The matriculation story
ENTRY into any educational institution is increasingly getting diverse to reflect the growing diversity of global education. There is always more than one way if diversity in education is to be celebrated, and it is not one size fits all. This is important to improve access and success, especially i...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Sun Media Corporation Sdn Bhd
2019
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| Online Access: | http://irep.iium.edu.my/72645/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/72645/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/72645/1/72645_The%20matriculation%20story.pdf |
| Summary: | ENTRY into any educational institution is increasingly getting diverse to reflect the growing diversity of global education. There is always more than one way if diversity in education is to be celebrated, and it is not one size fits all. This is important to improve access and success, especially in addressing heterogeneous situations peculiar to some environment. Since the very term “matriculation” is well accepted in other countries, it tells us that there is nothing wrong with the system per se.
In the case of Malaysia, the matriculation system was introduced to “balance” out access to the university as part of an “affirmative” action.
It was an alternative to the only system then, the A-levels, which was unable to cope given the number of public universities that were fast multiplying to improve access and equity. Hence, universities took the initiative to either adopt or adapt the matriculation system. Much like what is offered by some private universities for further studies to Australia as an example. Only that the matriculation was designed to suit the Malaysian context while keeping the philosophy intact.
Each university, therefore, autonomously set up its “own” matriculation system (as sanctioned by the university authority and eventually the ministry), especially for courses that were popular and thus more competitive. This allowed the university to “mentor” its own cohort of students (like private “tuition” classes) to upskill them.
Meanwhile, the existing streams of access are kept open as always. In this way, the university entrance could be further facilitated to achieve the “balance” for access and equity. Some included other “criteria” like that of socio-economic status, or geographical locations, to overcome the various skewed divides. |
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