Better PMR results

PUTRAJAYA: There are more top scorers in the 2013 Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR) compared to last year.

A total of 30,988 of the 422,506 students obtained straight A's this year, an increase of 0.41% from 2012.

Education director-general Datuk Dr Khair Mohamad Yusof said the National Average Grade (GPN) improved from 2.71 to 2.67 this year (a lower GPN indicates better results).

Dr Khair added that students achievement in 14 of 17 subjects improved, except for Bahasa Melayu, Intergrated Living Skills (Home Economics) and Intergrated Living Skills (Economics and Entrepreneurship).

This year marked the last time the PMR, which was introduced in 1993 to replace the Sijil Rendah Pelajaran examination, was held.

The PMR will be replaced by a school-based assessment system next year.

Dr Khair said the new assessment system will be a mixture of continous school-based testing and a centralised assessment system.

"It also includes psychometric testing and takes into account students participation in sports and extracurricular activities.

"We started the school-based system in 2012 and the ministry will still collect data from schools to monitor students' achievement," he told reporters after announcing the PMR results analysis here on Thursday.