Prof James Chin Checkmate Edward Wong S Detractors With Stats From Higher Edu Ministry S Own Admission

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THAT detractors have branded him as a racist, playing victim or even assuming that his race is an entitled lot have not deterred renowned political analyst Prof James Chin from staking his claim that meritocracy is just a myth in the Malaysian education system.

Nor had the call of Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Dr Zambry Abd Kadir for the public not to challenge the existing university entrance exams and system – the Unit Pusat Universiti (UPU) online entrance gateway – by issuing statements that will only further complicate the situation.



















Reacting to the latest exposé by MCA president Datuk Seri Wee Ka Siong on the plight of a 19-year-old lawyer-aspirant from Melaka who failed to land a law course in one of her three choice public university despite possessing a Matriculation score of 4.0 CGPA with 100% merit, the inaugural director of the Asia Institute at the University of Tasmania can only sigh:
“Perfect scores also no jalan (literally “way”) ….”
Perfect scores also no Jalan ….
Quote.
Last night in Melaka, together with MCA Vice-President and Klebang state assemblyman Datuk Wira Lim Ban Hong and Melaka EXCO Datuk Ngwe Hee Sem, I met a young girl whose story broke my heart — 19-year-old Lee.
Lee is not just any… pic.twitter.com/akVCfcoWMY
— James Chin (@jameschin110) September 15, 2025

In fact, Chin is not the only academician to voice discontent over the state of meritocracy in the Malaysian education system given former Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) political scientist-turned-politician Prof Ramasamy Palanisamy has previously slammed the Higher Education Ministry for continuously repeating untruth that public university admission is merit-based.


To further strengthen his argument, the senior fellow and the Governance Studies director at the Jeffrey Cheah Institute on Southeast Asia at Sunway University cited a recent Dewan Rakyat debate of Bayan Baru MP Sim Tze Tzin who lamented that despite STPM being deemed as the “gold standard in Southeast Asia”, STPM pupils are often marginalised.
Sim who is also the political secretary to the office of the PKR president had claimed that data from the Higher Education Ministry’s response to his query showed that the percentage of outstanding Matriculation students achieving a 4.0 CGPA is approximately 16% whereas that of STPM students is only 3.09%.
“In other words, a Matriculation student is about five times more likely to achieve a 4.0 CGPA compared to a STPM student. This is very surprising,” asserted Sim. “As a result, admission to public universities is highly disadvantageous to STPM students.”
Quote.
Mengikut data jawapan Kementerian yang saya perolehi daripada parlimen, keputusan pelajar cemerlang PGNK 4.0 (CGPA) Matriks adalah lebih kurang 16%, manakala pelajar cemerlang PGNK 4.0 (CGPA) STPM hanyalah 3.09%.
Dengan kata lain seorang pelajar di Matriks 5 kali ganda… pic.twitter.com/PoWdhTWzHa
— James Chin (@jameschin110) September 14, 2025

Below are the statistics furnished by the Higher Education Ministry pertaining to the number of Matriculation and STPM students entering Medicine, Pharmacy, Law and Dentistry courses in the 2023 intake:
Medicine: Matriculation = 939 (97.6%); STPM = 23 (2.39%)
Pharmacy: Matriculation = 472 (97.9%); STPM = 10 (2.1%)
Law: Matriculation = 579 (83.4%); STPM = 115 (16.6%)
Dentistry: Matriculation = 233 (99.15%); STPM = 2 (0.85%)
“This means that if students choose STPM, they are on a Mission Impossible, especially for the most popular courses. They basically have less than a 3% chance to get into medicine, pharmacy and dentistry,” deduced the 49-year-old Sim who is an engineering graduate from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM).

“Secondly, Matriculation only requires nine months to complete the programme while STPM requires 18 months to obtain the qualification. This has given rise to one country but two pre-university systems with a vast gap.”
Editor’s Note: Recall that over the weekend, Chin had lambasted what he described as “unofficial quota system operating in the background using different entry routes, namely “Matrikulasi/Asasi (pre-university foundation programmes typically for Bumiputera students) vs STPM into public universities”.

Below are more pertinent points raised by Madani backbencher Sim:
Imagine we’ve two children, one enrolls for Matriculation and the other does STPM. Their fate will be very different.
The one who does Matriculation is like striking a lottery; as if he’s entering a superhighway to success. But the child who chooses the STPM path enters a winding federal road.
This is not an issue of race or religion because the majority of STPM students are from the Malay Bumiputera group, including Bumiputera from Sabah and Sarawak.
A total of 71.95% of STPM students are from the B40 group who hail from rural areas, Sabah and Sarawak who rely on STPM to achieve social mobility and access higher education.
The main issue here is JUSTICE for our STPM students. –  Focus Malaysia

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