MY last article regarding the AUCMS loan fiasco attracted some nasty comments from some students. They accused me of insulting them and not understanding their situation. I tried my best to digest what they are trying to say but I simply do not understand what these students really have in their mind. Many don’t seem to understand what I am trying to say. Thus, I thought of putting my thoughts in this article.
3 years ago, I warned many students not to fall into a trap. It was a gentle advise to all those who contacted me and read my blog. Unfortunately, many refuse to listen and decided to go against my advice. When issues happened last year, what can I do? Thus, I said that students being students, they would choose whichever way to achieve their “dreams” without realising the implications in the future. What surprised me the most is the fact that many of them do not know much about the world out there. They don’t read much. One of them said that competition to enter medicine now is beyond Godly? I am still amazed and shocked with the statement. Do they even know what they are talking about? Let me give them the scenario that I went through in my early years of life!
In 1980s, there were only 3 medical schools in this country, namely UM (started 1964), UKM (started 1972) and USM (started 1979). When I achieved 8A1 and 1 A2 in SPM 1989, the only scholarship available was JPA. Unfortunately, we were told point blank straight to our face that JPA scholarship for medicine is only reserved for bumiputera students but we can choose something else. There is NO such thing as PTPTN loan or even bank loan those days. My father was a teacher and my mother housewife, and I am second in my family of three. Just as a reminder, each state will only have 2-3 students scoring 8A1s those days, unlike now where we have hundreds to thousands.
So, what you do then? Most of us had no choice but to proceed with Form 6 as it is the only way to enter public university aka medical schools. Please remember that there was NO such thing as Foundation studies, a short cut to do any degree programs nowadays. It’s either STPM or Matriculation. Matriculation was ONLY reserved for Bumiputera students. It was only after 2003, 10% of the slots were given to Non-Bumiputera students. So, we studied another 2 years and sat for STPM exams, which was considered one of the toughest exams in the world. Public universities practiced quota system based on population ratio. Sixty percent for Bumiputeras, 30% for Chinese and 10% for Indians. So, to get into a public university medical school, you either need to score 5 or 4As in your STPM. Some Indian students could manage to enter with 3As as they need to fill up the quota. The total medical student intake was 180 for UM, 150 for UKM and 110 for USM(Total 440 students). Since I was the only Indian student to score 5As(out of 71 students) on that particular year, I did not have any problem to enter UM medical faculty. That was how tough it was to enter a medical school those days, which obviously the students nowadays do not know anything about. The fact is, it is very much easier to enter medical school now than during my time (late 1980s to late 1990s). Once you are in the public university medical school, you will be given JPA scholarship and bonded for 10 years with the government.
Would I have done something else if I did not get the results needed to do medicine? Yes, I would have. My parents would not be able to send me anywhere else. There were hardly any private colleges except for some offering law degree and no such thing as PTPTN loan either. I would not have burdened my parents with loans. Some did go to India to do medicine, as it was the only place affordable at that time. You must also remember that the economic situation of this country was much better than. Inflation was lower and our currency was much stronger with RM2.50 for 1 US dollar and RM 1.20 for 1 Singapore dollar!! The cost of living was way lower.
As I had said many times before, passion is one thing but living a life is another. Some feel that they should achieve their dream and passion at whatever cost but, from economic point of view, it is being insane. I had said that if you think you have true passion in medicine and feel that you can put up with all the work life challenges that had been listed in this blog, you could go ahead. BUT I also said that you should NEVER take huge loans to do medicine, as it does not make any economic sense! Life starts after you graduate. When you are student, you are still supported by your parents and thus you do not understand the need to work to earn a living and the burden of debt. Medicine is a noble profession but the world is not the same anymore.
When I graduated, I had NO debt! I worked “like a dog” during housemanship with a salary of RM 1695/month (yes, I can still remember this pathetic figure). “On Call” Allowance was RM20/call. You can’t even afford to buy a car. I bought my first car (Proton Wira) during my first year MOship by using all my savings acquired during my housemanship, subsidized by RM 34K government car loan. Woolah, now you realise that RM 500/month goes to pay your car loan for the next 6 years! I drove this car for 9 years. Thankfully, we did not have mobile phones those days and Internet were dial-up service, which does not cost much. Computers were not a necessity yet. Your annual increment was RM72. Then you get married and began to have kids while you are planning for your postgraduate education. You live in a rented house, which would take another RM 600/month with no proper furniture! By the time I finished my MRCP Part 3 (all paid in British pounds : Rm 5.50 to 1 pound), I had a credit card debt of RM 12K which took me almost 4 years to settle. My salary was RM 2200/month after 5 years of service. I told myself that I would not continue with my MRCP if I fail my attempt as I could not afford it anymore with 2 kids need to be fed.
It is during these times, you will realize that passion is one thing but living a life is another. After some time, it is just a job to earn a living. What matters most is how you are going to feed your children and live a life. Only after I pass my MRCP, I decided to buy a house, which I am staying till today. The house will take another RM 1100 of your salary/month for another 30 years. I am still paying till today.
What I am trying to say is, trying to achieve your passion/dreams by taking huge loans will hunt you in the future. Imagine, the day you graduate, you have a loan of RM 300-500K to settle. This does not include the upcoming car loan, house loan etc. Many parents feel that their children are going to earn tons of money immediately after they graduate. Thus, they feel that the loans are worth taking. As I told one of the students who commented that they are from poor family who could not afford to do medicine without the AUCMS loan: Are you going to be any better after you graduate? You are going to be poorer than your parents!
Would you do medicine if I tell you that you will not be paid? Would you do medicine if your starting salary is going to be the lowest among all profession? With all the passion that you have, would you still do it? I still see many grouses about housemanship, mostly about their working life and bullying. I also see many who request the salary to be raised! Where is your passion? Basically, once you start working, you are paid for your work, not for your passion. Would you work 24hrs a day if not going to be paid overtime allowance? (BTW, for those who don’t know, On-Call allowance only started in 1994. Prior to that, you do work for free). As for salary of doctors, in government service and private sector, please read my earlier articles.
I also get comments like “ I want to help people” as the reason for doing medicine. How are you going to help people when you can’t even help yourself? I just replied to a girl who wanted to be a doctor, as she wants to give free treatment to people. She feels that many people are dying because they can’t afford medical treatment and the government sector is too long of a queue for patients to get proper timely treatment. No matter what consultant you are, if I throw you to a place where you do not have any medicines or equipments, you are as good as anyone else standing there! There is no way you will be able to treat anyone without medications/equipment. To do this, you need money! That’s why only less than 20% of hospital bill belongs to a consultant. The rests are for the hospitals to cover the cost of medicines, equipment, consumables etc. Unless you are from a rich family, you cannot run a free service. There are many ways you can help people. Most philanthropists are not doctors. Imagine how many people can you help with the RM 300-500K you are spending to do medicine? How many houses can you build for homeless people? I know many who became rich without even having a degree and helping other people via foundations etc. Do you see any doctors running free clinics? Whether you like it or not, everything needs money nowadays. It is a capitalist world!
I hope I am getting the points across. Passion is one thing but living a life is another. That’s why I had always said that education should NEVER be commercialized. The best and qualified students should be given scholarships or absorbed into public funded universities. Unfortunately, commercialization of education in this country is making each and every student poorer. We are creating a future generation of people in debt.
The government is also heading towards bankruptcy, I guess. Imagine not getting a job to even start paying your debt! Ministry of Health had slashed its budget and streamlining allowances this year as reported over HERE. I heard IJN referrals will not be entertained anymore. All cases can only be referred to MOH hospital’s cardiology centres. Today, I received a report from a whistleblower site that NO NEW government post will be created with immediate effect from 22/04/2015. The letter sounds genuine. Again, what I have been saying all these while is becoming a reality. As a country with the highest number of civil servants per-capita population, it is not sustainable. Eventually, it will collapse as what happened to Greece. As a medical graduate, whatever you had spent will become meaningless if you can’t do your housemanship as you will never be able to practice medicine without it.
