This morning Pathi the father of Balan both of Gopeng, Perak, called us to say that Balan had scored 3As and 1 B and collecting a CGPA of 3.67 points in STPM. Note: the maximum points is 4.0 and the top most student in his school having scored 3.83 points.

Balan’s legitimate and not unreasonable ambition is to become a Medical doctor.

This Balan predicament is the latest tip of the iceberg of the Indian poor being denied the lawful and legitimate right to higher education in direct contravention of Article 8 (Equality before the law) and Article 12 (no discrimination in government funded Universities) of the Federal Constitution.

His father is a pensioner earning a mere RM 850 per month. He cannot afford to send his son overseas or to a local private university. Not even to the supposedly Indian owned AIMST University which would cost at least RM 220,000.

He had applied to eight Universities and all 8 rejected him.

He appealed using UMNO mandores Samy Vellu, Devamany and Kohilan Pillai’s letter of support and was again rejected.

In a booklet distributed at a university seminar University Darul (Terengganu), USM Sabah and Unimas Sarawak only required a mere 3.3 CGPA to do medicine for the academic year 2010/2011. But as Balan was Indian all these three Universities also rejected him. His Malay muslim ex classmates having scored 3.5 CGPA however secured a place to do Medicine.

Another interesting fact is that there are no Malay muslim students in his STPM Science stream class.

Two private scholarship bodies Yayasan Wah Sing and Kuok Foundation has already offered him a scholarship of RM 50,000 on condition that he secures a place in any of the local Universities.

Over to you Mr. One Malay-sia Prime Minister Najib Razak.

P. Uthayakumar