Articles

Unified Examination Certificate’s possible recognition come with conditions

Published by SchoolAdvisor | Feb 04, 2013

The government may consider recognizing the Independent Chinese Secondary School’s UEC but with two conditions:

• First, students have to score at least a credit in Bahasa Malaysia in the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) examination and;
• Second, more local content in History and Geography subjects should be added in the UEC syllabus to instill patriotism

Tthe Education Ministry, the United Chinese Schools Committees Association of Malaysia (Dong Zong), and the United Chinese School Teachers Association (Jiao Zong) will hold a meeting to discuss this further.

UEC is recognised worldwide, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Canada, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore. Leading universities such as National University of Singapore and Massachusetts Institute of Technology recognise UEC.

At present, students are put on a “double-tracking” system so that they can obtain both the UEC as well as sit as private candidates for the government’s standard certificates. Students who have UEC certificate but don’t have SPM are not eligible to apply for a PTPTN loan. However, a compulsory pass in SPM is exempted for students who are pursuing diploma and first degree studies in private institutes only.