Call on Cabinet to offer university admission to all SPM top-scorers with 8As and above and the first choice of course for SPM studetns  with 11As and above

Media Conference Statement
by Lim Kit Siang 

(Penang, Thursday): The MCA President and Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Ling Liong Sik should stop trifling with the feelings of the people by giving confused and contradictory statements about the fate of SPM top scorers in their application for admission to universities.

Over radio and television, Liong Sik said that the Cabinet yesterday had instructed the Education Ministry to offer   places in public universities to all Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia  (SPM) high achievers, raising false hopes among the SPM top scorers and their parents.

This is because a close reading of Liong Sik’s statement in the printed media gives a completely different version, that there is no promise whatsoever that all the SPM top scorers would be offered places in public universities.

Hidden away in the New Straits Times report, for instance, is his statement that “the Cabinet’s decision today did not mean that all the students would be admitted into universities later”.

This is most unsatisfactory and makes a complete mockery of the Eighth Malaysia Plan and the National Vision Policy to transform Malaysians into a highly-skilled, knowledgeable and productive workforce  to make a success of Malaysia’s k-economy and information society.

I am not convinced with the explanation given by the Education Minister, Tan Sri Musa Mohamad that there are no 7,168 unfilled university places.  Putting that aside, for the national good of the country, the Cabinet should adopt a new policy of university admission and in the case of the 500-plus SPM top scorers, adopt the following principles:
 

 
Every year, Malaysia loses hundreds if not thousands of the “best and brightest” of each generation to foreign countries because there is no fair university admission policy in the country - which constitutes a debilitating brain drain and a stumbling block to Malaysian development and nation-building.

The Cabinet’s preparedness to adopt a fair university admission policy is an acid test as to whether Malaysia is ready for the challenges of globalisation, liberalisation and information and communications technology (ICT) in the 21st century or whether we should scale down our Multi-media Super Corridor and IT ambitions and targets.

(10/5/2001)

*Lim Kit Siang - DAP National Chairman