THE recent furore over the intake of students into matriculation colleges is simply an indictment of the Pakatan Harapan administration’s lack of political will to take the educational bull by the horn and do what is right for the betterment of the country. The Cabinet’s disappointing decision to increase the number of students for matriculation programmes from 25,000 to 40,000 but maintaining the 90% racial quota for bumiputras will not raise the bar for local university admissions.
Increasing the number of matriculation students from 25,000 to 40,000 will likely result not only in a larger number of weak SPM students gaining access to matriculation programmes (securing 3As in the SPM results is deemed good enough for admission for many candidates) but will also make it even more difficult for STPM candidates to secure places for competitive courses in local universities.
