Varsity education should now be a right

Many universities are built with public funds because we want to make tertiary education easily accessible to our people. So why shouldn’t it be a right to all citizens who qualify?

COMMENT

What is a right? It is something you can expect, something assured, something you can count on, something you are entitled to. We have given animals the right to be treated humanely. That means if we see an animal suffering we should stop its suffering. We have accorded creatures this right not to be treated cruelly. It is something that most of us can agree on.

What is a privilege? It is something over and above your rights, a special advantage or honour. It is extended to you as bonus because of your membership to a club or a group.

Clean air should be a right or we would all be dead or very ill from the hazards of polluted air. No need to argue about it being a privilege. We are definitely entitled to this one. So it is a right for all with no buts and exceptions for any group or club.

Water is another demand and right. For instance, it should be your right to have access to clean drinking water, but it would be a privilege to afford bottled water from Europe. It would be safe to assume that all humans should have this basic right to clean water because it is necessary for life, just as it would be easy to argue that bottled water from the mountain springs of the Swiss Alps is a luxury or privilege. It should not be taken for granted. A privilege is therefore not an entitlement as a right should be. To flaunt a privilege would be in bad taste.

It should be your right to have affordable food, but it would be a privilege to eat steak or lobster. If you brag about eating lobster at the finest restaurants to people who don’t share your good fortune, then you are behaving badly.

As with air, water and food, a shelter or a roof over our heads is a necessity and therefore in our country it should be a right. But in reality this isn’t always the case as we can see many homeless people sleeping rough. As the hierarchy of needs rises up the ladder, they gradually become confused with wants. But here we enter the realm of relativity. As a country well on its way to developed status, housing should no longer be a want; it is needed and therefore we should be entitled to affordable housing even if we can’t afford to own it. Homelessness is a huge problem for any society.

Caring nation

In Malaysia you could say that education is a right for all citizens up to secondary level because it is provided for at little or no cost and they are entitled to it. In fact primary schooling is compulsory by law and parents can be prosecuted if they do not put their kids through primary school. If foreign children partake of this, then it would be a privilege because they are not entitled to it, but some would argue that all children regardless of their status should have access to a basic education. If you agree with this argument, then you believe that all children regardless of their social standing should have the right and access to education. If you agree with this, then we are well on our way to being a caring civilised nation, definitely a better prospect than some pseudo-ranking on some organisation’s development chart.

Many universities are built with public funds because we want to make tertiary education easily accessible to our people. So why shouldn’t we extend this as a right to all our citizens if they qualify? If we are already making education up till secondary school a basic right or entitlement for citizens who qualify, why not tertiary education too as our nation prospers and universities become more numerous?

Can we differentiate the tax ringgit that goes into the building of a university according to race or religion? Isn’t it just brick and concrete even if it is stacked and poured by a Bangladeshi or an Indonesian labourer?

Twenty-five years ago, only privileged people could afford a mobile phone. Today we see many foreign workers who work and live in the lowest strata of our society having smartphones. It has now become a necessity, and if you can afford it then it is your right. But then an Apple I-phone may still be out of reach for most of us and thus is a privilege or a luxury. So having access to telecommunication has become an unofficial basic right because so many of us need this to function properly.

Isn’t a tertiary education now a necessity for our children to function properly and get jobs in this day and age? Apparently, even with a college degree and armed with smartphones, many of our graduates cannot be guaranteed jobs. Surely that must be a need too. But that is a different story altogether.

It is bad behaviour on the part of those who remind us constantly that something which should be for anyone and desired by everyone is reserved for them only. It is rude and uncouth, bordering on the seditious.