Form Five students unhappy with forecast result ruling

EXCLUSIVE

PETALING JAYA: Most Sijil Pelaja­ran Malaysia (SPM) students are unhappy that they can enrol in private universities or colleges only after the results of the exams are officially released.

A student from Penang, who wished to be known as Gabrielle T, said she would be disappointed if she could not use her forecast results as entry qualification.

“It will be frustrating to waste three months waiting for the ac­tual results. I don’t understand why we can’t use forecast results when our seniors could. It is really unfair,” she said.

Gabrielle said she had already made plans to enter a college after the SPM.

Another student, M. Raju said he could not understand why students were being made to delay their studies now as forecast results had been acceptable all this while.

“This can really interfere with my plans. I want to pursue an Aus­tralian matriculation programme in January and study in Australia where the intake is in February,” he said.

Angeline S. said forecast results were ‘predicted’ by teachers based on students’ performances in previous exams.

“I would be very upset if I could not use my forecast results to get into college in January, as my results have been really good,” she said.

Another student, J. Nate, said that forecast results were usuallybetter than the results of the actual examination.

“Our school sets really tough questions for trials to prepare us for the real examination.

“Why should we waste time waiting for SPM results when the forecast results would be enough? I want to get along with my tertiary studies as quickly as possible,” he said.

The number of students accepted into pre-university courses with forecast results but asked to leave for not meeting requirements of actual SPM results is negligible, according to Malaysian Association of Private Colleges and Universities (Mapcu) statistics.

One college reported that it had none over the past eight years while another had one case four years ago and none for the past three years.

“Most of the others reported between less than 1% and 2%,” said Mapcu president Datuk Dr Parmjit Singh.

He said the extremely low rate could be due to the fact that students who take up conditional entry before the official results are often those who are highly confident of making the grade.

Dr Parmjit said there were generally two categories of post-SPM students – the highly motivated who had decided what they wanted to study and those who were unsure of what to do and preferred to wait for their results and then decide.

“For example, those in the first group would want to pursue a foundation course and then embark onto a specific bachelor’s degree course locally or do a matriculation course and then pursue a specific bachelor’s degree in Australia or an A-level course to gain entry into a British university.

“The second group might want to take a break after the exams and then explore possibilities available based on the results obtained,” he added.

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