Recent cases of top-performing Form Six students being rejected by local public universities have reminded me of my own past—of diligently studying during my school and university days, and even spending sleepless nights poring over dusty, decades-old annual reports in the University of Malaya’s library to research the admission system from its founding era.

From what I still vividly recall, the University of Malaya—the first higher education institution established after independence—had just moved to its current Kuala Lumpur campus in the 1960s. At that time, it fully implemented an academic merit-based system, and the number of non-Bumiputera students far exceeded that of Bumiputera students.

However, in the 1970s, following the May 13th Incident and the launch of the New Economic Policy, a series of protective policies based on the principle of racial affirmative action began to permeate various sectors. Higher education was not spared. In fact, in the early stages, the system swung to the other extreme, becoming overly opaque and granting an excessively large quota to Bumiputera students.

It was during this time that then-MCA President Lee San Choon and UMNO reached a significant agreement known as the “628 Plan,” which mandated that the student admission ratio must be maintained at 55% Bumiputera to 45% non-Bumiputera. This quota, conceived based on the ethnic composition of the time, has since become the primary basis for public university admissions for several decades.