The world is changing. I would not have done medicine if I could not get into a public university. I would not have become a specialist if I had failed my MRCP Part 3. I worked hard and finally succeeded. BUT I did not have a huge loan to start with. I did not have to spend on so many necessities as nowadays. I had a wife who supported me by living a simple life: no jewelries’, a rented house with no furniture other than a bed, dining table, TV and fridge, no maid and no parents support. The only debt I had been a car loan and credit card debt which did not even exceed RM40K until I passed my MRCP and decided to buy a house.
I can’t imagine how a student who is graduating with a debt of RM 300-500K ever going to live a life. Passion is one thing, living a life is another! I leave the readers to ponder upon!
No more vacancies — Putrajaya confirms hiring freeze
Tuesday May 5, 2015
KUALA LUMPUR, May 5 — The Public Service Commission (PSC) has confirmed that the government is no longer recruiting for any positions effective April.
PSC chairman Tan Sri Mahmood Adam told Sin Chew Daily that the government was not taking in any more people into its service, but declined to explain the rationale for the decision.
Mahmood told the Chinese-language newspaper that 15 agencies, including the police, army and Education ministry, have already received notice of the freeze.
He insisted, however, that agencies that needed emergency replacements could still apply to do so via the Public Service Department.
According to Mahmood, the moratorium does not affect recruitment for vacancies that were advertised prior to the April 22 directive.
His remarks confirm a report by whistleblower website Sarawak Report across the weekend that said Putrajaya was no longer hiring, based on a leaked copy of the memorandum from the PSC.
Malaysia’s civil service force currently costs some RM60 billion in wages annually, accounting for a third of total government spending.
Malaysia also has one of the highest public workers to population ratios in the world.
Putrajaya was forced to reduce its operating budget for 2015 owing to a sharp drop in oil price since last year.
– See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/no-more-vacancies-putrajaya-confirms-hiring-freeze#sthash.alzCumz1.dpuf
Pagalavan's Avatar 
Still you are going to get comments from those in denial state, Dr Paga…
Good read Doctor.
Very well said Dr Paga!
Totally agree with you, Dr. even now pharmacists and dentists are also in a crisis state, with that letter, we might end up graduate without any government job offer to us, and we still have some education loan on hand to clear off.
Reality check for lots of aspiring doctors and their parents.
yeah…sometimes life is just too hard for us to fight for our dream
to be honest….I am going to interview to be a doctor…if i failed to get medic place i will do others…because the huge debt is not worth of taking risk…as i need to take care of my mom 🙂
Bro better start thinking alternative. SPA just frozen all pelantikan baru pegawai perubatan ud41 until diberitahu satu tarikh yang kelak. Serious story.
you mean i shouldnt go to interview at all ? haha
this is out of topic but happy no new jobs being created…too many civil servants in the country…we have one of the highest amount of civil servants compared to first world country…most of the countries uses IT services to replace the manpower to cut cost for the government and the health ministry is outside the civil servant scheme which we should follow as well…..not to mention last report said we have 400,000 civil servants at minimum pay…i am just wondering why we need 400k civil servants of the lowest rank not to mention the minimum grade to enter civil service is PMR….if you have low quality civil servants you will have low quality services….. ?its about time the money used to pay civil servants are used to upgrade our IT services…ev
it is a political issue. Civil service jobs are created to support and provide jobs for certain ethnic group. Eventually it will burst the country’s budget.
That’s the problem when the ministry of education decided to please everyone by dishing out all the As to students, by lowering standard, by reducing syllabus, hell, by not teaching how to do experiment in science subjects!!! Everyone copy the result from someone, and that someone might be the top student who ‘performed’ the one and only experiment in class with the teacher’s help! Year by year, the standard is lowered so that more students could score Asssssss.
Back in pre 1995 STPM, that is the old HSC standard which is even higher than A level of its’ time, and this is not something people want to acknowledge. I have a friend who studied some foundation course at Sunway, whom the lecturer tell them by then STPM is the world second hardest pre-u exam, the hardest being some Japan exam. Kudos to that lecturer.
Btw, I’m not in medical line, but do have friends doing it, and just happened to know how tough it was to get 5As in STPM of the yesteryears. Like I said in replies earlier, students nowadays have all the feel good factor being ‘straight A’ students while in actual fact they are no more than those who get 10+ units from 6 subjects in our time.
@Dr. Paga, I always have this thought, that is do you take someone who score 5Cs in STPM during your time than some of those ‘Trust me, we are very good students, competition is beyond godly’ AUCMS kid?
Frankly, i have seen students with straight As but do not even know how to write a letter! Secondly, they do not even know anything that happens around them despite having everything at their fingertips via the internet! That’s why i feel the exam standards are crap.
Got to agree with you. Just ask those kids what do they know about the situation in Greece and what would happen if you have a bloated civil service and welfare system in coutry, My guess is 95% of them don’t know anything about it. However, if you ask them if you can use WhatsApp to make phone call in the latest version yada yada, all of them will tell you that’s old news…
Getting straight A’s doesn’t reflect one’s intelligence…
Yes, of course, especially with the current education system. However, you still need certain level of intelligence to become a doctor. That’s why it is important to conduct an entry exam and proper interview before taking a student.
good read sir. salary has increased many a fold. but so have living costs.
Salary has doubled since the last 10 years but inflation has also gone up as well as our currency depreciation.
Nicely written Doctor.
“Would I have done something else if I did not get the results needed to do medicine? Yes, I would have. My parents would not be able to send me anywhere else.” My favourite quote.
Well said and could not agree more. The 2nd last paragraph is the best and a spouse’s support makes a huge impact in life. I hope every person reading this would understand the dilemma and realises that medicine is no longer a melting pot of gold.
Just sharing here.
I scored 9As in SPM and I couldn’t get JPA scholarship (it was around 16 yrs ago). I proceeded with STPM and scored 5As. Why would I studied 5 subjects instead of 4? I had back-up plans. Should I failed to study medicine, I’ll do engineering and etc. After my STPM, I was offered to be a pilot in SIA as well as a place in medical school. Of course, I took medicine instead of piloting. I had to take loans to study even though I was in local university. After that was a life with no cars, no houses and no luxury items until my first year of MO when I got my first car.
can you imagine the life that I could have if I were a pilot. I could get 10x more salary with nice cars and houses. But being a doctor is just for the passion of doing medicine. Not much of monetary rewards given to us despite our efforts and sleepless nights. What more if you are living with a huge debt and with a salary that can hardly make ends meet.
to those who are dreaming of becoming a doctor, always widen your horizon first and understand the nature of work. Being a pilot, lawyer, engineer, accountant and etc are equally reputable and you can expect a slightly better life. All jobs are created to help people. This is not a very good reason for you to persist and become a doctor.
Just my two cents. appreciate your reading and to those who disagree, I’m sorry and you can always choose to ignore.
The grass always looks greener on the other side….Please go and do a proper check on salaries of other professionals…..i mean with equivalent no of years working…and see if you got your facts right.
I think it is you who do not know the facts. Most other professionals start their working life 1-2 years before medical graduates. If you compare the salaries based on number of years of service, it does not make much difference. Furthermore, most other professions have enough time to even do part time jobs. Most of my engineer friends were earning more than me when I was still struggling with my subspeciality training. By the time I entered private practise, they were having their own company, working with multinational companies overseas etc. Some even migrated!And don’t forget the cost involved and the debt accumulated.My wife has been in government service for 18 years and her income is just RM 8-9K and already in maximum grade. Pharmacist employed by my hospital last year with 4 years experience is earning the same amount!
ashraf of course if you try to compare with mediocre ppl from each profession with equivalent numbers of years working, maybe the fact is not exactly right. but i am sure tsts used the samples from his own league i.e. above average performance i would say?
Sent from my ASUS
another sharing. i scored 9A1 in spm ~15 years ago, applied and was offered to study IB which lead to medical program in the UK, but i was forced to take up engineering scholarship by my elder engineer brother. any engineering as long as it was an engineering! i was upset and during the tough undergraduate days in chemical engineering i always thought that my life would be different if i were to do medicine, things that i wanted to do. yes chemical enginering was one of the toughest degree in the states. but i got to do what i got to do, which was to complete the studies.
after few years of working, i realized my brother was right. i wouldnt be able to live my current life if i were a medical person. wouldnt be able to travel to different countries for training, working and to see the world at early stage of my career, and enjoying my expatriate life (and salary) as early as 27 years old!
also for comparison, my wife started her expatriate life as a medical resident at the age of 29 but only earns half of what engineers get, maybe it is fair since the other half is all about passion of doing medicine:)
Competition beyond human or inhuman competition- that i can empathise with.
