University Entry Criteria: Co-Curricular Activities

It has been highlighted in the press for quite a few weeks now. The Ministry of Higher Education, Datuk Mustapa Mohamed has further confirmed and clarified that co-curricular activities will make up 10% of entry requirements into public universities from this year. You can read reports from the various news sources here, here, here and here.

I'm in full agreement that co-curricular activities (CCA) should be part of the evaluation process although I must admit that I would be clueless as to whether a 10% contribution is the right percentage - should it be 5% or 15%? From an initial gut feel, a 10% contribution sounds like a fair percentage to start with. After all, the Ministry should be given a bit of leeway to fine-tune the entry process over the next few years.

The little concern I have with regards to this new criteria is the fact that it applies directly to those STPM and matriculation students seeking entry into our public universities in the current year. I thought its a bit unfair for the entry requirements to be decided at this stage when the students were not given an opportunity to "make good" in their secondary schools. It's kinda like moving the goalposts in the last minute after one has managed to work his way past all the defenders. It would have been better if the policy is implemented for students enrolling into Form 6 or pre-university courses in the current year.

In addition, co-curricular activities, being a subjective matter, will be extremely difficult to achieve standardisation in terms of participation across schools throughout the country. And when subjectivity comes into play, it leaves plenty of room for manoeuvre - whether legally or otherwise.

The Minister of Higher Education has stated that "[f]or those who had submitted their application on-line, the information would be berified with the respective schools to ensure it is accurate." The Ministry will be receiving thousands and thousands of applications each year, how in the world are they going to be able to verify all these information accurately is beyond me.

Hence, it is hoped that the new system will not be abused by students and teachers alike. You can surely imagine teachers and students attempting to abuse the system through favouritism and worse, corruption.

On the balance of it, as long as the guidelines are put in place properly and the system is not abused too badly, I suppose it'll be good for our students. It's about time for students to be evaluated not just on academics (although academic achievement is still the absolutely biggest component), but also activities which will help build an well-round individual.