However recently this has been proven to be untrue as Wee Ka Siong admitted that 363 straight A+ scorers had failed to secure scholarships. Moreover, the government failed to mention what courses will be offered to student with 8A+s. This has led to disgruntled students who did not get their chosen field of study despite their “impressive” results!
One example is Selwyn Jong of Kuching who scored 9A+ but instead of a university placement, was given matriculation – a place he could have secured with 5As. Another example is P. Kugnethran from Selangor who scored 12A+. Instead of getting the medical course he so wanted, Kugnethran was offered a diploma in animal husbandry from Universiti Putra Malaysia while those with less than stellar results won choice courses at top varsities abroad.
One of the worst example I have see is Heamanthaa Padmanaban, 17-year-old from Seremban, who scored 10A+ and 1A in last year's SPM examinations and was an all-rounder in extra-curricular activities.
She qualified for cross-country runs and played hockey at state level, and was a school champion in chess and badminton. In April last year she was among those chosen to participate in the Malaysia-America Soccer Exchange programme with 12 other women.
Instead of giving her the opportunity to study medicine or biotechnology (which was her choice), PSD offered her a Diploma course in English at University Pendidikan Sultan Idris .
What makes matters worst is when you hear of unworthy recipients getting PSD scholarships. An example of this is Chai Sheng Min from SMK St Joseph in Kuching, Sarawak who obtained 10As was offered a scholarship to study engineering at Universiti Technology Petronas, however his two friends with 4As and 5As respectively were awarded scholarships to pursue science degrees in the United States.
Datuk Wee Ka Siong also mention (arrogantly), “Before you do that, make sure you understand the difference between 10As and 10A+ in the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM).
This is a very good question which I the Deputy Education Minister should explain to all Malaysians!
What is the cut off mark between an A+, and an A grade? Is this cut off mark consistent for all subjects offered in the last SPM examination? If this is not the case, why!?!?
This is an extremely important issue to be clarified since the BN government has placed such great importance on the A+s with regards to the PSD Scholarship selection process.
Is rewarding the PSD scholarship solely on 8A+s a fair process? Especially when you consider the fact that there is a perception that the standard of awarding the A+ and A grades vary greatly between difference subjects in the SPM examination.
Can the Deputy Education Minister dispel this negative perception?
Why is there this negative perception in the first place? Could it be due to the fact that there has been complains that the Chinese subject in the SPM examination has questions of STPM difficulty? How about the fact that the Ministry of Education did not originally award a single A+ to any student who took Bible Knowledge last year! This is rather hard to believe, when you consider how generous the government has been with regards to awarding the As and A+s for the certain subjects in the last SPM examination.
Perhaps the single most suspicious problem is the length of time the Education Ministry took to release the SPM results!
How is it that while internationally coordinated examinations such as O Levels and A Levels takes only 1 month to release their results, it takes the Education Ministry nearly 3 full months to release the SPM results!
Why it that the Education Ministry only released the SPM results on the 23 of March 2011 when SPM markers were instructed to finish and submit their markings by the end of Dec? What was the Education Ministry doing with the marks for almost 3 months? Were they adjusting the marking curve for certain specific subjects?
Could it me that the government was adjusting the grades to please certain section of the population
Did the Education Ministry manipulate the marks and grades to ensure that only certain amount of people would get 8A+s?
Wee Ka Siong as the Deputy Education Minister needs to be open and transparent with the marking scheme of all the SPM subjects! He has to defend the integrity of the SPM grading system.
Especially after his arrogant remark to parents of last year SPM students , asking them if they know the difference between an A and an A+. The answer is NO! We don’t know the difference between an A and an A+! Please do explain it to us!
Is the cut off point for an A+ in Additional Mathematics the same as the cut off point for Moral Studies? It is not a far fetch idea that the BN government is using the PSD scholarship and the SPM results to gain political points for themselves. Or is it just a coincidence that every time a general election looming nearby, the SPM results seem to obtain an “improvement” in the statistic.
A government teacher explain to me that if the government gives out a lot of As in the SPM examination the students will be able to bring home proudly such “fantastic” results to show their parents. Thus those parents who are not aware of their child’s actual academic standards will perceived that the government is doing a good job educating their children.
This sad scenario is exactly what is happening to our country now and as a result we produce lawyers that can’t ever speak proper English (just watch the You Tube video of the Malaysian lawyer who question Dr Porntip with regards to Teoh Beng Hock case as an example).
JPA Scholarships and the SPM examination should not be used as a political tool to gain popularity and any government who is willing to sacrifice the long term future and growth of its citizens and country just to gain short term popularity has no business running this country!
In a sense the BN government is caught in a tough dilemma. If they don’t give a lot of As out, their charades of improvement in the education system will be destroyed. Now that they give a lot of As out, they are stuck with too many “qualified” SPM student but not enough PSD scholarships.
This whole SPM As and PSD scholarship has been nothing but one big public relation stunt which has failed badly for the BN government. The fact that out of the 4000 PSD scholarship given out, only 300 were given based purely on merit and over a thousand scholarship were given out on a race based selection criteria only reinforce the idea that the government is not sincere in their 1Malaysia concept and that they are colour blind!
So Deputy Education Minister Datuk Dr Wee Ka Siong, please tell me what exactly is an A+ and an A? I would like to know what grade to give the BN government, or does the BN government deserve an F for running this country’s education system to the ground!
well,Dato Wee Ka Siong defended the students who deserves the scholarship,if u follow him in twitter,u can see that he is trying hard to help those who applied through mca for appeal.It is Jpa which have to take responsibilities for the biased distribution of scholarhips.and people always get it wrong that JPA and MOE are related,they are actually not.
ReplyDeleteHei Anonymous, I am shooting MOE on what is A+ and A and that the standard is completly manipulated. Don't let Datuk fool you that easily. While JPA has to take responsiblity on the bias distribution of the scholarships. MOE and Datuk Wee has to take responsiblity on the bias and irresponsible way of awarding As in the SPM!
ReplyDelete