SPM candidates fare slightly better

PUTRAJAYA: Out of the 434,535 candidates who sat for the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) 2016 examination at 3,732 examination centres nationwide last year, only 8,647 scored straight A's, compared to 9,721 students in 2015.
"Only 102 or 1.94% of students, achieved straight A+, compared to 163 students (2.6%) in 2015.
"(The number of students) who scored A and A- also decreased, with only 2.13% in 2016, compared to 2.38% in 2015," said Education Ministry Director-General Tan Sri Dr Khair Mohamad Yusof.
Despite the decrease in candidates obtaining straight A's, Khair revealed that there have been improvement in 41 subjects including the four main core subjects of Bahasa Melayu, English language, Science and Islamic studies.
"While 41 subjects have shown some improvement, there are also 28 other subjects which recorded a decline in performance with Mathematics recording the highest decline in performance, 0.29 in Subject Cumulative Grade (GPMP).
"For the elective subjects on the other hand, 37 of them have shown improvement with biology leading the way for the science and maths elective subjective with an improvement of 0.23 in GPMP. For the technical elective subjects, civil engineering studies recorded the highest improvement with 0.72 in GPMP," Khair told reporters during the announcement of the 2016 SPM results analysis at the ministry today.
And with compulsory passes for Bahasa Melayu and History, Khair said that some 340,698 candidates or 85.21% are eligible for the examination certificates.
"Meanwhile, some 510 or 58.72% special needs students also qualified for the SPM certificates.
"Their achievements show that every candidate are capable of taking the SPM examination and obtaining success in it," he added.
Khair also said the 2016 SPM results showed a slight improvement in the National Cumulative Grade (GPN), compared with the previous year.
He said the overall performance of candidates last year recorded a GPN of 5.10 compared to 5.15 in 2015 and a lower GPN score indicates better performance.
"The achievements between urban and rural areas candidates also recorded some improvement with the rural students recording an increase of 0.08 in GPN, from 5.44 in 2015 to 5.36, while urban candidates recorded an 0.05 increases in their GPN (4.94 in 2015 to 4.89)," he said.