The Malaysian Examination Council (MEC) chairperson  Mohd Noh Dalimin announced recently the scrapping of the STPM  examination system from next year. It will instead be replaced by three term examinations to be held at the end of Lower Six, mid-year of Upper Six; and at the end of Upper Six.

Mohd Noh said the MEC had studied the new assessment system and decided to fully implement it to empower the Form Six education programme. The CEO of MEC added that this will encourage more students to take up this stream of pre-university education with the hope of securing better results.

The disadvantaged but high performing students who were institutionally victimised (mostly the Indian, Chinese,Orang Asal and East Malaysians) who cannot afford to enter private universities have no choice but to sit for STPM, in attempt to get into one of the 20 public universities or to get scholarships from foreign universities for their tertiary education.

This has required that almost all of them have to sit through the STPM exam. The Matriculation Exam is completely out of bounds for them. STPM is acknowledged to be a much more gruelling exam than the Matriculation Exam.

Be that as it may, some very high performing institutionally victimised  students do very well in the STPM exam and obtain scholarships to study in foreign universities, or some middle income students go on to study in foreign universities in spite of the extremely high costs.

STPM has established its standing as an internationally acceptable pre-university exam. Now it is to be replaced by this term based pre-university examination system.

There is no indication by the Malaysian Examination Council that the international standing of this term based pre-university examination system will be equivalent to the STPM. There is a strong likelihood that this may not be the case.

This system may suffer the same fate as the Matriculation Examination system. The Matriculation Exam system is good only for entry into Malaysian public universities and selected overseas universities.

Most International universities do not accept the Matriculation System as adequate for entry into their universities. If this fate befalls this new Pre-University Exam, then even the limited opportunities for study abroad for high performing, but poor students will be eliminated. Once again, Umno would have succeeded in killing two birds with one stone and in the name of seeming good, actually extend the denial for quality education to the  young in crafty new ways.

The higher education minister should  personally bear responsibility and assure Malaysians on this matter. Hindraf demands for his personal public statement and not thru his officers or his deputy minister.

We too urge every embassy and high commission which currently recognise STPM results as valid pre university qualification into their universities, to openly declare if the new term based STPM results will be accepted in coming years.

Even as I pen this article, I have just received a phone call from a weeping Indian lass who has secured 6As in the SPM exam in 2009 and was forced to joined the STPM stream. She has just gotten her STPM results, which were above average and now, she finds her plans for her future  as a neurosurgeon in completely disarray. Yet lesser performing peers will find themselves in good courses in local public universities.

                                                                                                                 Umno continues with its nonsense and continues to stunt the development of young  Indians in the country. How many more need to be sacrificed like this young lass before there will be justice and hope for those institutionally victimised students  in this country?

When will this racist regime stop extending its racist nonsense and get real and start robustly addressing the issue of equal opportunities for all, in all spheres of life. When will they stop trying to maintain the status quo or extending it with deception of this kind?