PM announces 3k additional university places to address limited access

 

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said an additional 3,000 places in popular courses will be added to public universities this year to address the annual controversy over limited entry opportunities.

He noted the controversy was particularly among students from minority communities who achieve excellent results but face entry constraints, especially into preferred courses.

“Understanding this problem, I have asked universities to increase places in these preferred courses by 1,500 from the current figure,” he said.

Following further discussions, Anwar said universities agreed to add another 1,500 places covering fields such as law, accounting, finance and banking, Islamic finance, artificial intelligence, economics, Bahasa Melayu, English, communication, media studies, data science, data analytics, and computer science.

“(This) means a total of 3,000 additional places this year,” he said.

In addition, to ease concerns among students, Anwar said the government will continue to prioritise foundation and matriculation students, while assurances have also been given to high-performing Form Six (STPM) students.

“We have also given assurances that high-achieving Form Six STPM students will be given priority for university placement, particularly those with a cumulative grade point average (CGPA) of 4.0.

“If the CGPA is 4.0, universities will make every effort to offer a place, although in some cases the choice of course will depend on the university’s capacity,” he said.

Reclassifying Form 6, matriculation students

Meanwhile, Anwar said the Higher Education Ministry will fully take over the pre-university education system involving Form Six and matriculation programmes starting this year.

He said the move will officially place both groups of students under the higher education category.

“Starting this year, the Higher Education Ministry will take over the entire pre-university education system - Form Six and matriculation.

“So Form Six and matriculation students are no longer school students. They are now categorised under higher education,” he said when speaking at the launch of the National Education Blueprint 2026-2035 in Putrajaya today.

- Bernama