But beyond godly? Are you sure you did not mean ‘God mode’ in computer games.. where newbies never fail and never die however hopeless they are?
“Public universities practiced quota system based on population ratio. Sixty percent for Bumiputeras, 30% for Chinese and 10% for Indians.”
BOLD CAPITALISE AND UNDERLINE!
It took me a great ordeal to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. I had to study hard for STPM obtained 5As, give it all in medical school CGPA 3.80, specialist degree, and subspecialty. All this without any help from the government nor any scholarship bodies. I paid through medical school painfully with my parents hard earned cash. While their tax money goes into some other kid’s pocket. Later I had to take up a personal loan from the bank to further my studies overseas.
Its not until recently that all my loans have been settled and I am almost 70years old.
Life as a doctor is indeed a passion, great difficulties ahead especially if your skin is not the right colour.
ipta medical degree fees indeed subsidized by the goverment
you must be beating yourself up whenever you visit the airport. Life could have been good. If only…
And when I graduate later, I need to wait for 1 year to get a job… What should I do within that 1 year so that I won’t forget all the things I’ve been studying for 5 years? Should I just work so that by the time I start working, I’ll have some money in my account to pay any leftover debt? =.=”
Of course you can work part time , even in a restaurant. BUT unfortunately, if you do not practise medicine for even 6 months, you will forget a lot!
if you need money, work somewhere there is salary.. if your passion is medicine and dont care about money, use the gap to study and prepare for mrc-xx uk based exam, or usmle or do attachment / elective / volunteer work in hospitals
Dear Anonymous,please do not be hard on yourself.it is not the end of the world.no one,I repeat,no one knows what will happen right after you graduate.the worst could happen is the end of the world and when that happens,no one would ever bother be talking about anything.So cheer up and by any stroke of luck,u might just land yourself a job within weeks!!!!.God bless!
Work, work and work and save money for future while waiting for SPA to call you for service..if you really have passion for medicine
If charity is want you want, try googling Didier Drogba. Helped stopped a civil war in his country, start a foundation for health and education in Ivory Coast and to build 5 hospitals as well. Being a doctor can hardly be as great as that with his earning figures. Every aspiring doctor talks about passion and dreams, but most lost sight of the sense of responsibility and professionalism. Nowadays when asked to learn or do something, some HO gave many excuses such as no interest in that particular field or “Because I’m an overseas grad, I don’t know about TB” (He graduated from Indonesia, mind you) or referring self to Psychiatric dept while happily enjoying life out of hospital.
There’s even once where an orthopedic HO refer a case to medical MO. “Dr, pt collapse, please come. Please, please, please!” Yes, that’s all. When asked about the case, the HO knew nothing. Of course, you can blame the orthopedic MO who must have pushed off the case to peripheral Medical MO, but when the Medical MO arrived at the scene 15 minutes later, the patient was there attended only by nurses, as the HO had went back home because the shift is over. Sometimes this is not about passion, but the responsibility and the ability to uphold professionalism.
Of course, not all HO’s are that bad, but there are these bad apples that gave a bad reputation to our profession. Not taking into account of the mass media portraying medical professionals in a bad light such that some erceived they can waltz in and demand everything under the sun otherwise they will complain about it to the press. Time to tighten the intake and put in a proper filtering mechanism for the HO and MO.
Hi Paga ,
Well said and no one can argue these true facts and figures.
I can relate to what the author has said. Just to share my experience.
STPM were very tough years. I did not have much choice of tertiary education. I had no money for private education. It was either the public universities or vocational/technical schools. If I wanted a tertiary education, I jolly well need to make the grade which means competing among the cream of the country, among your ethnic group ( read among your quota). Public universities were very cheap and that was all I could afford. Btw I could probably pay for KOLEJ TAR for a 3 year diploma or something. ( And no, TAR college did not offer medicine or any professional course at that time )
Everyone studied out of desperation during STPM. Some of my more well to do classmates left school after SPM, some went to private colleges to do A levels. Some left after STPM to study in S’pore when they failed to get into local unis or if their STPM result was perceived to be not good enough to get them into a local uni. Competition was really intense. If I did not get the course of my choice in a public uni, I would have done any other course the university offered. I was the only student from my school to do medicine that year.
I am lucky I graduated without a debt. On call claims for housemen were RM20 per call as mentioned by the author. Some colleagues didn’t even bother claiming due to the hassle of filling up numerous claim forms ( there weren’t computers to help ). We ate on call food. We went home only to sleep and bath/wash clothes. We stayed at shared houseman quarters. The joke among housemen was why do you need to rent a house when you only go back to sleep?
Those days some MOs resign almost immediately to be GPs after their compulsory service. Nobody blames them. How do you feed yourself with a family with that sort of income? There was no automatic promotion. You basically stayed in U3 until some miracle happens.
I saved the money I earn during housemanship/MO to take the MRCP. If I had failed the MRCP, I would have probably resigned and worked as a GP for somebody else. I had no money to repeatedly take the MRCP exams. It costs me about RM10K (incl flight, board and lodging etc) for the clinical PACES in another country. I was sick and coughing out rusty stained sputum a day before the exams and had to stay in a HOSTEL coz it was the cheapest accommodation I could find. The hostel was next to some motorcycle repair garage and along a busy noisy bus route. Our exchange rate did not help.
The first car I had was a used junk with a pull choke which I disposed of after a few years for a mere RM1500. It had stalled in the road before. The first new car I bought was a Perodua and I kept the car until not too long ago.
Even if I have been offered an interest free loan of 500K to do medicine way back then, I would not have taken it. I would have done another course. I believed I would have excelled in any other course. I would be crazy to take a 500K loan for a degree no matter how anyone justifies it. “Passion” did not come into the equation. I am darn grateful until today I had zero debt when I graduated. I cannot understand today how some students can be comfortable with hundreds of thousands in loan when they cannot be even assured of a job!
Dr Paga, i have a question.
How would we know our passion in medicine, if we never took this course?
Exactly! That’s why I keep writing in this blog about the reality out there! Many do not even know what they are talking about.
You never know you will have passion or not until you step into the field. However, do not step into the field with huge debts like what Dr Paga mentioned before.
zul…you can try to shadow some specialist/medical MO in public hospital. Follow them for a few days (and around the clock!) to get the real experience/feeling of being a doctor. You may find some clue to what is passion or imagination.
must be a HO or MO in a PUBLIC hospital
Are u sure ur salary was just rm1648 when u just started working? I am sure u earned more. Is that just the basic salary? Not taking into account critical allowance etc?
YES, absolutely sure!! It is the total salary after EPF deduction. No housing allowance of RM110 as you are staying in quarters and the critical allowance is only 5% of your basic pay then. Elaun kidmat awam was RM170.
Nothing else other than the RM20/oncall allowance. You can ask anyone who had worked in 1990s till early 2000.
Thank you for taking up ur time to answer my question, dr p. After reading through ur past few articles and their comments, I must say I do feel quite annoyed by the comments made by certain students from a certain university (i.e AUCMS) . To feel like u have a right to take up medicine because u get certain results even though u were not good enough to enter IPTA? And not accepting u might have made a mistake by entering that said “shady” university? This attitude is shocking to say the least! I can’t imagine what type of houseman they would become when they join our profession! (And that’s a ‘when’ not an ‘if’..sad right?..sigh)
Over the last 5 years of starting this blog, i have had many comments such as that. I had proven them wrong so many times. The younger generations don’t read much and assume that everything should be the way they want it.
FZ
Forget about the students, there are some parents comments here in this blog which are even worse and immature than the said students.
When I started, my take home is RM 1713.
when i was a houseman many many years ago, i was pain $20 for every oncall ( from 5pm till 8 am the next day)- that was $1.33 per hour!!!
there was a fast food restaurant just beside my hospital.
the workers there were pain $2.00 per hour & a free meal whenever they did overtime.
in order to save some money, i had to eat the food in the ward’s pantry.
those were food left over by the patients for whatever reason ( early discharge, fasting awaiting operation, critically ill, dead).
so that put me (a government doctor) as the lowest of the lowest of all life form.
