In Zakiah Koya's report [#1]Umno making use of GPMS: PAS[/#] (Dec 19), Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad was quoted as saying in 1965: "There will come a time when we will have to do away with the privileges of the Malays. I believe the special rights of the Malays as written down in the constitution is an insult to the Malays. This likens the Malays to the Red Indians in America where they need to be given reserve land be able to live in America."

Mahathir is right. What's more, I think he still believes that, and is only paying lip service to the quota system to appease some political supporters. He has encouraged the setting up of no-quota systems where he could get away with it - for example, in some of the new private colleges and universities he has encouraged.

Some of these colleges and universities have "stolen" some of the best non-Malay lecturers from government universities because of this, and these lecturers have had to revise their attitude towards Malay students in the no-quota environment.

In the government universities, Malay students are of a lower quality due to the quotas forcing admissions standards to be lowered for them. Thus these lecturers had gotten the attitude that "Malays are bad students".

However, in their new quota-less environment, every Malay student has had to pass the same standard as everyone else. So these lecturers have had their prejudices shaken - the Malay students they get now are every bit as good as their non-Malay counterparts.