From SPM to Public Uni?

Read this report in the Star a few days ago. About 30,000 SPM and equivalent holders were accepted into the public university system. My question is this - How can we really be sure that a majority of these students are ready to enter university without any pre university foundation (such as STPM or matriculation)?

The 30,000 figure represents about 10% of the total student population in our public universities. Since there have been previous students who have been admitted with just an SPM certificate, the total number of such students might be as high as 20% of the public university system.

While the Higher Education Minister, Khaled Nordin, had emphasized that these students were chosen purely on merit, I have to take his statement with a bit of salt given Malaysia's poor record in choosing students purely based on 'merit', however it is defined.

Is there any reason why these students would be better qualified to go straight from SPM to a public university compared to those who choose to do their STPM or the matriculation program? 30,000 is not a small number. Surely not all of them can be regarded as top scorers i.e. scoring 9As and above. Surely many of the top scorers end up doing STPM and matriculation instead of choosing to apply to go straight into a public university.

If out of a cohort of about 300,000 students who take SPM and about 10% of that cohort goes straight to a public university, wouldn't that strike someone as worrying?

It would be interesting to track these SPM entries to see over a period of time whether they perform better or worse than those who enter with an STPM or matriculation certificate.

My sense is that this number is way too high and that many of these students could have done well with at least one year of a foundation or pre-university course.

I can't help but feel that this is another factor in contributing to the massive decline in the standards of our public universities.