Hi Jimmy, because of what you went through, you are a much better person today.
You are lucky you even get some allowance. During my time, it was free labour.
There is really one hospital with fast food restaurant beside.
Hw come ur on call is from 5pm to 8am nxt day? Nowadays on call houseman is from 6am till 12.30 noon nxt day..lol
Haha, what we mean by oncall is continuation till next day 5pm! 8am to 5pm on each day is considered normal Woking hours. So we are working from 8am today till 5pm tomorrow
But i thought they stopped after 8am nxt day last time lol? Only work again as usual following day
Nope! We start work at 8am till 5pm then continue with our call from 5pm till 8am, have a quick shower and come back to work till 6pm so we work about 32 hours straight !
Your oncall depends on your HOD and the availability of MO’s. Those days 5pm-8am oncall before continuing 8am-5pm again at the very least. Nowadays certain dept allows off at 8am, some after morning passover, some after morning rounds, some at 12pm, some allow clinic duty until clinic at 2pm onwards. The situation varies.
yup… same here. Starting pay RM1713, on-call RM20/day. After a month of suffering, I actually felt so rich because I made 20×15= 300 bucks for EOD calls!!!! Mind you, this is totally without sarcasm!
And I was “fortunate” because all the the other local universities’ professional exam was after mine because my uni produced the earliest graduates… it was EOD call for 2 months until the 2nd local uni grads came on board but in retrospect- that was the time that I actually learnt to be independent and stand on my own two feet.
When I was living it was sheer hell because I am the first the admit that I was super pampered while growing up, but retrospect the experience was essential in shaping the physician than I am today and I wouldn’t have traded it in for the world.
I got in to public medical faculty with only 2A3B in STPM. In fact most of my batch (non Malay who got the offer were with 2A3B or 3A2B. Only one got 4A. Later when we asked the lecturer why we got selected and not those with 4A or 5A, he said that’s because those student put my U as second choice. Those who put my U as second choice all disqualified automatically.
There is a science in selecting med schools via UPU. The most popular ones are UM, UKM, USM, generally in that order, and the 5A and 4A students will all put one of them as first choices. Some “lower ranked” Med schools however got tired of receiving only the “rejects”, and set an unofficial policy of ONLY looking at those who put them as first choice. So if one wants to ensure a place, and has less than perfect results and coco marks, select one other than the top 3 above and put it as first choice.
Yes, that is true. Most students nowadays select universities instead of course. The same cycle repeats itself as these “top students” never learn from past mistakes of others. Perhaps they were too busy studying while being fed by their parents.They will put UM as first choice and all the courses in UM from 1st till last, be it Medicine, Pharmacy, Dentistry, Veterinarian, Law, Accounting etc. So when his/her application gets rejected for the top choices, his application will be lost in space and a random course will be assigned irregardless. The students sometimes feels too snob that the varsities will headhunt them, but bear in mind that there is no extra benefits for those people sitting in the UPU, just extra work. It shows how the “top students” are not smart indeed(not taking the initiative to understand the process), or perhaps confined to the books only, and they had no interest in pursuing any course in the first place.
These are the same ones appealing in papers that they could not get into UM for medicine every year, while gaining sympathy from mentioning they had been crying for days, or it has been their childhood dream or they want to help people. Sometimes they just take things for granted as well.
And passion is just another word uttered in the any interview. Try asking those medical students truthfully, there’s less than 5% who’s really passionate about it before they enter the course. (I was one of the 95% and not afraid to admit it, lol!) It’s not about how smart you are but how diligent you are to pursue your ambition. Those who had dreams but no effort to back them up? They’re just dreamers.
I should add that over the last 10 years or so, the ‘science’ has changed. Preferences are given to Matriculation students, they will normally get more marks as more get the perfect 4.0 and they get higher coco marks. In the recent 2 years, it has changed again, with the number of places cut, and preferences now given to in-house Asasi students. In most Med schools, you can count the number of STPM students with you one hand.
This is part of the reason why many students abandon the STPM after SPM, as it is becoming a “mission impossible”.
This is what I’ve been saying, they prefer the lower standard of matriculation and asasi. Of course everyone know it’s political in nature. Pick anyone who get 4As in STPM and pit it against a CGPA 4.0 matriculation and test them their knowledge, you’ll know. How can studying half the syllabus is better than studying the complete syllabus????
Well known fact and welcome to Malaysia!
Since 1971 and the launch of the original NEP, entry into tertiary education has always been “engineered” to ensure adequate numbers of Bumis gain entry. This was done via various means, the quota system in the past as Paga mentioned, then the Bumi only Matrikulasi pathway created for “affirmative action compliant merit based selection”, and now back to sort of quota via a Bumi only Asasi pathway.
Quality and excellence is not the priority. Politically motivated social engineering and restructuring was, and still is, although the NEP has long ago lapsed.
I should add that there is nothing intrinsically wrong with affirmative programmes, and the original aims of the NEP was noble. It was supposed to be a close ended 20 year programme. Along the way, politician hijacked it and changed it into something else.
Actually you only compete in your own quota. For non Malay, for recent year all the candidates were almost 100% from matriculation. If you are aiming public medical schools don’t go through STPM but aim for best SPM result and get into matriculation. You may say it is unfair but you still have to play with the established rule.
There is no official quota, but I agree, if you look at the composition, there is some kind of invisible quota going on in the background. Because Matrik students generally get more Coco marks than STPM, preferences are given to Matrik 4.0 students as they end up with more points. That is why so few STPM 4A students get in.
NEP ‘had’ a noble objective. How could anyone say helping the poor and raising their living standard is wrong? Unfortunately, this has been extended -> infinity, up until the rich and famous of a certain race also enjoying all the benefits. Just ask those who buy huge bungalow houses with their handsome ‘xxxi’ rebate.
Back to academic, if anyone in the position to make decision still have the well being of this country in their heart, at the very least they should have a certain percentage of places reserved for those really bright students. How about setup a new university which the intake is solely based on academic qualification, and that in turn will be the cradle for all our best scientists and engineers and philosophers? How about, like Dr. Paga said, have a common entry qualification for the (sad to say) Malaysian ‘utopian’ university by going through an entry exam? Or at the very least, without having much changes, how about reserve at least 30% at some universities to take in all the elites? But they will say, ya, we take in ALL THE ELITES since they all score cgpa 4.0. Pathetic. They are the master of statistics in adjusting the normal distribution!!!
When we keep on lowering the standard by adopting the matriculation as a benchmark, we can’t really tell the gem from the ordinary. This is a very low standard to ‘let you strike with plenty Assss’. Anyone who went through STPM or HSC of the old day would know how you’re literally squeezed dry, and most of the time the teachers will tell you if you can cut it in the first 2 months, then you can survive. Kids of current generation think that form 6 is just and extension of form 5, which we can’t blame them since 5+1=6 😦 😦
I agree with poor doctor’s comment. In my University (not the first tier public medical school) , 1no STPM junior was seen since 3 years ago. I strongly believe this trend will continue. current STPM syllabus has gone tougher, according to my retired STPM teachers. Of course the rules are unfair but no choice, get excel in SPM so that can grab a seat in matriculations. You may think STPM is your platform to perform , but it’s quite risky. If anyone trying to become a doctor (not for wrong reason I suppose) , the road begins when you are form 4/5 .
Dr pagalavan , what will happen to the medical graduates that are graduating from Russia and Indonesia who went there to study paying on their own or by personal loans if the government stop hiring them . Would they start hiring again anywhere near soon and if they do will there be a possibility that priorities will be only given to graduates under government scholarships and the doctors from local public universities ? And what other options do these fresh graduates have ? Thanks in advance for your advice .
No one will know for sure. Many factors involved. The government may still provide housemanship with a long waiting period but you may not get a job after that.
Doctor,what do you think of foundation in ipta(Asasi) as a pathway to medicine?do u think that is wise cause i personally detest the idea.what is the general perception of ukm’s asasi,do they use malay language in their degree later on too?
