Not happening, Dr Wee tells Akmal over call to say sorry to Min of Higher Education

KUALA LUMPUR: MCA president Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong has told Umno Youth chief Datuk Dr Muhamad Akmal Saleh not to hold his breath, as no apology will be given to the Higher Education Ministry.

The MCA president said he is unclear why the Umno Youth chief trained his guns on him as he was merely raising issues about the enrolment process into public universities which Dr Wee said was unfair to bright students from underprivileged families.

This comes after Dr Wee raised the plight of Edward Wong Yi Xian, who achieved a perfect CGPA of 4.0 and a near-perfect 99.9% overall merit score for the STPM examination but claimed he was rejected by Universiti Malaya for its Accounting course under the merit-based UPUonline system.

The same university, however, had previously offered Wong a place in the accountancy programme through the open channel, with tuition fees amounting to more than RM80,000 – 10 times more than if he had enrolled through the UPUonline system.

The Higher Education Ministry had said that admission into public universities were based on meritocracy, with the student in question ranked 1,129 out of 1,127 eligible applicants for the accounting programme in UM, with only 85 places offered.

“They are telling us its 85 places (for the accounting programme in UM under the UPUonline system), when I can show that it’s three digits.

“How can it be logical when the number of graduates outnumber the intake for a particular year?

“You want me to apologise? It’s not going to happen,” he said during a press conference on Wednesday (Sept 10).

On Tuesday (Sept 9), Dr Muhamad Akmal had asked Dr Wee to apologise, claiming he had had created a perception that tarnishes the image of the Higher Education Ministry.

Dr Wee had questioned why Wong was deemed ineligible for the course under the UPUonline system but was able to enrol under the open system, which requires students to pay up to 10 times more in tuition fees.

“Have our public universities reached a point where money is the priority? How can someone who was offered the course at RM83,800 first but later rejected under the UPUonline system?” he asked.

Dr Wee said the number of places under the accounting programme in UM through the UPUonline system were questionable.

Citing figures from UM’s Faculty of Business and Economics website, he said there were 106 to 195 accounting graduates from the years 2011 to 2024.

“Data from previous years show that there are clearly more than 85 graduates,” he said, questioning why there were more students in previous years.

“Who is being dishonest here or are there other entry channels that can produce this number of graduates?” he said, urging the government to review the open channel system.