Reading the news item yesterday, about how the matriculation rules would be relaxed to admit non-bumiputra students ("Matriculation places for non-bumiputras", The Star, May 30), I cannot help but smile, cynically, of course. About time, too, one may say, but the question is, why should the Malay students who had performed so excellently still need to be kept 'segregated'?

Not long ago, just after the unveiling of the "new merit-based system", Higher Education Department director Prof Dr Hassan Said contended that it was the STPM students who were more fortunate, and that, if anything, it is the matriculation students who should complain. If this is the case, why is the government so fearful of desegregating the matriculation classes? Why limit entry of non-bumiputra students to just 10 percent?

Why not base admission into the matriculation programme, too, on merit?

The irony is, while the government contends that the new system is actually based on merit, it doesn't see — most bafflingly, I should add — that the ethnic criteria used in the admission of matriculation students, for all practical purposes, reduces its claims to a parody, a joke even.

But, alas! What is obvious to even secondary school students (read 17-year-old Nor'Izzati Mokhtar's letter — "Treat non-bumis fairly" — appeared in the New Straits Times few days back) escapes the comprehension of Musa Mohamed and Prof Hassan!

In my humble opinion, perhaps our government could do a lot more justice to our education system and our nation if, instead of pretending to introduce meritocracy in the university selection process, it did the same in the selection of high officials! We really don't need confused individuals deciding the fate of our nation.