It is for bumiputeras. Personally I feel all must be judged equally via a common exam
Asasi is now the preferred pathway, as about half of the medical schools intake come through that pathway. I believe UKM is the only Asasi programme that will take in some non-bumis.
To me, it is back door entry, but that is the reality of Msian education.
Dr Pagalavan, I am a STPM school leaver with an imperfect result (3 As, 1 A-). i was not called to attend the interview for medicine in USM. My question is can i accept whatever courses offered by upu and reapply again next year? Thanks.
I doubt that will make any difference. There are more than 2000 4.0 through the Matrik pathway, in addition to another 400 from STPM, fighting for about 800+ places.
Yes you can but the chances will be the same
Actually with such result you should not put UM, UKM and USM as any of your choices. You should put UNIMAS, UNISabah as your first choice then you may have a slim chance.
Nowadays even UMS and UNIMAS are taking in 4.0 with the glut of 4.0CGPA from matriculation. Anything less than 4.0 but more than 3.8 qualifies you into allied health courses. Such are the circumstances nowadays.
You kidding right? U cant get to unimas without 4.00…
You can accept whatever course first then appeal to switch faculty. It’s possible but very very slim chance. It’s hoping that someone else offered a place will pull out. Another option is to resit your STPM and try to obtain a better result and apply again next year. Or apply to a “less competitive” university as mentioned.
How long does a Master in basic sciences (anatomy, physiology) take to finish ? 2 years or 4 years?
it depends .. many MSc courses can be done in one year in the UK..
in malaysia it will take 1.5 to 2 years..
How about the competition to get a place in master for basic sciences?
Got no idea but post are limited.
Usually 2 years minimum
Thank you for your post. I was a graduate in one of those “second tier” public medical schools back in 2000s. As a non- bumi from a working class family with a less- than- perfect STPM result, the only way of doing medicine is to choose a less popular public medical school in East Malaysia.
I am not sure what I have learned from the medical school. I overrated the “halo effect” of “doctor” until I reached the age reason, as George Calin would have said. It took me 15 years to realise it. I wish your blog exsited at the time.
Anyway, since I chose this profession and being paid for it I have the responsibility to carry out the duty. My point is “you have free will, you are mature to make a decision thus you are responsible for the consequences of your choice”. Please do not make yourself a victim of circumstance and use it as an excuse for being irresponsible to the patients: not enough HOs, bad MOs/ specialists, “long” working hours, being forced by parents to study medicine…
Yes doctor .you are right.i regret fr doing medicine as i am from a financially unsound family..now we aucms dont even have maybank loan to cover the rest of the fee..plus we have to pay the maybank loan of 100k n ptpn 45k..huge burden on my dad who is just a lorry driver…. i am going quit and goin to start working ….
Dr Paga, thank you for writing this blog. I have shared it with my peers, and I keep reminding my friends not to take up these loans. your entry has helped me understand this a lot more. I have a few friends in AUCMS and CUCMS, despite their results they are still determined to be doctors, ipta is not an option for them because medicine & dentistry are extremely competitive courses. Thank you for sharing your personal experiences and the current issues on this matter, I am sure you have helped many young students like me to understand this and take caution in our pursuit for higher education. My friends are doubting medicine now that I have told them the reality and most of them will not be taking up loans such as ptptn.
Hi Dr Paga. Thanks for writing these . I totally agree with your opinion regarding the study vs loan. I was very lucky because I was able to enter the public U medical course with scholarship, so basically virtually I’m debt less , so far. My seniors’ friend also received the notice of no new government post will be offered , from the briefing in the hospital. I have some queries regarding the information from your blog.
1. since there will be no new government post offered , from your opinion , what is likely to happen in MoH ? What is likely to happen on the future-HO , new-MO ? Are those JPA scholarship holders still bonded or government will release them from the bond by not offering the job ?
2. My seniors waited for more than 6 months before getting the housemanship and I also aware that the waiting period is going to be even longer. What we are encouraged to do / prepare during this long waiting period before entering the housemanship ?
Thank you.
1) HO post are rolling post. There are about 10K HO post over 2 years, roughly 5K per-year. All HOs will have to vacate the post after completing it. Thus HO post will always be available but the waiting period will be longer and longer.I am more worried as to what is going to happen after HOship. Many may not get a post as MO. I feel the government may force MMC to remove the compulsory service. JPA scholars may be given preference in getting MO job since you are bonded.
2) You can do some social service. Or do some tagging with GPs or in private hospitals etc
which yr u in and which uni
i wanna ask d same thing too lol
SIr,
Thanks for your insightful post.
Can I ask for prospects about Biomedical engineering/ or studies around that field? As a developing country , seems that these fields are yet to reach their full potential.
So Dr.Paga are you familiar with these studies and their work-life?
It might be rude but can I ask for someone working in these fields to refer to?
Best regards.
In Malaysia, we can see a lot of those special people who scored NO A at all in SPM, but they still able to get the offer letters from matriculation and finally become doctors! yeah special right, everything is free for you people since u born till u death, the so called prince of earth.
You have to live with it. The world is never fair.
Hopefully one day those princes of earth will realize the injustice in Malaysia, maybe after 100 years, 1000 years……that’s what the whole TRUE Malaysians are hoping for.
By then, there will not be any more “other races” in Malaysia. They have to fight among themselves.
lol, u should have seen those so called bumiputera medical students when they r outside of malaysia.
i can tell u , a few of them failed quite a lot of times, and they were held back not for half yr, but some of them were held back for 3 yrs.
i think d malaysian education should be totally revamped to follow suit d canadian and us system to make grade retention a thing a malaysia.
ps im a final yr medical student in india, sponsored by jpa, and those who i described r sponsored as well, be it mara or jpa. but i do admit there r still quite a few bright and hardworking malays
my college has no such marks for attendance, coursework, thesis, assignments or watsoever. the above marks would only be added to your exams marks if only u have at least fetch urself d min marks to pass in your theory and clinical exams.
u rarely see a medical student in malaysia repeat paper or sem
U rarely see any medical students in Malaysia failling!Even if they fail, they will pass in 6 months.
Some are even brought back and enrolled in local universities.
Because the good ones don’t go to India, they go to uk, Aussie or nz
And they don’t come back! Haha
haha yes doc some of them dont come back, some come back after completing CCT, some stay, some continue to a different foreign land..
but it is not only the malays do that, any sponsored student malay or non-malays do the same too, disregard the colors
i personally know some non bumi friends from the same american top uni preparatory program batch, sponsored by jpa, graduated from ivy leagues and didnt come back, some continue working in the states, and some already moved to different countries
it’s a common issue among all the races, ppl always work hard to find what’s best for them, back home the we were treated and paid much less than expats who may have the same qualification / experience (some even less!!) but get treated like a king, and for malaysians? we get peanut
there are about 5000 malaysians here from all ethnics, my wife have seen some malaysian chinese pts in the hospital and we are just happy malaysians sharing stories how bless we are in this tax free country. some of msian chinese n indians already speak arabic better than i do!
bet soon i will get lectured on how less patriotism i am
Should do like what singapore did those days: arrest them when they enter the country! Haha
While I agree the education system in malaysia is unfair and favor the bumi / melayu and zero A spm student get offered to matriculation , but I think the statement zero A student makes it to medical college and become a doctor is an exaggerate accusation! Another blatant accusation I’ve seen in the comment here before was, students who did not meet the minimum requirement set by mmc to do medicine but get sponsored by Mara. Ridiculous , everyone know it’s easier for malays to get into certain programs in ipta or to get scholarship compared to other ethics but come on guys , no exaggeration pleaseee. Those who get accepted, if they don’t have the same number of As as you do, they at least have better than the minimum requirement, and actually many of them have the same results as YOU do or even better! Normally the students without A and do medicine come from self sponsored family as Dr Paga posted the SPM results here last time
I do have lots of bumi friends with merely SPM 2 or 3As getting into ipta medical school, especially Uitm. There are many back doors and wire for them. If they fail to get through the back door, mara will come to help again. Nice tongkat.
