Matriculation programme to be diversified to fulfil demand

Nabihah Hamid Andrew Chin Ragananthini Vethasalam Nabihah Hamid, Andrew Chin, Ragananthini Vethasalam Updated 4 years ago · Published on 12 May 2019 11:00AM · 5 Comments

Education minister Maszlee Malik says the matriculation programme will be diversified to ensure job demands of the market can be filled. – The Malaysian Insight pic by Kamal Ariffin, May 12, 2019.

PUTRAJAYA’S move to increase the number of matriculation spots is unlikely to reduce the chances of STPM students in securing placements in the already crowded contest for entry into public universities, said Education Minister Maszlee Malik.

Maszlee said that under the revamped programme, apart from increasing the number of spots, matriculation centres would now offer courses such as accountancy on top of its continued focus on disciplines related to sciences.

“Most parents still want their children to enroll in traditional science courses especially when they get straight A’s. They always want their children to study medicine, pharmacy or dentistry,” said Maszlee of the importance of diversifying areas of study within the sciences.

“But the job market requires more than that.”

Last month, Putrajaya announced an additional 15,000 placements for the matriculation programme for pre-university students, raising the number of seats to 40,000 from the current 25,000.

With the increased number of seats, more than 4,000 spots – the highest in the programme’s history – would be reserved for non-Bumiputera students.

The move, however, raised concerns that the number of applications to university following the completion of the programme would outnumber availability.

Maszlee Malik says the matriculation programme will not oversupply students to universities. – The Malaysian Insight pic by Kamal Ariffin, May 12, 2019.

Maszlee said there was no issue of limited spaces in public universities, saying that last year, 5,000 seats for science courses in local universities were left untaken.

“The only thing is we need to diversify the area of disciplines.”

The Simpang Renggam MP said that there is increased demand for jobs in fields such as nanotechnology, biotechnology and data science.

“What we are doing now is that we are trying to make sure that students who are coming to matriculation will be channeled to those fields that has not been taken by most students due to parents’ old school way of thinking,” Maszlee told The Malaysian Insight.

“The job market is there. The job industry requires a lot of talent.

“This is where the expansion of the number of people going to matriculation centres will help us provide more takers and more manpower for those fields.”

There are 15 matriculation colleges in the country, which reserve about 90% of allocations for Bumiputera students.

In a recent interview, Perak DAP chairman Nga Kor Ming said the decision to increase the number of matriculation seats was a compromise following the faulty policy implemented by the previous administration.

Nga said Barisan Nasional had allocated 90% of the seats for Bumiputera, leaving a ‘pathetic’ 10% for non-Bumiputeras but Pakatan Harapan cannot immediately do away with it. – May 12, 2019.

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Comments

  • This is just to fast track the intake of Bumiputra students into universities...
    Whatever you do, just ensure that high quality standards of programmes are maintained to churn out quality graduates who are ability to fulfil the nations economic and business needs... and not churn out numbskulls, who need to be spoonfed!!!

    Posted 4 years ago by Kampung Boy · Reply

  • A very lame reasoning and not trying to correct the wrongs. Nobody is bothered to dispute about related subject matter for their children to take it for their skill set. The main contention is the 90% quotas allocated to poor academically sound Malay students at the expense of the high quality bright students from the non Malay's pool. What is the concrete action to check this malady and rectify the situation. Increasing a bigger intake without proportioning the quotas and still reserving the racist 90% allocation from the new created bigger pool is just pulling the wool over the eyes. Do something sincere and stop using the poor Malay race as a guise on the Malay agenda. The other races are already fed up and we do mot need politicians to keep on dishing out garbage excuses and same old same old reasoning. As mentioned before if things are not moving , Sandakan will be the last victory for PH to enjoy and DAP will face the main brunt of the defeat. The previous 3 defeats was predicted as the sentiments are very easy to read hoping that PH will be as what they want to enforce on the New Malaysia but the old man and his crew took for granted that rakyat can be easily fooled and forgiving for PH is only a year old and still improving. They have forgotten that " "fool me once shame on you , fool me twice never try , fool me thrice you better go and die." PH are now aware that Najib "boss ku" do not need a year to be impactful but more or less within 6 months he gain the momentum even without doing any thing substantial to win the hearts of his supporters. If a simple task for the education system that urgently needs to be changed for the good of the country is going thru' such a heavy opposition not from UmnoPAS noise level but more of the cowardice and non sincerity to make changes by PH Government who has no conviction to do so .

    Posted 4 years ago by Lee Lee · Reply

  • If this is so then the Ministry should educate the parents. You must fix the problem at the source..that is the parents. Change the mindset of the parents by creating awareness for jobs like nanotechnology, biotechnology and data science, or engineering and high level accounting..let the parents know the future their children will have when they pursue a career in theses areas and how much they can earn (very important to parents). Convince the parents medicine and pharmacy is saturated, the country need other skills and these are the skills on demand. Most parents still think highly of the old fashion jobs but the world is changing rapidly and there are a lot out there that these parents are not aware of.

    Posted 4 years ago by Elyse Gim · Reply

  • Would you rather hire someone who had to work hard to get to where they are now or someone with a mentality of "the Government will provide, why bother to work hard, there is always a backdoor way"? Any wonder even Malay owned firms prefer to hire non-Malays?

    Posted 4 years ago by Yoon Kok · Reply

  • Two wrongs don't make a right.
    Ditch this backdoor entry to uni
    It's a compromise on excellence.

    Posted 4 years ago by K.C. BOEY · Reply