More than 10,000 students with 10As or more in SPM offfered matriculation spots in last two years, says Fadhlina

KUALA LUMPUR: A total of 4,932 students that scored 10As and above in the 2024/2025 Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) examinations were offered matriculation placements, says the Education Ministry.

For the 2025/2026 intake, its minister Fadhlina Sidek said that 6,029 students were offered matriculation placements.

She said that entry into matriculation programmes was based on meritocracy, with 90% focused on academics while the remaining 10% on co-curricular activities, income background and race quotas.

According to the minister, this has also been in place since 2015.

“The financial background is taken into consideration with 60% for those from the low-income group while the remaining 40% are for the middle and high-income groups,” she said in a written Parliamentary reply on Thursday (Aug 21).

Fadhlina added that the academic merit does not solely look at the number of As scored but also takes into account the merit points of the four main subjects in the student’s stream.

She said the Cabinet, on June 28 last year, had also decided that students who scored 10As and above in their SPM examinations, will automatically be offered matriculation placements as well.

The minister was responding to a question by Pang Hok Liong (PH-Labis) who asked about the number of students offered matriculation courses between 2015 to 2025.

On a related matter, she said 1,537 Indian students were offered matriculation placements for the 2025/2026 session.

This, she said, was to fulfill the allocated quota of 1,116 students.

Of the number, she said the 341 who achieved 10As in SPM 2024 were automatically offered placements.

The rest comprised students that were offered placements based on merit and income background.

This was in response to P. Prabakaran (PH-Batu) who asked about the number of Indian students offered matriculation placements in 2024 and how many of them had scored 10As in the SPM examinations.