Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia


The Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia, or the Malaysian Certificate of Education, is a national examination taken by all fifth-form secondary school students in Malaysia. It is the equivalent to the General Certificate of Secondary Education in England, Wales and Northern Ireland;
Nationals 4/5 in Scotland; and GCE Ordinary Level in the Commonwealth of Nations. It is the leaving examination of the eleventh grade of schooling.
SPM is the penultimate examination sat by secondary school students before entry into sixth form or technical education. The examination is set and examined by the Malaysian Examinations board. For those who attend international schools, the equivalent exam they sit for is the International General Certificate of Secondary Education exam. On the other hand, the Unified Examinations Certificate is equivalent to Advanced Level.

History

The SPM is equivalent to the British GCSE, and provides the opportunity for Malaysians to continue their studies to pre-university level. Up to 1978, the examination was handled by UCLES, which still advises the Malaysian Examinations Syndicate on standards. The English paper is separately graded by the national examination board and UCLES, and both grades will be displayed on the statement slip. On the actual certificate, only the national examination board's grade is listed. The minimum requirements to obtain the certificate is to pass both Malay language and History.
Generally, the SPM is taken at the age of 17, though students who attended pre-secondary school class would take it at the age of 18. Previously, students who successfully passed their Penilaian Tahap Satu examination at Primary Three and chose to skip a year of primary school education would take their SPM a year earlier, at the age of 16. This was discontinued in 2000. Students who are home schooled generally take the SPM at the end of their secondary education as well.

Subjects

Compulsory subjects

Certain subjects are made compulsory for students. These are:
CodeSubject Subject Examination language
1103Bahasa MelayuMalay LanguageMalay
1119Bahasa InggerisEnglish LanguageEnglish
1223Pendidikan IslamIslamic StudiesMalay
1225Pendidikan MoralMoral EducationMalay
1249SejarahHistoryMalay
1449MathematicsMathematicsEnglish or Malay
1511ScienceScienceEnglish or Malay

Elective subjects

Science and Mathematics

In 2003, the medium of instruction for the science and mathematics subjects was switched from Malay to English. Due to this transition, students taking science and mathematics subjects can choose to respond in the examinations in either English or Malay.

Languages and Literature

Economics & Business

Social Sciences & Religion

Arts and Health

Technical and Vocational

Results

The evaluation scheme is fully exam-based. The examination for SPM usually takes place around November and lasts for more than 3 weeks. Papers are also scheduled in June for students who wish to resit for examinations they failed the previous year, but only for the compulsory subjects.
When releasing the results, only the letter grades are made known to the candidates. Candidates may request a remarking if they suspect errors in the original marking. Although no list of rankings is released to the public, the names of the top ranked students in the country and in each state are released to the press. These students may achieve the level of temporary celebrities, and may even be approached by companies to advertise their products. Politicians usually visit some of these top ranked students a day before the official results to congratulate them. Because the SPM examination is the final nationally standardised examination taken by the majority of Malaysians, many scholarships are awarded based on SPM results.
Since 2010, however, the Ministry of Education has imposed a 10-subject limit on every candidate, while lowering the minimum number of subjects from 8 to 6. Students are allowed to take 2 additional subjects but they will not be taken into consideration for government scholarships.
Prior to year 2011, the Public Service Department scholarships are given to students who scored excellent results in the SPM examination for their studies in universities. However, at June 2011, the Public Service Department announced that starting from the year 2012 onwards they will no longer offer scholarships to SPM leavers, instead they will only offer scholarships to leavers of STPM and A-Level. Later, at 23 March 2012, the Ministry of Education of Malaysia announced that starting from the SPM 2011 batch onwards, students who obtained 9A+ or above in the SPM are eligible for bursaries given by the ministry which will cover costs for pre-university programmes such as A-Level, International Baccalaureate, etc.
In addition, the top-50 SPM candidates in the whole country can still be offered the Public Service Department scholarships based on National Scholarship Programme.

Grade system

Candidates are assigned grades based on their scores in each subject. The exact grading scale used every year has never been made public.
Since 2009, grading system used has a range from A+ to G. The previous system assigned a grade point and a letter to each range, with 1A as highest range and 9G the lowest.
The table below shows the comparison between previous grade system and the current one.
2000 – 2008From 2009Grade Value
N/AA+0
A1A1
A2A-2
B3B+3
B4B4
C5C+5
C6C6
D7D7
E8E8
G9G9

Bahasa Melayu July Paper

Bahasa Melayu was slowly dosed into our national school system from 1960 but it was only made a compulsory subject in 1970. Furthermore, a weak credit in BM is essential in order to secure a seat in sixth form. One of the many problems associated with this change is that many "good" students were unable to continue their post-secondary education because of their examination result in BM. In 1972, for instance, the BM failure rate was nearly 40%. And to solve this problem, the July Paper was introduced so that students are given a second chance to retake the paper.