Chin coins for Ketuanan Melayu Islam) bunch attack me, the more attention this issue gets”. – Sept 18, 2025

 

Main image credit: Malay Mail

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