[EDLING:2132] Francis Hult wants you to read this story

[fmhult at DOLPHIN.UPENN.EDU]

Your friend Francis Hult, wants you to read this story.
Message: ""MALAY students have made the most significant strides in the
national examinations over the last 10 years, with more of them attaining
three or five O-level passes.

They also displayed marked improvements in the English Language, said a
statement from the Ministry of Education (MOE) yesterday.""

MAKING THE GRADE

Thursday December 7, 2006

More Malays qualifying  for higher education with marked O-level
improvement

- Sheralyn Tay

MALAY students have made the most significant strides in the national
examinations over the last 10 years, with more of them attaining three or
five O-level passes.

They also displayed marked improvements in the English Language, said a
statement from the Ministry of Education (MOE) yesterday.

Overall, 89.5 per cent of Malay students received three O-level passes
last year, compared to 85.6 per cent in 2004.

Some 62.8 per cent of them attained five O-level passes in 2005, up from
59.3 per cent in 2004 and 47.9 per cent in 1996, marking an upward trend
in the performance of Malay students over the last 10 years.

The overall proportion of students with at least five O-level passes is
80.7 per cent.

More Malay students are also making it to secondary and tertiary
institutions.

While they still fall short of the national average in most performance
indices, such as the number of O-level passes and in subjects such as
English, Maths and Science, their performance in Mother Tongue is the best
among all student groups, continually exceeding the national average.

For English, the pass rate among Malay students was 85 per cent in 2005 -
an increase of 8 percentage points from the previous year (see box).

Pass rates for Mother Tongue and Mathematics were at 99.5 per cent and
69.3 per cent respectively for the demographic.

A large proportion of students of all races are also making it to
post-secondary institutions, with 93.1 per cent in 2005, compared to 92.2
per cent the year before.

The MOE report on how the various ethnic groups performed, released
yesterday, was meant to provide feedback to the communities on how well
their children fared in the national examinations.



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