Entering medical school is very easy nowadays for bumis. You only need 5Bs in SPM and a CGPA of more than 3.0 in Matriculations(based on MMC criteria). So, NO “A” students can enter medical school. I also know MARA scholars who failed in overseas universities but were brought back to enroll in local medical schools as credit transfer.
i got ur point. but to build up on tat, wat im trying to convey is can they score well in foreign lands or they just jaguh kampong made possible by all those marks for coursework, attendance and high passing rates.
can d same medical student from public uni survive in medical uni in foreign land? im talking bout those who always barely hit d minimum passing marks
but wat scares me d most is d sponsors, jpa and mara continue to provide allowance for those students who extending their medical course beyond d course duration as agreed in d contract. they were held back and to repeat d paper in half yr time until they pass.
d allowance we get, i can tell u not less than a degree holder fresh graduate.
this is just waste of public fund
Yes it is easy to get into medical
school as the min requirement is ridiculously low, but that doesn’t mean the bumi’s with such low score will be accepted into ipta medical programs ..
Also so does for the non bumi it is easy for them to go into any private medical schools as long as they meet the min req…
With so many students have all As or almost straight As do you think uitm will take those with 5B ?…. I find the condescending level here is very surprising
Generally, there are more bumi’s with lower score entering public universities than nonbumis. I think that is what people are trying to say. Public universities are funded by tax payers. Of course, private also takes in low score individuals but it is SELF funded. Also, those bumi’s who enter public universities here are those who did not get sponsored by MARA or JPA to go overseas. Basically, they are second tier students. These issue can only be solved if you have a common preuniversity exams which will never happen. Till than, no one will be satisfied.
hey mr….. d statement bout bumi with ambiguous results getting into medical school was not mine…..
wat im saying is could these happy-go-lucky medical students fare well if it wasnt d government setting d bar so low? things have changed in Malaysia where passing medical school is unlike before when u hav to work ur ass off just to get by d exams.
coincidentally, almost all medical students in public uni r sponsored. such an irony, where public universities should be d melting pot of creme de la creme of each respective field
and bout d private medical colleges, as u stated, they r PRIVATE, they r not funded by taxpayers money, they wanna earn money
and whos d one in d first place set d bar so low to get into both public and private medical colleges? common entrance exams into medical school and common licensing exams should be installed in malaysia. better be one transparent one though.
That’s an insult to uitm doctors, and to my wife. But she proved that uitm also produces good doctors as she passed her USMLE , mrcog part 1 and is doing well in a very competitive residency program . Why don’t you share the results of the students and we can vital it here?
kudos to ur wife. i respect her. with a view on d globe and not just malaysia, im sure she will fare great wherever she will be.
engr, so sorry if you feel offended, but nobody did say anything about the quality of uitm. We are just talking about the racial quota in the public education system and scholarships.
“Robert
I do have lots of bumi friends with merely SPM 2 or 3As getting into ipta medical school, especially Uitm. There are many back doors and wire for them. If they fail to get through the back door, mara will come to help again. Nice tongkat.”
tho you may have reliable info (2As / 3As spm leaver in ipta medical school) which I really doubt, I just can’t believe the quality of the students is very low to the extent of 2As in spm and still get admitted into public med school. because with such weak background in spm it is almost impossible for them to catch up and score cgpa >3.7 in matriculation
and if the info is real, it is indeed an insult to the school for accepting such low quality students while they are many other bumi applicants who have almost perfect scores in spm and matriculation end up in their 2nd / 3rd choice course
anyway mbbs / md/ bsc/ msc is just a ticket to move to the next level, as long as you can prove that you have somthing and progress well, in the end the school doesnt really matter
y did u keep harping on the uitm thing? do u think getting cgpa 4.0 in uitm and cgpa 4.0 in um is d same? and is cgpa 4.0 in um better than cgpa 4.0 in uitm?
answer honestly
a head start in good and inspiring universities is always a better choice. education should not ever be commercialized and politicized.
malaysia should have a common medical entrance exams and a common medical licensing exams regardless of race. reserve d scholarship for d brightest or d poorest.
ya, scholarship in india by jpa is not d best. in fact those who have failed d preparatory course to aussie, nz or uk would be sent to india.
anyway have to be happy with wat i get. im not d blessed race in malaysia. malaysia is just a small country and with doubtful education system, tats y i kudos to ur wife who dare to take usmle and mrcog 1.
not being a racist, im just a condescending guy. any malay/bumi who earn their way up, they will have my respect. similarly, any non-malay/bumi who going down, will not earn mine.
if u really wanna get this personal….. i could say d same thing, Because the good ones don’t go to uitm, they go to um, ukm or usm
-harping about uitm? it was Robert who mentioned it first and i just share real things that i know. i hate to see ppl talk nonsense
-6 yrs ago, with an increasing number of straight As and 4.0 in matric, those who have less than perfect score (>3.8 cgpa with 7-8As SPM) put uitm as their first choice as they know the competition into uitm is less and dont want to go to east msia. some ppl put uitm as first choice because the fees is cheaper (they dont want the JPA scholarship and be bonded 10 years). i call those students smart. after 6 yrs with more straight As students, Robert said 2/3As SPM are in uitm? amazing!
-condescending medical student? what do you have to be proud of? your SPM/ A level results? i dont need respect from medical students, we know where we stand
-uitm vs um, back in old days yes the quality were diff. but now when you have both lectures from both instutions get trained (PhD) by the same imperial college london professor, how can you judge the quality of A given by both lectures?
-can those students fare well if there were in foreign land? it depends on which school you are talking about. Dr paga posted a doctor with SPM 6-7-7 in sciences and applied for master program (mind you the spm slip has pendidikan moral and not pendidikan islam). so yes those with 7-8As can surely pass the med school. plus in india you dont go to public school anyway because to go into public school they have their own qualifying exam same those who compete into IIT
-and by your definition of good public medical schools, malaysia should have many specialists by UK based exams (i am talking about mrcog/ mrcp/ch etc) by now but the reality is not.
-the same comment i posted here before: ppl like you should have mingled more with the smart bumi, but unfortunately you are surrounded by second class bumi who didnt meet the requirement set by uk/aussie medical schools.
– i also blame the different education system in malaysia which segregate races from stardard 1 by sk/sjkc/sjkt, the system produces ppl like the commenters here.
– when i joined high school in form 2 (i was in boarding school in form 1), i rejected the offer to go into rancangan khas (RK) which full with so called ‘smart’ malays because I want the real competition with the Chinese in normal class. I fare well with the Chinese and we still keep in touch until today. only one chinese in my high school from my batch made it to um medicine and he is now in spore as psychiatrist. i also used to look down at other malays in my high school because they were helpless. but when i joined the prep program i met many brilliant ones (btw i also felt annoyed when i know one of the malay scholars had only 6As in his SPM). so yes i understand your frustration and where this come from. you can say whatever you want, but you also needs the right info and not exxagerating the fact.
Your statements are commendable. That’s why I prefer if the government removes the tongkat and let the Bumis compete among the rest of the citizens. I have seen and worked with very good and intelligent Malays but they do not get the due credit from the citizens of Malaysia as they will always be prejudice against them. The government must also remove the race based MARA, Matriculation, Boarding schools, UiTM etc and lead by example. Once equal opportunities are given to everyone irrespective of race (other then real economically poor students), the vernacular schools will undergo slow death by themselves.
i agree with u on
1. abolish vernacular education system
2. yup, till now i only met with 2nd class bumi except one female senior who amazed me with her dedication to patients, excellent clinical knowledge and her quick pickup of a foreign language
3. my spm results were not tat good. i got b3 for chinese. 11a1 1 b3. a level is 4a
4. india now has abolished d entrance exams for respective government medical schools. all medical colleges be it govern or private take d same entrance
5. i still go by malaysia should have more specialist dr who take mrcp, mrcs, mrcog, etc, especially when malaysia trying to be an medical tourism hub. to add in, malaysia suffer from a declining oecd rank in science and maths.
abolish vernacular system, to a malaysian race, equality to all including d third sex,and religious freedom to all, no punishment for muslim to convert. or better still, let d religion run on its own, dun politicize religion
hey engr. this is funny. now i think bout it
u said those who failed to get into us,uk or any org putih nations r less than 1st class bumi.
those who get into india r 2nd class
wat r those who get into um,ukm then?
and wat r those who get into other than d top 2 uni in malaysia?
just for some comic relief
I guess this will make mr condescending medical student less bitter : Because the good ones (Bumi) don’t go to India, they go to uk, Aussie or nz. And that was exactly what I meant in response to your condescending tone. You took in in a different way.
