Introduce a common varsity entrance exam | Free Malaysia Today

Introduce a common varsity entrance exam

G Vinod | August 5, 2013

The current system of two exams is unfair to non-bumiputera students, says DAP vice chairman M Kulasegaran.

PETALING JAYA: It is time the government introduced a common university entrance examination for all applicants to ensure top scoring students get university seats, said the DAP today.

Party vice chairman M Kulasegaran said that absence of a common entry exam had caused the merit based system to be unfair to non bumiputera students in the university intake issue.

“In 2002, DAP adviser Lim Kit Siang urged the government to rectify the injustice perpetrated by the so called ‘merit-based’ system.

“Kit Siang said the formula to match the matriculation results and STPM grades were unfair, but nothing was done,” said Kulasegaran.

Last month, many top scorers in the STPM examination were denied entry to local universities for various reasons.

One of the grounds given by the Education Ministry was that the students failed to get good marks in their extra-curricular activities.

The excuse by the ministry received brickbats from former deputy education minister Wee Ka Siong, who urged the government not to trivialise the matter.

The government also failed to allocate 1,500 matriculation seats for Indian students as promised by Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak since 2009.

However, Deputy Education Minister P Kamalanathan shot back, saying that the government had offered matriculation places to Indian students but claimed that the latter had rejected the offers.

Kulasegaran (photo) said that there have been numerous complaints about the two sets of evaluation system for university intake, saying it was not fair to equate the matriculation exam with the STPM.

He also urged the government to provide data on student intake to higher learning institutions from 2002, for scrutiny on how non-bumiputera intake into universities had dropped in the last 11 years.

“But is Kamalanathan prepared to ask his superior, Muhyiddin Yassin to be transparent and reveal the details?” asked the Ipoh Barat.