PETALING JAYA: The allocation of seats for the matriculation programme — particularly with regards to the quota for non-bumiputras — will be discussed at the weekly Cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
However Datuk Dr Amin Senin, the director-general at the Education Ministry, said the policy of keeping 90% of the places for bumiputra students would be maintained.
Nonetheless, he added, the government would consider reviewing the policy to provide more places to students from other communities in the future.
He was responding to reports that many non-Malay students were not given the opportunity to undergo the matriculation programme this year compared with previous years.
“The ministry views the various issues concerning the matriculation programme seriously,“ he said in a statement today. “We will ensure that this issue is handled with care to ensure (we come to) the best solution possible.”
The matriculation programme has 25,000 openings each year. That means 22,500 places will be allocated to bumiputra students and the remaining 2,500 to non-bumiputras under the 90:10 ratio provided for in the current policy.
However, Amin said, improvements had been made to the policy to provide opportunities to more students from low-income families. A total of 60% of the seats will be reserved for this group.
The programme was originally meant to benefit only bumiputra students.
It has been reported that 3,200 places were given to Chinese and Indian students in 2018. The ministry later clarified that this was just a one-off initiative.
It said last Friday that this was based on the needs at that time, and the availability of seats from the bumiputra quota that were not filled.
