Annual PSD Bitchfest

Every year, if there is one thing you can be sure of, it is the fact that our country’s biggest newspapers, especially the New Straits Times, will be host to what I call the PSD/JPA Bitchfest.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m mostly sympathetic with our top scorers that fail to get JPA scholarships. But once you read tens of these news releases highlighting these top scorers, you notice a trend. Let me give you a quick lowdown of the common traits among some of the top students who fail to get government scholarships (based on information from newspaper articles only):

1. Applied for Medicine or Other Competitive Course (e.g. Law)
2. Extracurricular Achivement Not Highlighted
3. Took Tons of Subjects for SPM
4. Scored an A2 or B3 Somewhere
5. Curricular Achievement Other Than SPM Results Not Highlighted
6. Inter-Personal and Communication Skills Not Highlighted

Don’t believe me? Have a look at the New Straits Times’ latest feature.

And as a response, we’ll always see the JPA/PSD or the Government issuing some sort of notice that academic results aren’t everything when it comes to JPA scholarships. Whether this caveat is valid, or merely an excuse to avoid the wrath of the public, we’ll never know.

But either way, you have to admit that sometimes it’s hard to feel sympathetic (okay, I’m just being harsh here) for these students who don’t get JPA scholarships, especially if the student isn’t perfect. In the case of the above student, he actually got an A2 for English and B3 for EST (though this should normally be excusable considering his background). After all, there are tons of other top students (with perfect results) without JPA scholarships who never get featured by newspapers.