Abdullah Badawi from wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_Badawi

He received a Bachelor of Arts in Islamic Studies from the University of Malaya in 1964, having originally wished to pursue a degree in Economics but failing to meet the required standard after failing his statistics paper.

Samy Vellu...

Both of his parents were rubber tappers near Kluang, Johor, along with other Indians who were brought in by British colonialists to work in rubber plantations. As a teenager, he worked as a bus conductor at GTC Bus Company, a local transportation enterprise in 1950. Later, he became an office boy in an architecture firm.