Also worth to acknowledge some of those who continue in local uni, tho were offered scholarship abroad, do so for personal/ family/ health reason.
No A wont get u even matrix.
it may give the bumi’s the 2 years matrix (tho i havent heard any)… but for sure not ipta medical school. thats why i said exxageration to the max!
engr, I think you should seriously consider visiting local matriculation colleges. Since I was once a matriculation student, I witnessed it myself. Please don’t be ignorant, thank you.
-Robert don’t give false hope here to other gullible bumis.
-stop exaggerating because that doesn’t help ppl here to know the reality
-6 yrs ago, someone I know made it to uitm mbbs with 3.8 and 7As SPM, he asked around and admitted he was one the lowest or might be lowest cgpa accepted
-entry req to uitm is 3.67
-the current 4-6 As SPM can’t even make it to 3.5 Cgpa in matrix . And you are telling me LOTS of 2/3 As get admitted
-unless they have back door cable. I do abhor this act, they just denied other more qualified bumis opportunity
-someone else I know, 11 yrs ago with Cgpa 3.9x SPM 9As didn’t get into any ipta medicine, the poor bumi ended up doing biomedical sc in ukm, but he didn’t give up. After completing bsc He went to Indonesia and got his md there, now at his final rotation hoship. Poor guy, other ppl at his age already in 4th yr MO
-stop telling lies, many hatred ppl here eagerly believe in you and spread the rumours
engr, “6 years ago, 11 years ago”, well, it is so out-dated, sorry to say though. I am somehow surprised with your statement “The current 4-6 As SPM can’t even make it to 3.5 Cgpa in matrix”. Are you seriously kidding me? You looks like a katak di bawah tempurung, no offence, but please get your fact UP-TO-DATE.
Thank you.
If 6/11 yrs ago ppl get into med school with 3.8 , n now SPM n matrix are getting easier to score as u said, more and more getting straight As n 4.0, so u r saying those with lower score 2-3 As get into public med school? Dude that’s ridiculous! That’s not even logical
you must be some annoyed x matrix who didnt get his first choice
How much A you get in SPM does not determine what CGPA you get in matriculation.
SPM and matriculation are two different things.
In SPM, we study 10 subjects and score it in one shot.
However, in matriculation, the subjects are only physics, bio, maths and chemistry. Some students are able to focus more in each semester and willing to work hard. Definitely they can score 4.0.
hence, I cant see any problem with students who get 2 or 3 As in SPM and score 4.0 then enter public medical school as long as they achieve the minimum requirements.
That’s why we need a standard single preuniversity exams/courses. Than no one will complain.
-yeah, mayyyybe those with 2/3As can score 4.00 in matrix if they work hard. it would be more fair if the cgpa is mentioned, not only 2/3As spm. students are admitted based on matric, and some spm subjects grade . the 7-8As could also score < 3.50 if they are not serious
-my study samples is small among the relatives that i know, that's why i said 4-6 As cant make it to 3.5
-same goes to stpm, less As spm should also be able to score 4.0 since the subj is less and can focus more?
-then we again will go back talking about the diff quality and system between matric and stpm etc, the cycle goes on
-entrance exam to med school is really what msia needs now. or since so many medical graduates now in msia, msia should really start introducing mmle, just like usmle.. make all new graduates sit and pass the exam , no job until they have the minimum knowledge to pass the exam
SPM is used as a yardstick purely because that is the last common exam Malaysians sit. It is not and should not be used for Uni entry. But since there is so many pathways into Unis after SPM, some of dubious quality, the MMC use that as a rough guide to determine the academic ability of the student.
While exceptions occur, generally, the SPM is an accurate measure of students ability. The majority of students will be consistent in their results, good SPM results lead to good pre-U results.
A common entrance exam, and “MMLE” are unlikely to happen at the moment, there are too many vested interests at stake to allow this. If the incumbent government thinks this is important, there wouldn’t be 3 official pathways into Malaysian Universities!
Yes, we need those exam to select the better students and filter out the incompetent medical graduates.
SPM is never a good measurement, but as jkl mentioned it’s the last common exam for everyone so it’s taken as a yardstick. Think about this. I can score A+/A in Sejarah, Pendidikan Moral/Pendidikan Islam, BM, Maths (but not Add Maths) English for Maths and Science, English, and maybe an A- in chemistry, biology and B in Physics and Add Maths, hey I’m still with 8As!!!!!!!! In the old days this kind of result could earn you a place in Form 6, Art stream!!! Unaware to you of the younger generation, in order to EARN a place in Form 6 Science stream one has to score not more than 8 units in his/her 3 science subjects. That being 3+3+2 units, meaning in the above example I can’t even study science in Form 6. That’s how tough it was! But nowadays students with this kind of result could fill up the whole of Dataran Merdeka and maybe more than half of them want to be a DOCTOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Let’s face it. Standard is dropping each year, starting with SPM, then Matrix/STPM, then University (whatever discipline), but everyone scroe plenty of Asssssssss We’re a country full of geniuses. Malaysia BOLEH!!! Memang boleh syiok sendiri!!!!
To engr:
Actually results in matrix is a lot less accurate than that of a public exam, being it heavily depending on the lecturer of the subject, and having a much small sample it can’t be properly charted according to a bell curve, and that is if the lecturer wants to do it the proper way. Worse still there could be lecturers who want to ‘help’ the students by disseminating easy questions in exam, it’s an almost guaranteed pathway for you to score brilliant result. I have known quite a few sons and daughters of friends/relatives/colleagues, and to my horror (that’s for real) none of them ‘manage’ to score less than CGPA 3.8 !!! That’s how LOW the standard is, judging by the fact that most of them do not score the perfect 10A+ in SPM. Most of them have the kind of result I mentioned earlier. On top of that, they study only about half of STPM syllabus. Is it fair to compare the 2 based on CGPA alone?
Oh, before I forget. This is from my friend who did matrix many years ago. How do you score brilliant results in Matrix? By paying attention, sure thing. By paying attention to the finest detail, mate! He told me he copied a ‘contoh’ during tutorial, and lo and behold, the EXACT SAME “CONTOH” came out in the monthly test. Ok, now everyone who didn’t pay attention during tutorial got smarten up and study the “CONTOH”. Bravo, the EXACT SAME “CONTOH” REAPPEAR again in the FINAL exam!!!!!!!!!! Yeah, try do that in STPM?
xyz, as I said earlier, the discussion on matrix vs stpm will never end. From the time allocated to study itself it is obvious the materials covered are not the same 1 yr vs 2 yrs. So I decided not to further comment on this issue.
We all know the standard is dropping each year, spm, matric, stpm. More and more students bumi n non-bumi manage to obtain almost perfect score, if not perfect score. That’s why I find some statements here like 0 As, or 2/3As spm managed to make their way through ipta med school as exaggeration.
I don’t consider myself as a younger generation, gave my spm back in 2000. But I didn’t pay much attention to the stpm pathway since I didn’t even fill up my upu application. Was offered scholarship by petronas and mara from my spm trial and thus unfortunately was also not aware the detail of the tempurung that Robert was in. so I am not in the best position to discuss on matrix vs stpm issue.
But one thing I am curious, the older generation are so proud on how broad the stpm syllabus they covered. Do you really use all of them in your undergraduate studies, and at work now? do you think it could be shorten to one year (like Australian yr 12), and move forward to study the things that you wanna do in life like medicine? at the end ppl don’t really judge how much you know from your stpm, but your knowledge on medicine, clinical sciences and your critical thinking etc.
engr, honestly from your earlier replies I thought you’re one of the brighter sparks, but I think I erred judging by what you replied…
I’m not interested in the racial crap, and I think you and many of those who commented here knew and agreed how our education went south, so let’s stick to the points you made and why I disagree with some of those
“”But one thing I am curious, the older generation are so proud on how broad the stpm syllabus they covered. Do you really use all of them in your undergraduate studies, and at work now? “”
Do you use the Tamadun Asia/Tamadun Islam at work? Do you ever use your Pendidikan Moral effectively at work? Do you ever use much of your calculus today at work? You use tools, you use engineering software, you use preset standards and key in some fundamental figures only, much like clerkery job. I guess you’d not find much use for a scientific calculator working as an engineer! Then ask yourself as an engineer now, how much do you use for what you’ve learned in the past years? Isn’t the point moot?
