Be academic first, racist later

The Third Force

For some years now, politicians from across the ideological divide have been harping on the issue of Bumiputera unemployment and the Bumiputera economy. Each time the picture painted is grim, with foresights almost always pinned to the idea that racial bigotry is threatening to further disproportionate the social order.

Last Wednesday, Perkasa President Ibrahim Ali hitched a quick ride on that bandwagon and took employers in the private sector to task. His grouse – they’re refusing Bumiputera graduates on their payrolls. According to the chief commander of the Malay lobbyist group, Chinese establishments tended towards racial bigotry when recruiting, which he said was the reason why the average Bumiputera graduate was forced to seek employment from government.

“They seem to be biased against Bumiputera graduates from public universities. The Chinese companies prefer to take Chinese. It is all about colour in Malaysia,” he was quoted as saying by Free Malaysia Today (FMT).

Ibrahim’s remarks were reportedly triggered by an observation that Universiti Malaya’s (UM) Ghauth Jasmon had made, in which he opined that unemployment among local university graduates was set to rise owing to their poor command of English. According to the UM Vice-Chancellor (VC), it was among reasons Bumiputera graduates were losing out to other races in the employment market.

But not so, says the chief of Perkasa. He had it that local Bumiputera graduates faced an uphill task despite being proficient in the language, simply because they weren’t Chinese. He went so far as to say that Chinese who ranked below par in English were better positioned in the employment sector owing to the market bias.

“Try speaking to UKM and USM students. They speak good English. How different are they from private college students?” Ibrahim was quoted asking.

Let’s put Ibrahim aside for the moment. Now, if you were to analyse what the VC had really said, you’d realise that he was addressing unemployment from a broader and pragmatic base. Specifically, the VC was centred on the marketability of graduates from public universities (Instirut Pengajian Tinggi Awam, or IPTA) as opposed to those from private institutions of higher learning (Institut Pengajian Tinggi Swasta, or IPTS).

In other words, Ghauth had gone around the issue of racism, the elephant many non-Chinese (and politicians, Ibrahim, etc.) insist is in the unemployment room. And while that may be true, the VC was reluctant to drag the public into sticky terrain before analysing the problem from a more restrained, level-headed and responsible angle. And that means no unnecessary finger-pointing, particularly if it serves only to stir hatred and derail attempts at resolving the unemployment problem – or at the very least, to improve things.

Let’s work with that spirit here, and realise this – the marketability of graduates from IPTA’s is dependent, among others, on the attention that they receive from employers in the job market. It’s simple logic, really. Once we come to terms with that, the next logical thing for us to do would be to analyse why bosses in the private sector are looking more towards the IPTS than they are, the IPTA.

Apart from the idea that employers are racist, there are two possible ways or putting things many are ignoring – either the employers find graduates from the IPTS more appealing, or they’re somehow put off by all graduates from the IPTA.

Either way, the core objective for those concerned about the unemployment problem would remain the same – to discover the reason or reasons to the bias. Ghauth is saying has to do with the quality of education and the level of proficiency in English, but Ibrahim doesn’t agree. According to the Perkasa chief, the differential spans from the innate prejudice employers have against Bumiputeras and has nothing to do with English.

So on one hand, we have the traditional, one-track racist mindset that sees red over the issue of unemployment, and on the other, a level-headed viewpoint that is pragmatic and rational. Which side are you on?

I mean, this is just like the case of a guy you meet every day in the market who stares you right in the face with dagger eyes. You might be inclined to think that he has a problem or just hates your guts for no apparent rhyme or reason. But those are just guesses.

Then one fine day, you approach him, you realise that he was merely responding to the way he thought you looked at him. And then, all of a sudden, it dawns upon you – perhaps it was you who had been staring at the guy all along with a stern face for no apparent rhyme or reason.

It’s called an epiphany – a sudden insight, which in this case, was brought about by your motivation to seek an answer to a problem. Sometimes, when you approach a problem in the most pragmatic way possible, you’d be surprised at how much you think you know but don’t. You might call employers racist, but employers might just as well be calling you racist for calling them racist, hence the vicious cycle.

Academicians, as scientists, are trained to consider all possibilities. As long as a possibility remains that something might be the cause to a problem, that possibility can never be ignored. The trick is to begin with possibilities that are measurable and definable, perhaps even tangible. To do that, one would build a hypothesis to suggest that these measurable or definable possibilities may be the cause to the problem, and later work to prove or disprove the hypothesis.

So sometimes, all that is needed is for you to be objective and rational when dealing with problems. A strand of common sense might help, and Ghauth recently demonstrated that he had a whole bunch of them. I mean, why get the Chinese to admit what they are not going to admit when you can work on measuring the measurable, which is the decline in quality of IPTA graduates?

Ibrahim can keep accusing the Chinese, and the Chinese can keep accusing him. Conversely, the IPTA’s could make a conscientious effort to improve the quality of graduates and see if employers are willing to balance their attention span to encompass both the IPTA and the IPTS. Doesn’t that construe as a possible step in the right direction?

I mean, the marketability of graduates has to do with their ability to address the needs of prospective employers. By this reasoning, a graduate would have to convince employers out there that he or she can satisfy those needs, whatever they may be. But if employers aren’t looking, then what would it matter if a graduate possessed superior skills? Who would notice?

When employers aren’t looking, the logical thing for us to do would be to get back to the drawing board to find out why they stopped looking in the first place. Perhaps, they became accustomed to IPTS graduates being more proficient in English. Perhaps, employers had stopped noticing IPTA grads years ago due to the decline in their command then. So even if the level of proficiency in English among IPTA graduates had improved, it wouldn’t matter – employers are just plain fed up.

Obviously, the onus would be for the government to let these employers know that things have changed, and to convince them to give IPTA graduates another try. Now, why isn’t any freakin’ politician thinking in this direction? And why is Ibrahim stirring hatred by riding the racial bandwagon?

There are just that many variables for us to deal with in life if we were to engage in the blame game and guesswork all the time. Or, we could reduce the prevalence of these variables if we were to look at the issue in a pragmatic manner. You see, sometimes, it pays to be academic minded.

Ghauth, an academician, is on a planet that sees IPTA graduates needing to improve their proficiency in English. He may be right, he may be wrong. But his conscience seems to be in the right place, and he’s pushing the right button – which is, the issue of graduate marketability.

All said, be a pragmatist first, a racist later.