System For Admission To Public Universities Based Fully On Meritocracy - MOHE

PUTRAJAYA, Sept 9 (Bernama) -- The Higher Education Ministry (MOHE) emphasised today that the admission process for students to public universities is based fully on the principles of meritocracy and rejected allegations of loopholes in the UPUOnline system.

Its director-general, Datuk Prof Dr Azlinda Azman said out of 109,866 qualified applications, 78,883 students, or 71.8 per cent, were successfully offered seats in bachelor degree programmes for the 2025/2026 session.

“Student admissions to institutions are made by arranging qualified candidates according to the highest merits to the lowest,” she said at a media conference regarding student admissions here today, adding that the ministry assured that all students who obtained a Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) of 4.00 for their Sijil Tinggi Pelajaran Malaysia examinations or its equivalent and applied to public universities were offered seats.

Out of the 1,255 STPM candidates with a CGPA of 4.00, 1,249 candidates were offered seats while six are still in confirmation process due to a technical issue related to the Malaysian University English Test results, she shared.

“Four out of six candidates have been contacted and action has been taken to process their offers, while we are still trying to reach the remaining two,” she added.

On complaints that there were graduates of diploma programmes and its equivalent with CGPA 3.99 being unable to secure seats, she explained that there were several factors that resulted in failure, including selecting courses incompatible with their diploma courses, not fulfilling special programme conditions and incomplete application documents.

“Candidates are advised to make full use of the appeal period from September 5 to 14,” Azlinda said..

On the case of the STPM candidate who complained to a MP about being unable to secure a seat, she said that checks revealed the candidate only applied for the Accounting programme at four universities, Universiti Malaya (UM), Universiti Putra Malaysia, Universiti Utara Malaysia and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.

She added that the candidate in question was offered his fifth choice - a Bachelor’s degree in Management with Honours at a renowned research university - after the selection process was generated by the system.

“Even though they obtained a CGPA of 4.00 with a merit of 99.90 per cent, their application ranking in the accounting programme was far behind other candidates who had a merit of 100 per cent.

“For instance, UM had 2,291 qualified applications with 1,127 of them having full merits. The candidate was in the 1,129th position, while there were only 85 seats available,” Azlinda revealed.

She also stressed that all decisions were generated by the system based on scoring of merits set according to applied courses and programmes.

“The MOHE rejects allegations that there are loopholes in the existing system but remains open to views and improvements,” she said, adding that unsuccessful candidates or those with concerns can attend a consultation session with UPU officials held from Sept 8 to 12 at the ministry building’s lobby in Putrajaya.

-- BERNAMA