COMPETITION for places at public universities has been very high this year, especially for popular programmes like medicine, accounting, and dentistry, Higher Education Ministry director-general Prof Dr Husaini Omar said. 

“Places at public universities are limited and competition this year has been extremely competitive,” he told the media during a briefing on UPU Online at the higher education ministry today. 

Husaini’s comment today came after potential students took to social media to vent after not receiving offers for their chosen courses although many did well in their STPM examinations. 

UPU Online is the portal for school leavers to apply for courses in public universities. 

Earlier today, Parti Bangsa Malaysia’s Muniraa Abu Bakar said public institutions of higher learning must make the admissions process more transparent so that students were informed of why they did not secure places in the universities.

The party’s women’s wing chief made the call following the failure of high scorers to gain admission into local public universities. 

“Parti Bangsa Malaysia strongly feels the rejection of these high scorers with no specified reasons is highly demoralising and also contributes greatly to the brain drain in the country,” she said, referring to a widely shared social media post by a student. 

Muniraa said it was unacceptable that high scorers were rejected by locaDl universities but were found attractive to foreign universities. 

She said many students with good grades had been forced to join the workforce after secondary school as they were turned away by local universities. 

To this, Husaini said that selection was made based on meritocracy, taking into account students’ academic and co-curricular marks plus their Malaysian University English Test (MUET) band. 

“Besides that, applicants need to fulfil the course criteria set by the university and, if required, pass an interview or entrance exam,” said Husaini. – September 29, 2022.