The higher education ministry's system of grading co-curricular activities has come under focus as public universities begin sending out rejection letters to students who have applied for degree programmes.

Gerakan Youth's education bureau raised this issue at a closed-door meeting with the ministry yesterday, and proposed that a clearer grading mechanism be created.

Bureau chairperson Lau Yeng Peng said the mechanism is critical in view of the fact that the grading system will determine the future and career of the applicants.

"Co-curriculum activities contribute 10 percent of the marks (for admission into public universities), but students are not aware about how to benefit from this," he told a press conference.

"The ministry should therefore be more transparent about how it allocates marks, to prevent confusion in relation to admission criteria."

Lau said the current system of allocating marks is "very subjective" and that this may work against the students' interests.

He cited the example of student participation in two main types of associations - those with uniforms and those without - while pursuing the matriculation or STPM programme.

"A student who chairs a uniform-based association may be ranked at 2.5 in terms of grade, while the head of the chess club may receive only 2.0. Students currently don't know how their activities will be graded," he said.

'Check on information'

Another concern, he said, is the need to verify information provided by students in their university applications forms, to prevent false claims being made in relation to participation in co-curriculum activities.

Lau said the proposed mechanism could also be used to check on the information provided.

He further said the government should give higher priority to higher achievers, by considering both academic performance and involvement in co-curricular activities rather than their ethnicity.

If the government does not act, students with excellent results may lack confidence in the education system, he pointed out.

"We have highlighted it, discussed it (during the meeting). I am sure that the government will do something about it," he said.

Gerakan Youth has set up counters at party headquarters and state-level branches to assist students in submitting appeals if they have not been accepted into universities or into their programme of choice. To date, it has received 228 appeals.

Lau advised students to first lodge their appeal via the ministry website, so that they will be issued a reference number. This should be submitted together with relevant documents to Gerakan Youth, if assistance is required.