PTD M41

I went for a civil service entrance exam specially for Admin & Diplomatic officer (PTD - M41). I know, I know, many people will now start questioning my intentions to be one, but it's about Malaysia. I do love Malaysia. Nothing political of that sort. Doesn't mean I sokong the current government either, although I am supposed to (you have to be politically inclined to the Ruling gov.). I believe in Malaysia. Malaysia needs me or someone like me now (chehhwah!). I know I am just one drop of water in the vast ocean, but surely does make a ripple.

When I knew I really wanted to do this, I called a friend of mine who is already in the civil service with federal gov, but under the Perak administration. He's under the Economic Planning Unit, placed under Perak state government umbrella. He's Chinese, okay??!?!?! (uuurrrggghh....stop asking about race; typical Malaysian!). Since he has been thru' this presumably tough gov. exam, I asked him for tips. Also, there are so little Chinese (race again?!) in civil service that he said it would be easy for me to get in (and not harder as everyone would expect). And then I can spend tax-payers money on luxurious trips around the world as a diplomat. Kidding!!!!!!! (BTW, this friend just came back from training in Tokyo and Osaka, fully paid by tax-payers money(?)).

What's weird: I hope by the time I get into the government as a civil servant, it would be the current opposition ruling the federal gov, no?! Hope. And more non-bumis would have applied for civil service by then (I guess). Which makes my life easier, because I have less competition now than later on.

So, I promulgated my interest in PTD. And then: the uproar. And of course, friends have presumably tested me in a many LOL ways; friends who started testing me questions like e.g. So, who killed that Mongolian girl: A. PM B. Baginda C. Suicidebombing D. Wife. I told my friends I would 'gladly' (coercingly!) select 'Tiada di atas' if given the choice.

And when the real exam day arrived, I was calmed. In my examination hall in Putrajaya, out of 100 ppl, I spotted only 3 Chinese and about 10-11 Indians. My opinion: It is not about why the government is soooo biased towards bumis in the civil service. It is the non-bumis the ones NOT APPLYING to get in. And then, if 1 chinese gets cut-off from civil service cause he/she didn't pass the exam.....then the big huuuuh-hahh starts in the media implying "oooh, chinese get kick out due to double-standards in selection", or " hey, it's 1/3 or 33.33% chinese get kick out from entrance exam". If you look into the numbers correctly, it's all about the impact. Non-bumis feeeeel the impact more if they were not selected for civil service because of the less no. of applicants! So, it's rarely about the race. Look at the big picture, please.

If you've been thru' Form 6 - the first part of the questions are easy. It's like Pengajian Am. But with general questions e.g. "which of these movies did P. Ramlee acted in?", "what is Phishing?"....etc. But the second part was the hardest due to the time given to answers 40 maths and IQ questions in mere 45 min. I went panicky, of course. But who wasn't panic that time, eh?! Essays were okay: I answered the BM question about H1N1 and Influenza A, while I talked about the definition of success and its correlation to academic achievements in the English essay .

So, nothing political at this point (of the entrance exam). But it gets tough. However, I pray to get into the next part "THE ASSESSMENT" - physical fitness tests of timed- 2.5km run (yes!), mock parliamental debates, speech in BM and speech in English. Oh yes!