The overall performance of candidates in the  Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) this year is the best in four years, says Education director-general Abd Ghafar Mahmud.

He said 466,167 candidates set for the UPSR this year, with the overall performance up by 0.04 of the National Grade Point Average (NGPA).

“This is the best in four years since 2010, with the NGPA at 2.31 that year rising to 2.30 in 2011, 2.31 in 2012 and 2.27 in 2013. (A smaller NGPA shows better performance by candidates.)

“This is an achievement to be proud of. I congratulate all the teachers and students for the better performance this year,” he said when announcing the analysis of the UPSR 2013 results in Putrajaya today.

Abd Ghafar said 42,646 UPSR candidates this year obtained A in all subjects, an increase of 0.21 percent over last year’s figure.

He said the performance in the Bahasa Melayu (BM) subject by national schools (SK) rose by 0.17 of the Grade Point Average (GPA) for BM Pemahaman and by 0.03 for BM Penulisan compared to last year’s figures. (A lower point shows better performance.)

Performance in BM by national-type schools (SJK) also shows an improvement of 0.14 GPA (BM Pemahaman) and 0.19 (BM Penulisan).

“The better performance in BM has contributed to the good overall performance in the UPSR this year,” said Abd Ghafar.

As for the English Language subject at the SK, he said the overall performance dropped by 0.06 of a point, with the number of candidates obtaining A down by 0.2 percent, grades A, B and C down by 2.9 percent while grades D and E, up by 3.0 from last year’s figure.

At the SJK, the overall performance in English Language rose by 0.12 of a point, with the number of those getting A and A, B and C up by 4.2 percent and 2.1 percent, while D up by 1.0 percent and E, down by 3.0 percent.

For Mathematics, Abd Ghafar said the GPA was down by 0.03 compared to last year, with candidates getting grade A and grades A, B and C down by 1.2 and 0.08 percent respectively, grade D down by 0.2 percent and E, up by 1.0 percent.

For Science, the performance was down by 0.02 of a point, with those scoring A remaining at 22.6 percent like last year and grades A,B,C down by 0.2 percent, D down by 0.7 percent and E, up by 0.9 percent.

As for the subject of Chinese Language-Comprehension, the performance was down by 0.04 of a point. The number of candidates scoring A was down by 3.0 percent, A, B andC down by 0.1 percent, D up by 0.2 percent and E, down by 0.1 percent.

The performance in Chinese Language-Written was also down, by 0.02 of a point, with the number of grade A and grades A, B andC achievers down by 0.1 and 0.5 percent respectively, grade D down by 0.3 percent and E, up by 0.9 percent.

As for Tamil Language-Comprehension, there was an improvement by 0.21 of a point over last year’s figure, with candidates getting A and grades A, B and C increased by 7.2 and 5.4 percent respectively, while for grades D and E, the number was down by 5.4 percent.

The overall performance in Tamil Language-Written was down by 0.06 of a point. The number of those scoring A and A, B and C were down by 3.9 and 0.5 percent respectively, grade D down by 0.1 percent and E, up by 0.6 percent.

‘Overall performance showed improvement’

Abd Ghafar said the overall performance of urban and rural students in the UPSR 2013 showed improvement with the difference in GPA only being 0.04.

He said 25,685 of the urban candidates (an increase of 0.20 percent) and 16,960 from the rural areas (increase of 0.27 percent) scored A in all subjects.

“The figures show that the excellent performance gap between urban and rural students is getting smaller, at 0.07 percent this year.”

As for students with special needs, he said there were 12 top performers (three visually impaired, two spastics and seven with other disabilities) compared to 25 last year.

Abd Ghafar said 9.15 percent of the candidates this year scored A in all subjects compared to 8.94 percent in 2012, an increase of 0.21 percent.

He said 56.28 percent of the candidates scored the minimum C grade in their subjects this year, while the number of those who scored below the minimum (grades D or E in all subjects or combination of both) was down by 0.06 percent to 3.36 percent.

- Bernama