Parliament today rejected the opposition's motion to debate the issue of more than 500 top Chinese students failing to gain admission into public universities despite more than 7,000 places unfilled by bumiputras.

House speaker Dr Mohamed Zahir Ismail said that the Education Minister has denied the allegations and will be making a statement to the House today under Standing Order 14(1)(i).

"Since the Education Ministry has said that the newspaper reports were wrong, your motion is no longer valid and cannot be considered a specific matter," said Mohamed Zahir in a written statement to DAP Member of Parliament (MP) for Kota Melaka, Kerk Kim Hock, who requested for the motion on May 4.

"Therefore, I reject your motion in chambers under Standing Orders 18(7) and you are not allowed to present or read this motion in the House," he added.

Mohamed Zahir said he had received a written statement from the Education Ministry clarifying recent newspaper reports regarding the matter.

Quoting the ministry's clarification, Mohamed Zahir said, "The media wrote about the difference between the 30,832 candidates selected from April 24 to 28 by the Selection Committee for Public Universities and the initial target of 38,000."

According to the Ministry, the 30,832 filled places did not take into account the 8,365 matriculation students - 5,761 from the Education Ministry Matriculation Programme and 2,604 from the Islamic International University Matriculation Programme, said Mohamed Zahir.

In an immediate reaction last Sunday, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad said Malaysia may abolish its race-based quota system for public university places to avoid a 'brain drain' of ethnic Chinese and Indians.

The system became a public controversy after hundreds of Chinese and Indians were denied entry to the universities even though 7,168 places are vacant because, according to the official explanation then, not enough qualified Malays had applied.

Public universities reserve a 55 percent quota for bumiputras (Malays and other indigenous races) with 35 percent for Chinese and 10 percent for Indians.

Tight competition

In Parliament today, Education Minister Musa Mohamad reiterated that the 500 students failed to gain admission into the Integration Graduate Programme which they had applied for due to tight competition and the popularity of the course.

He said the number of vacant places were only 4,433 and the course was only offered by Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Kolej Universiti Teknologi Tun Hussein Onn and Universiti Malaya.

He added there were 43,987 applicants for the programme, 25,714 being bumiputras and 18,273 non-bumiputras.

"Applicants not only have to be excellent in their academic fields, especially in science and mathematics, but also in their co-curriculum and for some courses, they would have to pass a special interview before being offered a place," said Musa.

"However, for the 500 students, the universities involved are willing to reconsider 160 places for students who have obtained 10As and more, including some 9As students, in their chosen fields and other courses that can be offered to them," he added.

Musa said universities cannot offer places to all 500 students due to inadequate infrastructure and lack of lecturers.

Public confidence

Meanwhile, DAP national chairperson Lim Kit Siang who visited Parliament today said that it was clear from the mainstream newspaper reports what Prof Hassan Said, director of the Education Ministry's Higher Education Department, had said last Wednesday.

Hassan was reported to have said that there had been a 15 percent drop in university intake from the targeted 38,000 vacant places because of a shortfall of qualified bumiputra science students.

"How was this shortfall suddenly made up by the so-called matriculation intake last year of 5,761 students and 2,604 matriculation students from the International Islamic University?" queried Lim.

"Are Malaysians really to believe that when Mahathir was responding to the issue of the 7,168 unfilled university places and their release to eligible Chinese and Indians students in the past two days, he did not know that this was a non-existent problem as the places had not only been filled but even exceeded?" he added.

Lim said in order to restore public confidence in the credibility of the university recruitment figures, there should be a full independent commission of inquiry into the whole question of university admissions, not only for this year but for the whole past three decades since the implementation of the New Economic Policy.

The inquiry should also report on how such policies have contributed to meet national development needs as well as national unity, he said.