The issue of straight-A students failing to enroll in medical degree courses at public universities has been the talk of the town for the past week, and Deputy Minister of Education Teo Nie Ching has finally shed some light on this issue.
According to Sinchew, Teo said that the main reason students with impressive results couldn’t get into medical degree courses at public universities is that there are simply too many applicants and the quota is extremely limited.
Source: Malay Mail
Currently, there are 11 public universities across the nation offering this course and only 484 lucky students will be selected. Just this term alone, there were 2,730 applicants fighting for the spots and 2,490 of them actually fit the bare minimum criteria.
“As such, I have to be honest and say that the Ministry of Education cannot promise all qualified candidates a spot in public universities (for this course),” Teo said.
Apparently, factors such as the demand for doctors and fundings had to be taken into consideration as well. Also, since the ministry wants the universities to be autonomous, it will not interfere with the student intake affairs.
“However, the ministry will monitor the complaints and only intervene when there’s an issue of discrimination,” she added.
Source: Blog
This issue became a topic of public discussion on social media, especially after two Malaysian students failed to enroll in medical degree courses at public universities despite having excellent grades. Mixed reactions could be observed in the comments.
“When this happens, the government cannot blame local talents for not willing to serve in the country because they were denied a chance to study in Malaysia in the first place and it was the foreign universities who offered them the scholarships,” a netizen said.
“As of now, medical students need to wait for one year to get a place for housemanship as the country is already saturated with medical graduates. Increasing the quota will only worsen the problem,” another social media user said.
Let’s not kid ourselves, this issue has been around for the past decade when BN was still running the country, and now we shall see if the new Pakatan Harapan government can solve this.
What are your thoughts on this issue? Let us know in the comments below!
Also read: Another Straight-A M’sian Student Who Hopes to Be Doctor Rejected by 4 Public Unis
