TAR College degrees substandard?

Sunday, March 25, 2007 (KTemoc)

Soo Pak Leong confessed he watched Jackie Chan’s Police Story movies, so he was carried away somewhat by his hero's actions, by a sense of wanting to fight crime, keeping the peace, rescuing fair damsels and saving the world from mad scientists or nasty neo-con agents who want to blow up the world.

Naturally he dreamed of and applied to be a police officer, so in 2004, armed with a BSc at 24 years of age, he tried for a cadet assistant superintendent of police. He application was rejected with no reason given.

Like Jackie Chan, he wasn't one to give up, so he tried again the following year, but alas, that time the police didn’t even have the courtesy to reply. Before Soo reached the ceiling age of 25, he tried one last time, but just for the lower post of an Inspector.

He was lucky in a perverted sense in that on his 3rd but futile attempt, Bukit Aman at least replied to say that his qualification was not recognised. Why? It was just a lousy BSc from the Tengku Abdul Rahman (TAR) College.

He checked with the PSD who confirmed that TARC degrees weren’t/aren’t recognised.

Hmm, haven’t the government and MCA been urging the Chinese to join the police force?

TARC was established in 1969 by the MCA. The Chinese-majority party partly funds the college. And everyone knows that TARC degrees are far more recognised in the private sector than those from government universities. So why is there a lack of recognition by the government?

The DAP blamed the MCA youth education bureau for not trying hard enough to get Soo into the police force. I have no doubt that the MCA would have lobbied for TARC degrees to be recognised but that means diddly squat for government agencies like the police or PSD where the MCA is concerned.

Soo has finally accepted he isn't Jackie Chan, and that it’s no use banging one’s head against the wall of city-hall. Goodness, he had even gone on radio to describe his difficulties earlier this year, but obviously no one in the government cared two hoots.

However he describes his current job, a network engineer, as good.

Soo, it may be a blessing in disguise for you.