University entrance

Every year admission into public universities in Malaysia has become controversial: it has become a racial issue. The Chinese is unhappy that more Malays are admitted. The Malays are said to be unfairly admitted through a quota system. The govt responded by changing the admission criteria to be based on merit, and this has resulted in more Malays being admitted especially in the most sought after faculty like medicine. Again the Chinese cry foul play because the Malay students are admitted through matriculation program and whereas the Chinese applicants used Higher School Cert (like the A Level). There were lot of arguments presented in the local newspapers that matriculation program is inferior to that of HSC: that HSC syllabus-wise is of higher level, it takes two years to complete, it is accepted world wide etc. For a common yard stick both system was converted into CGPA, but the matriculation program is intrinsically is CGPA system. For those who had been educated under the British and American system they would appreciate the merit of CGPA. Converting the end of year only, or end of the program only exam, into CGPA is not a good measure of student performance.

The raging controversy is definitely emotional in nature with very few of those presenting the arguments understand much about education system. Firstly it must be noted that grade inflation is a disturbing phenomenon in the British system: there are now more and more students obtaining straight As in A level exam that top universities have to impose additional criteria for admission. Diversity in admission criteria fulfill the social and national needs of Australia: they also based admission on matriculation and Year 12 exam. CGPA as the term stand for reflect the cumulative performance of the students through out the program and not just end of year exam. My conclusion is that countries like Australia and US do not use the national type or common exam for entrance except may be the apptitude test, and Malaysia is correctly adopting the same approach. Using multiple criteria including essays and references to assess the candidates is highly desirable.