The cabinet has decided not to allocate extra seats for students still vying to enter local universities, said MIC president S Samy Vellu today.

"All places in public universities have been filled up and there will be no special allocation.

"Only if the students who have been given seats refuse to take them then the empty seats would be allocated to new students," he told malaysiakini after attending the weekly cabinet meeting in Putrajaya.

Yesterday, some 400 students and family members sent a memorandum to Samy and also staged a protest outside his office in Kuala Lumpur, asking for help in seeking entry into varsities.

Most of them were Sijil Tinggi Persekolahan Malaysia (STPM) students who said they could not afford to pursue their education in private institutions.

"The students who were here yesterday will have to go to private institutions of higher learning and we are willing to give them loans," said Samy, who is also works minister, when asked to comment on the matter.

According to the minister, most of these students were those already given seats but were not satisfied with the faculty assigned to them.

He also revealed that 90 of them failed to obtain a seat despite scoring good results in the STPM examination.

"I will be writing to Education Minister Musa Mohamad on this issue because they are the ones with the best marks," said Samy.

Asked about the plight of diploma holders who had also complained of not getting seats, he said that the seats were filled up by STPM qualified candidates.

"Don't presume that you (diploma holders) would be getting a place in the local universities," he said.

'No choice'

Since the implementation of the merit-based system this month, MIC has become one of its main detractors.

The party claimed the move would limit the chances of Indian Malaysian students gaining entry into public universities.

During its recent annual general meeting, delegates adopted a special resolution urging the government to review the move but Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who mooted the idea last year, stressed that the system will remain.

Asked if he was unhappy with the decision made by the Cabinet today, Samy said: "There is no other choice".

According to statistics revealed by education ministry officials three weeks ago, bumiputra students saw a rise in university entry while Indian students saw a significant drop of eight percent to 4.7 percent this year.