The perception that the Education Ministry did not give fair consideration to the Mandarin and Tamil subjects in its selection of students for scholarships is wrong, the Dewan Rakyat was told

today.

Its deputy minister, Wee Ka Siong said consideration for scholarships was made based on nine core subjects.

"Students who score well in Mandarin and Tamil have an advantage, especially if they want to enter the teaching profession.

This is because one of the requirements is to have at least credit in the subject," he said in reply to M Kulasegaran (DAP-Ipoh Barat) during question time.

Kulasegaran had wanted to know why the two subjects were not listed as core subjects for Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) through the SPM 10+2 formula.

Wee said the ministry would not stop, but instead, encourage students to take any subjects including Mandarin and Tamil.

The deputy minister also said that in the selection of the National

Scholarship Prize recipients, the candidates would be short-listed based on the ranking of their SPM results to ensure the quality of the their performance.

However, he said the ministry had very little to do in the selection of recipients for the Public Service Department's (PSD) scholarship, except to provide information and data, as the final decision would be made by PSD based on the courses applied.

- Bernama