(Petaling Jaya, Saturday): In
my statement yesterday, I said that the bumiputra students deserve hearty
congratulations if their outstanding
success in the university selection system this year is completely based on
merit, causing their intake to increase to 68.9% or 13.9% higher from the 55:45
bumiputra-non bumiputra university intake quotas.
I
stressed that the Higher Education Department should be completely transparent
and make public the various criteria for the merit-based selection system
and that its director Professor Hassan Said must be prepared to respond to all public queries about the
system.
It
is unfortunate that the university students and the public have been kept
completely in the dark about pertinent information and the various criteria for
the merit-based selection system, and in particular the special formula used to
match the matriculation results and the SPTM grades to put them under one main
list in order of merit, as well as the breakdown of matriculation and STPM
students offered the 32,752 places in the public universities this year.
Apart
from the information that the majority of bumiputra students come from
matriculation courses, no other information, such as the cut-off point for all
courses, had been forthcoming about
the selection system. Such lack
of transparency is not conducive to
maintaining public confidence in the merit-based university entry selection
system.
Hassan
said that experts had been enlisted to help streamline the gradings from the
matriculation and STPM streams, and if
so, why is the Higher Education
Department so shy about making it public to show not only that the system is
transparent but professionally-done as well.
Most
Malaysians cannot find answers to the many questions about the university intake
after reading Hassan’s media releases. For
this reason, DAP leaders are seeking
a meeting with Higher Education Department director, Prof.
Hassan Said to understand the
special formula used to match STPM and matriculation grades for purposes of
merit-based university entry selection as well as a host of other pertinent
questions.
(11/5/2002)