SAPP: Government's limit to 10 SPM subjects an obscenity

Kota Kinabalu, May 30, 2009: Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) president, Datuk Yong Teck Lee said that the decision by the BN government to limit students to take a maximum of only ten subjects in Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia examinations from next year onwards is an obscenity in public policy that must be removed immediately.

"Such an arbitrary decision upsets a lot of students who are already preparing to sit for more than ten subjects in the next year.

"According to the Deputy Prime Minister, more than 48,000 students of the 500,000 students last year took more than ten subjects, accounting for almost 10% of the candidates. "The DPM should worry less about the students who got top grades and worry more about those who fail".

"The DPM, who is also the Minister of Education, had reasoned that the "maximum ten subject" ruling would make teachers more focused on core subjects and specialized, claiming that the move would ease the shortage of teachers for certain subjects, save on tuition costs for parents and help to narrow the gap between rural and urban students.'

"In fact, limiting students to ten subjects has nothing to do with any of the reasons stated by the DPM. This is because, by necessity, teachers are already focused on core subjects, irrespective of how many subjects that 10% of the students sit for. The shortage of teachers for certain subjects, such as mathematics and science, is a consequence of the failed teacher training and education programmes which must be rectified with urgency. If the government had not procrastinated in making a decision on the teaching of science and mathematics in English, then our teachers would not have had to endure the years of lack of policy direction of this government. Narrowing the rural-urban gap and saving tuition costs are irrelevant in forcibly limiting students to take a maximum of ten subjects.

"Actually, this idea of limiting students to ten subjects came about after the DPM was caught by cries of unfairness over the students with 14As in examinations who did not get government scholarships. But instead of trying to overcome the injustice of top students being denied scholarships, the DPM inexplicably decided to make sure that no more students will get more than ten As in the future.

"The DPM should know that many of Malaysia's top students have received study grants from multi-national companies, international universities and research organizations. Even if our government chooses to be blind to the huge loss of human talent and brains, we should not deny our top students from getting study grants after achieving top grades in their exams." told Yong.