Higher Education Ministry must ensure level playing field for admissions system of tertiary institutions, says association

KUCHING (Feb 27): The Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) must immediately implement bold institutional reforms to unify the country’s tertiary education admission system towards ensuring all pre-university students compete fairly on a level playing field.

In making this call, the University of Malaya Association of New Youth (Umany) said it is high time the MoHE address long-standing demands of students regarding admission inequalities and the marginalisation of Form 6 students.

“While all three pre-university tracks utilise the Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) system, the difficulty of achieving a perfect 4.0 Grade Point Average (GPA) varies significantly between them,” Umany said in a statement.

According to the association, it is widely recognised that obtaining a 4.0 in Sijil Tinggi Persekolahan Malaysia (STPM) is considerably more difficult than in matriculation.

Furthermore, it said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim himself admitted during the announcement of the National Education Blueprint 2026-2035 that the government will continue to prioritise foundation and matriculation students as usual.

“This essentially marginalises Form 6 students and denies the significance of STPM within the national higher education framework,” it said.

Umany called on the government to stop ignoring the structural problems of Malaysian higher education.

It said the unfair admission system had resulted in many students being unable to fairly secure their ideal universities or courses.

In a parliamentary response to Shah Alam MP Azli Yusof recently, Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Dr Zambry Abdul Kadir highlighted the curriculum and assessment standards for matriculation, foundation, and STPM courses.

The minister stated that the grading mechanisms for these programmes remain unchanged, utilising the CGPA system monitored by the respective authorities.

Zambry added that a “Single Window” admission system will be implemented to prevent overlapping offers for Form 5 students.

Umany opined that this stance “avoids the core issue, selectively ignoring the long-term systemic injustice in Malaysian higher education admissions”.

“The injustice lies in the varying levels of academic difficulty across matriculation, foundation and STPM curricula, rather than the grading mechanism itself,” it added.