KUALA LUMPUR: MCA has urged the Higher Education Ministry to implement uniform admissions intakes into public institutions of higher learning to ensure fairness and transparency.
MCA secretary-general Saw Yee Fung said the ministry should formulate a uniform admissions mechanism for such institutions instead of separating between matriculation and Sijil Tinggi Persekolahan Malaysia (STPM) holders.
She said it was crucial to tackle the unequal enrollment standards that have affected many students in the past.
"When summarising the 2024 Budget at the committee stage in the Dewan Rakyat, the minister, Datuk Seri Khaled Nordin, said the government always finds ways to improve the process of enrolling students, with the principle based on 90 per cent academics and 10 per cent co-curriculum without any inference of the background.
"Now that (the ministry) has agreed that both matriculation and STPM (are of) equivalent (standing), it is time to unify the intake process of government universities and put an end to the model of admitting new students through two independent systems as practiced for ages in the past and directly respond to all concerns raised with policies," she said in a statement.
Saw said, despite the government's repeated emphasis on abolishing the racial quota system in public institutions of higher learning, ethnic quotas still exist in matriculation courses.
Consequently, she said, many students with outstanding STPM scores are denied entry into government universities every year.
She claimed the disparities were exacerbated when the Education Ministry increased the number of seats for matriculation, further limiting opportunities for STPM holders to enter public universities.
"As DAP and PKR now belong to the ruling coalition, they should not merely 'raise this issue to the Parliamentary Committee on Higher Education'.
"Instead, they should perform their duties as part of the ruling coalition through the ministers of their two parties and the members of parliament as they wield the actual executive and legislative powers to amend policies and practically resolve this perennial issue once and for all," she added.
