Money is not everything students told

Star: KUALA LUMPUR: Money is not everything, Malaysian medical students in Britain have been told.
Higher Education Minister Datuk Mustapa Mohamed said the students must have a strong sense of nationalism and patriotism, and should return home to serve the country after completing their studies,
He said that despite the lower financial reward in the government service, the students should be proud to serve the Government, just like many other doctors who continued to be in the civil service although they could have opted for private practice.
“As a developing country, it is impossible for Malaysia to match the salaries of doctors in Britain. We don’t have such deep pockets.
“Money should not be everything,” he told about 100 Malaysian students at a dialogue organised by the Malaysian Students Department in London yesterday.
Mustapa was responding to a student’s query on last month’s survey by the UK Executive Council for Malaysian Students which found that low pay and long working hours in government service were among the reasons Malaysian medical students were reluctant to return home after completing their studies in Britain.
The survey covered mostly medical, engineering and accountancy students who formed the bulk of the 12,000 Malaysian student population in Britain.
Mustapa said he realised that money was a big incentive for them but Malaysia was not “a bottomless pit”.
To be fair, he said, service conditions and the prospects for promotion in Malaysia had improved over the years as better facilities for government hospitals had been built.
Mustapa said the Government was always mindful of the need to create a more conducive research environment by giving greater emphasis to scholarship and improving the education quality for lecturers and students.
Under the Ninth Malaysia Plan, RM1.2bil has been allocated to train lecturers and finance their studies – about three times higher than that allocated under the previous Plan.
“The Government is also committed to improving the quality of Malaysian graduates to enable them to compete in the international market,” he added.
Mustapa was in transit on his way to Kingston, Jamaica, where he was to join Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi on his two-day official visit to the Caribbean nation.