Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor with top SPM 2022 students who received state scholarships under Yayasan Sabah in Kota Kinabalu on Tuesday (Aug 1).
KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah government wants the Education Department to identify why 5,686 students failed to turn up for the 2022 Sijil Perlajaran Malaysia (SPM) examination.
Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor described it as worrying and a cause for concern and said that only 34,461 students out of the 40,147 who registered in Sabah sat for the SPM 2022 exam.
"This issue needs serious attention because the SPM is an important exam for the future of our children as it is important for them to continue their education to institutions of higher learning.
"Education is important for all and it's a right for them," he said here Tuesday (Aug 1).
The Education Department must find out the reasons why they did not attend as it is worrying, he said in presenting state scholarship awards to the top 40 SPM students at the 34th edition of the Sabah Scholarship Awards by state owned Yayasan Sabah.
Hajiji said that although there was an increase of 0.13 points in the National Average Grade (GPN) of SPM 2022 results for the state of Sabah from 5.35 points in 2021 to 5.22 points in 2022, it was still far behind the national GPN of 4.74.
At the same time, he said, the gap between urban and rural areas in the state also widened from 0.53 points in 2021 to 0.61 points in 2022.
"The State Government is concerned about this issue and it should be examined in detail to identify the causes of the weaknesses that exist", he said.
Sabah Education Department director Raisin Saidin, who was at the function, later told reporters that they will carry out a check to see why these students had failed to turn up.
He said that among the ongoing measures would be to go to their homes to get the answers.
Among the reasons in a few cases, he said, were that they were pregnant and ashamed to turn up.
"In some cases, they got married while some were just not interested in sitting for the exam, " he said.
Based on a report by the Education Ministry, almost 30,000 students had not sat for the SPM 2022 examinations and about 10,000 of them were students who had registered to re-sit the examinations.
