by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, in Penang on Thursday, 12th March 1992:
Call on Ministry of Education to establish an independ¬ent inquiry into the marking of the SPM Bahasa Malaysia paper.
DAP calls on the Ministry of Education to establish an independent inquiry into the marking of the SPM Bahasa Malaysia paper, as several secondary schools in Penang and Selangor have found that students who had been expected to do well had either just scraped through with P7 or P8, or even
failed with F9.
This has been a shattering experience for the students, parents and teachers, and is particularly bitter for the students as it would completely destroy their opportunities for pursuing higher studies in the local universities.
There is no reason for such a great disparity between the normal school grading of the students in SPM Bahasa Malaysia and the final SPM grading.
DAP demands the establishment of an independent inquiry to get to the bottom of this shocking state of affairs, so as to ensure that public confidence in the public examination system is not under-mined
I call on the Minister of Education, Datuk Dr. Sulaiman Daud, and in particular the MCA Deputy Education Minister, Dr. Pong Chan Onn, to ensure that an independent inquiry is constituted with-out delay to conduct a thorough investigation into this great abnor¬mality, apart from regarding of the papers as a result of the appeal of the affected candidates.
About 200 Chung Ling National-type Secondary School stu¬dents who sat for the SPM last year had appealed for a re-marking of their Bahasa Malaysia paper. In Kuala Lumpur, the Confucian National-type Secondary School had its pass rate in SPM Bahasa Malay¬sia paper plunging from 95.9
per cent in the previous year to 64.4 per cent.
DAP takes a very serious view of this matter, and will seek an appointment with the Education Minister, Datuk Dr. Sulalman Daud to press for the establishment of an independent inquiry into it.