Depending on one's perspective, it was either a slow day at the Dewan Rakyat or one that zipped along - all because many MPs were missing from their seats.

It was the former for Speaker Ramli Ngah Talib, who expressed disappointment over the low attendance - because the absence of representatives of several ministries left many questions unanswered.

However, Deputy Higher Education Minister Ong Tee Keat was on hand to take a question relating to student intake in public universities.

He claimed that instances where deserving applicants are not allocated a course of their choice "do not occur anymore".

"We have seen cases like this in the past, but now almost all students get the courses they have requested," said Ong.

"We have restricted places for certain courses, so we give a different course to some students. Even then, this is (decided based on the eight choices they have listed) in the application form."

He said that 40,116 applicants were offered places based on merit in public universities for the 2008/08 academic session. However, the number is lower than last year's intake of 53,400 applicants.

Ong also said the government and ministry are concerned about the shortage of places in public universities, as this causes many students to lose out on an opportunity to obtain tertiary education.

"We have taken a few steps to solve the problems. Among these is to increase the number of universities. We have new universities like Universiti Darul Iman Malaysia, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan and Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia," he said.

He was responding to a query from Chong Eng (DAP-Bukit Mertajam) who wanted to know the size of the student intake for 2007/ 08 by each tertiary institution, and according to race.

She also asked how many of those who qualified had failed to get a place and the measures taken by the ministry to solve the problem.

'Incomplete reply'

In a separate development, Chong Chieng Jeng (DAP-Bandar Kuching) expressed his displeasure over a reply from the Prime Minister's Department.

Chong ( left ) had asked the prime minister to state the quantum of allocations for his constituency from 2003-2007, cost of projects and the organisations receiving funds.

However, he was disappointed when parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister's Department Dr Mashitah Ibrahim failed to provide the list.

He was also irked by her reply that some allocations were channelled via the village development and security committee.

"Don't you know that there are no villages in Bandar Kuching? Speaking of which, is it true that the allocations were channelled to the state development officer who built a RM3 million house using the money?" asked Chong.

Mashitah, who denied the allegation, promised to provide the list to Chong in a written reply.