PUTRAJAYA, Sept 9 — The Higher Education Ministry (MOHE) has emphasised that the admission process for students to public universities is based fully on the principles of meritocracy and rejected allegations of loopholes in the UPUOnline system.
Its director-general Datuk Prof Azlinda Azman said that out of 109,866 qualified applications, 78,883 students, or 71.8 per cent, were successfully offered seats in bachelor's degree programmes for the 2025/2026 session.
“Student admissions to institutions are made by arranging qualified candidates according to the highest merits to the lowest,” she said during a press conference regarding student admissions today.
Azlinda added that MOHE assured that all students who obtained a Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) of 4.00 for their Sijil Tinggi Pelajaran Malaysia examinations or their equivalent and applied to public universities were offered seats.
Out of the 1,255 STPM candidates with a CGPA of 4.00, 1,249 candidates were offered seats, while six are still in the confirmation process due to a technical issue related to the Malaysian University English Test results.
“Four out of six candidates have been contacted and action has been taken to process their offers, while we are still trying to reach the remaining two,” she said.
On complaints that there were graduates of diploma programmes and their equivalent with CGPA 3.99 being unable to secure seats, Azlinda said that there were several factors which resulted in failure, including selecting courses incompatible with their diploma courses, not fulfilling special programme conditions, and incomplete application documents.
“Candidates are advised to make full use of the appeal period from September 5 to September 14,” she said.
Concerning the case of the STPM candidate who complained to an MP about being unable to secure a seat, checks revealed the candidate only applied for the Accounting programme at four universities: Universiti Malaya (UM), Universiti Putra Malaysia, Universiti Utara Malaysia, and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia.
Azlinda noted that the candidate in question was offered his fifth choice — a Bachelor’s degree in Management with Honours at a renowned research university — after the selection process was generated by the system.
“Even though they obtained a CGPA of 4.00 with a merit of 99.90 per cent, their application ranking in the accounting programme was far behind other candidates who had a merit of 100 per cent.
“For instance, UM had 2,291 qualified applications, with 1,127 of them having full merit. The candidate was in the 1,129th position, while there were only 85 seats available,” she said.
The director-general also stressed that all decisions were generated by the system based on the scoring of merits set according to applied courses and programmes.
“The MOHE rejects allegations that there are loopholes in the existing system but remains open to views and improvements,” Azlinda said.
Unsuccessful candidates or those with concerns can attend a consultation session with UPU officials from September 8 to September 12 at the ministry building’s lobby in Putrajaya.
