The Malaysian Insider

UPDATED

KUALA LUMPUR, June 17 – The Education Ministry today decided to give an exemption to science stream students in religious schools to take a maximum of 11 subjects in the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) next year.

However, minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said the maximum of 10 subjects for the SPM 2010 as specified earlier for other candidates remained unchanged.

“The ministry agreed to approve the appeal by Religious Secondary School administrators to allow their students to take 11 subjects, it is an exemption for students who are taking the science stream and religious studies simultaneously,” said Muhyiddin, who is also the Deputy Prime Minister, at a media conference before attending a discussion with the Commonwealth Education Ministers Conference delegation at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre (KLCC), here.

Muhyiddin said the exemption was only for the 2010 examination while for the 2011 examination, the ministry would revert to the maximum of 10 subjects for science stream students in religious schools.

“This is because they cannot change (the subjects) immediately, but from 2011, all candidates will take only 10 subjects, which means that we are giving a grace period to the religious schools to make the change and the candidates will choose the subjects that they are strong in,” he said.

Besides the four core subjects taken by the science stream students, Muhyiddin said, seven elective subjects taken were Al-Quran, Sunnah, Higher Arabic Language, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Additional Mathematics.

Muhyiddin hoped the decision would contribute to the development of human capital who were not only strong in “knowledge education” but also “character education”.

In addition, he said, it would also reject the perception of certain quarters that Malaysia practiced an education system that was exam-oriented.

“If we take that number of subjects, it will certainly lead to a good result and it will become too exam-oriented. So we will develop the students’ potentials in the subjects chosen in a more intensive and comprehensive manner.

“The teachers and students will have more time to undertake co-curriculum activities in line with our philosophy on education,” he said.

The ministry recently limited students to take a maximum of 10 subjects in the SPM to ensure fairness in the award of scholarships to students who achieved excellent results.

However, 21 unions and teachers’ associations throughout the country recently raised their objections and wanted the maximum number of subjects that a student may take in the SPM to be raised to 12.

Meanwhile, commenting on the ministry’s proposal to make the English language a compulsory subject to pass in the SPM, Muhyiddin said almost 80 per cent of the total feedback received were in favour of the proposal.

He said most of the respondents who supported the proposal also set several conditions including having adequate teaching manpower, English language teachers who were adequately trained and the need to give consideration to the students in rural areas.

A decision on the matter would be made soon and possibly within this year, he added.– Bernama

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