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he mentioned that the current reorganisation of Queen Elizabeth House (Institute of Commonwealth Studies) which looked like turning it into the Oxford equivalent of the Harvard Centre of Development Studies, and the appointment of a dynamic new Director, Dr Robert Casson (due to take up his post in July 1986), would inevitably have a bearing on the proposed Oxford/ Southeast Asia scheme, especially if the latter began to cater for Southeast Asian students with an interest in development studies. He also mentioned the possibility of devising a special paper in the taught M. Phil. course in International Relations along the lines of the current 'East Asia in World Politics' with a content which would appeal to students from the region, ie something like 'Southeast Asia in World Folitics'. Professor Stockwin remarked at this point that he did already include aspects of Southeast Asian politics and international relations in the 'East Asia in World Politics' course. Dr Carey remarked here that such a course in the M.Phil. on the international relations and politics of Southeast Asia would. be of particular interest to future students (in the initial stages almost inevitably government officers) from Brunei, some of whom were already coming to take the course in International Diplomacy at QEH. Mr Ted Jones, meanwhile, stressed that in terms of these taught graduate degrees, we should think of devising courses which lasted for one year rather than two because of the difficulties which students (especially junior faculty members and government officers) would experience in getting leave of absence for more than one year from their current posts.
6. Mr McCarthy came in here to shed some light on the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust scheme which had raised a sizeable sum (£ 10 million) to help Commonwealth students from the region, in particular Malaysia. He remarked that although the scheme had generated a great deal of goodwill in Malaysia towards Cambridge (a University, which, because of its links with the Tungku and other prominent Malaysian politicians, had always had a higher public profile in the Federation than Oxford), it had run into serious trouble at the Malaysian end because it had been entrusted into the hands of a rather low level official of the influential Public Services Department (PSD, the official body which vets all Government scholarships), who had used it for the purposes of ingratiating himself with the Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir, by channelling not always properly qualified bumiputra (ethnic lalay) candidates (at the undergraduate level) to Cambridge. This had caused a great deal of trouble at the Cambridge end, and the need for a rethink of the way in which the Trust should be administered for Malaysian applicants. The moral of this story, he said, was that Oxford, in its scheme, should aim as high in the Malaysian Government structure as possible ie get Dr Mahathir on Oxford's side, and encourage him to give the scheme his imprimatur, along the lines of the 'President's scholarships' currently operating in Singapore, in order to ensure that only the highest possible calibre candidates were chosen. In answer to this, Dr Carey mentioned that the Malaysian Prime Minister had heen briefed about Oxford's intentions I during his visit to the University in April, and that he had expressed serious
interest in the scheme. Furthermore, although Dr Carey had not been able to see Dr Mahathir on his recent visit to Malaysia, he had briefed Dato' Khalil bin Yaakob, the Minister in the Prime Minister's Department concerned with PSD and scholarship affairs, and he had said that the Malaysian Cabinet would be discussing the Oxford proposals at a full meeting of Cabinet in early December. The fact that the Malaysian Education Minister, Abdullah Badawi, and the Agriculture Minister, Anwar Ibrahim, had both been briefed on the scheme, was also an important step forward especially since both these gentlemen were likely future Prime Ministers of the Federation.
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