KUALA LUMPUR: Nearly 20% of Chinese students in Malaysia opted for enrolment in Chinese independent high schools this year, says the Education Ministry.
It said 75,144 Chinese students are studying in Unified Examination Certificate (UEC) stream schools, making up 19.4% of the total 387,406 Chinese secondary school students nationwide this year.
"Meanwhile, 260,699 Chinese students are currently enrolled for secondary education in schools under the Education Ministry, making up 67.3% of the total number of Chinese students nationwide.
"The remaining 51,563 Chinese students are enrolled in private education institutions, making up 13.3%," it said in a parliamentary written reply dated Wednesday (July 16).
Datuk Ahmad Saad @ Yahaya (PN-Pokok Sena) wanted to know the percentage of Chinese students opting for the UEC education system instead of the national public school system.
Developed in 1975 by the United Chinese School Committees’ Association of Malaysia (Dong Zong), UEC was created to standardise Chinese-medium secondary education by providing such schools a unified public examination system.
This came about after the Education Act 1961 was passed, requiring all schools in the country to switch their medium of instruction to English or Malay.
Chinese secondary schools that refused to make the switch were then classified as independent from 1962 onwards, cutting them off from government funding and without a publicly recognised examination system.
While various federal administrations have since acknowledged UEC’s academic standards, official recognition of it for entry into public universities remains limited under the Education Act 1996.
