The Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) will be maintained to gauge the six-year achievement of students in primary school, Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said today.

He said the UPSR examination would be able to gauge the extent of the students’ acceptance of lessons taught by their teachers, especially in key subjects.

“Whatever the results, they will still go to Form One, but parents want to know where (level) they stand. “So, we continue with the policy we have long implemented to prove our chance of evaluating the students’ performance,” he said.

He told reporters this after a visit to Sekolah Kebangsaan Presint 16 (2) in Putrajaya to see the progress of the UPSR examination, which was taken by 82 students at the school.

It was imperative to evaluate students’ progress at primary school level before they moved on to secondary school, he said.

“They will continue to be guided through the school-based evaluation (Pentaksiran Berasaskan Sekolah - PBS) which we implement. Hopefully, this will produce brighter students and with higher order thinking skills,” he said.

Muhyiddin, who is also Education Minister, said the UPSR examination, which began today, went smoothly at 8,299 examination centres nationwide.

He wished the 472,853  students who sat for the UPSR examination good luck and hoped they would focus on it.

He also expressed his appreciation for the Education Ministry officers, especially teachers, who had sacrificed a lot to improve the students’ performance.

“We hope this year’s UPSR result will be better than the previous years,” he added.

- Bernama