Education Minister Musa Mohamad announced late this afternoon that the Cabinet had reversed his ministry's decision made last June that barred private universities and colleges from recognising the Independent High School Unified Examination (Unified Exam) Certificate.

This about-turn was disclosed after the weekly Cabinet meeting following a protest by Chinese education movement Dong Jiao Zhong yesterday on the move which could affect the future of some 55,000 students enrolled at 60 independent Chinese schools nationwide.

The Unified Exam is organised by Chinese education body Dong Zhong, which is taken by over 6,000 independent school students every year since 25 years ago. The exam certificate is accepted by over 400 universities and private colleges worldwide. However, it is not officially recognised by local public universities.

In the early years, most graduates would head for Taiwan and Singapore for further studies, but in recent years, many students turned to local private colleges which had recognised the certificate until last June.

Earlier today, head of organisation affairs in Dong Zhong, Ong Swee Kok, told malaysiakini that the organisation had urged the Education Minister to act on the problem urgently as the non-recognition would prevent some 6,000 graduating students every year from pursuing higher education at local colleges.

"Malaysia aims to become a regional education centre to attract more foreign students, but its decision not to recognise the certificate contradicts this national objective," said Ong.

Musa told journalists that the non-recognition decision made by his ministry officers in the Planning and Research Unit last year is now considered to be no more in effect.

He added that it was up to the private colleges to decide themselves whether to accept the Unified Exam Certificate for admission into their courses, including for twinning, special and unit transfer programmes.

According to a statement issued by Dong Jiao Zhong, the Education Ministry in June last year required government or private colleges to insert in their recruitment advertisements to change a previous clause of "or similar qualifications" to "qualifications accepted by the Malaysian government".

Dong Jiao Zhong suggested that the government should let the National Accreditation Board to evaluate the Unified Exam Certificate like other certificates.