The repeated denial of claims made by Deputy Education Minister P. Kamalanathan of a requested reduction of medical students intake into public universities have raised serious questions pertaining misleading facts about entry into local varsities for medicine.

It was reported today that Health Minister Dr S Subramaniam had clarified that the MMC (Malaysian Medical Council) did not direct the public universities to reduce the intake of medical students.

Teresa Kok in her statement today asked how Kamalanathan could have misled the public when explaining why many top scorers have failed to obtain their favoured university course – medicine.

“Was it an attempt to mislead the students and the public?”

“Who provided Kamalanathan the figures?” demanding that Kamalanathan make a public apology for making false claims.

She also asked Subramaniam to explain why only 919 students were excepted, well below the 1550 places as per MMC’s quota. This is because Subramaniam had said today that a total of 1550 medical places have been allocated to 11 public university medical schools but only 919 students have been accepted.

“Since the question of qualified applicants does not arise as many top scorers have complained of not being offered the medical programmes, could fund shortage or lack of staff be the issues?” Teresa referred to the numerous cases of top students with Cumulative Grade Point Average of 4.0 not being accepted into local universities for medical courses, which, when highlighted, prompted Kamalanathan to blame MMC for the intake reduction.

Subramaniam also explained that the figure [418 places for 2014/2015] mentioned by Kamalanathan was based on applications through UPU ((Bahagian Pengurusan Kemasukkan Pelajar). Citing Subramaniams explanation, Teresa questioned the logic of providing UPU figures to justify why many top scorers have been rejected for entrance into medical courses in public universities.

Quoting the same UPU statistics today was Minister in the Prime Minister Wee Ka Siong who had confirming the intake reduction since academic year 2011/2012.

Teresa Kok urged Education Minister Muhyiddin Yassin to show transparency and reveal the full facts and figures on the intake of as well as the reduction of intake of new medical students by public universities. -The Rocket