“”do you think it could be shorten to one year (like Australian yr 12), and move forward to study the things that you wanna do in life like medicine?””
Ahh, since you brought up Australian Year 12, then I’m going to tell you very honestly that it is ONE OF THE LOWEST uni entry standard in the world, and to please our politicians and ministers at home, strictly on par with matrix! Ok, it won’t repeat the same ‘Contoh’ in tests and finals, but the syllabus is comparable. Something like learning 1 more semester than Form 5. I’m sorry you don’t have any grasp on the old STPM standard, but let me tell you this. I’ve a friend who went to Uni Melbourne and equipped with STPM physics, he could practically skip the 1st year. Btw, he’s doing engineering. And please, Australia is no UK. Year 12 is not admissible in most of the established UK universities. I’ve friends whom without sufficient info, skip Form 6 to do Australian matriculation in local colleges only to realise that he can’t apply for any good UK uni.
The Australian University entry standard is much lower. You know how I find out? Plenty of my school mates who got 15-20 units (that’s not too bad in today’s standard, btw, because the result translate to maybe 3A and 3A-, that’s 6A students!) in SPM are admitted to ‘famous’ uni in Australia such as Monash and Curtin. Ok, granted they didn’t do medicine, but those friends of mine can’t survive STPM for 1 day (meaning no place in local ipta!). So to answer your question, about Y12, it’s only suitable in Australia, for their uni.
Oh, btw, do you know that they study the same biology book used in our form 6 in their 1st year? I think that alone tells you a lot!
” at the end ppl don’t really judge how much you know from your stpm, but your knowledge on medicine, clinical sciences and your critical thinking etc.”
Honestly I think that’s where you fall short. Is your life stuck with what you do as a profession only, be it medicine or others? Do you not have any facet in your live that others might interact with? With insufficient and a very narrow spectrum knowledge, can you do your critical thinking effectively? You think your knowledge on medicine alone is sufficient to be successful? For those with greater and broader level of knowledge, everything is an extra piece of info, an extra data point, an extra clue. Let me share with you another story. As an engineer you must know that if I were to exert a lateral force (x axis), you can balance it with another lateral force along the same x axis. When the force applied is at, say 45 degree, that means you have to find a way to counter the force at y axis, correct? Ok, this is PHYSICS you say. What does it got to do with MEDICINE right? Now let me tell you that this is a PERFECT EXAMPLE of what ORTHODONTISTS have to know. My classmate (who studied physics in stpm) graduated from UM dentistry, took his PhD in Orthodontic in University of Queensland. Some of his seniors, Australian mat sallehs, made the mistake by ignoring the y-axis and set the aligner wrongly. The result is teeth set to the right place but slanted. This has wasted time, money and causing great inconvenience to the patient. Why is it so? Because they didn’t study or studied little physics, hence don’t have much idea on how vector works! Sadly this is also what our younger generation won’t know because they only study 4 subjects! My friend as a junior has to fix the problem after the mat sallehs happily graduated with PhD!!!! So, don’t think too highly about Mat Salleh and their Uni.
From the above story, what went wrong?
– Good Uni (allegedly)
– Good students (else uni must be pathetic to take in poor student)
– Students with good professional knowledge (physics don’t count, not needed in dentistry, else why take in students with no physics background? )
– Student can do critical thinking? I don’t know, but must be very little and limited
So many people said something along the same line about why the need to have higher standard or a syllabus too broad, and I only have one thing to say. Why is it that a higher standard is worse of? Think! Unless of course you’re not up to it, or are willing to settle for the lesser. Settling for the lesser is exactly what our ministers and politicians have in their puny heads.
Please ponder a little, nothing personal here.
Some clarification is required here. I am not going to weight into the arguments, but just state the facts.
The Australian “year 12” is actually NOT 1 year, but a 2 year programme, ie years 11 and 12. It’s because Malaysian colleges runs a 1 year (SAM/AUSMAT), and everybody assume it is a 1 year programme.
Australian exam results are expressed as a rank, in relation to your peers, NOT as an absolute result unlike A Levels/STPM/Matrik. Therefore an ATAR rank of 99.2 does NOT mean 99.2 marks, but that you are better than 99.2% of your peers sitting for the same exam. That is one of the reasons why people have the impression that it is “low standard”! ATAR scores are accepted by most Uk universities, even for medicine, but there are difficulties because the timing is out of sync, and problems with equating ATAR scores to grades.
All Australian Universities are COMMUNITY universities, NOT elitist ones. This means they don’t select the best students to admit, but set a cut off (which is usually not very strict) and will accept anyone who satisfy that cut off. Nevertheless, they are ranked highly internationally. This is achieved by being strict in their assessments and standards. Accordingly, the drop out rate can be very high. This is in tandem with the Australian philosophy of giving everybody a fair-go. There are exceptions to this of course, and Australia is one of the most difficult places in the world to enter medicine.
Finally, don’t be confused between the content and the assessment system of a course. How much needs to be taught at school level is a policy matter of each country, and there is no “right” way. A Levels and STPM covers more content. Matrik and Year12 covers less content. This is then correspondingly made up for at University level. Hence, for example, Laws is a 3 year programme in UK, and a full 4 years in Australia. This is only a problem in Malaysia as both system exist side by side and unfortunately taken as equivalent.
Assessments and grading systems are also different. While the A Levels have large content, the gradings are easy! The statistics reveal how easy. 27% of students gets a A grade in a subject on average. 18% gets 3A or better. 4% gets 3A* or better. In the ATAR system, 3A is equal to ATAR 82 or better, and 3A* 96 or better.
– I still find the point debatable, tho I should have put better wording for it. pendidikan islam/ moral syllabus should somehow guide us to have better integrity
– as an engineer I don’t deal with calculus directly with my daily work, but I found the use when I did my postgrad studies, we use calculus to derive all the equation and relationships that are behind the simulator that we use at work
-from your point, Melbourne’s engineering sounds like the American engineering system. You can go to US uni with only SPM. The university that I went to gives exemption to those who have A level to skip some of freshmen courses based on their A level scores. This enable the students to graduate one or two semesters early, just like engineering in UK, 3 years. You shouldn’t use foundation year for aussie to continue in UK! As jkl said “How much needs to be taught at school level is a policy matter of each country, and there is no “right” way”. i think now those who have stpm and go to aussie for engineering is less smart.
– msian ipta have about the same curriculum as those Australia/ us. But it is not flexible. You gonna do the subjects again in uni so why bother cramping everything in 2 years and tested in 2/3 hrs exam. It is the understanding of the concept is more crucial, and why keep on repeating to study the same thing again and again while there are other interesting things to do, remember life is short (I shouldn’t have spent too much time here! Sigh~). So matrix syllabus is designed to cater the current system we have in ipta
– your orthodontic story should not indicate the foundation level they have. Vector is basic in physics and every foundation/ pre-u course physics covers this basic subject. It is not a matter of the syllabus/ standard; I see this is more an individual problem to not knowing how to apply the knowledge. The same thing could happen to our doctor who has stpm. Don’t get me wrong, I never say prospective doctors don’t need foundation in physics.
-yes never think too highly about Mat Salleh, but we keep on sending our children to mat salleh uni, referring to their research and papers, and work hard to get their certification. How irony. I went through the American system with only SPM, no stpm, and also went through british system during my postgrad studies in imperial college London. I don’t think the british students, who should have the BEST uni foundation or as you said HIGHER standard since they had A level, did any better than me.
-nothing personal but you should really have a broader view of the issue
engr:
” I still find the point debatable, tho I should have put better wording for it. pendidikan islam/ moral syllabus should somehow guide us to have better integrity
– as an engineer I don’t deal with calculus directly with my daily work, but I found the use when I did my postgrad studies, we use calculus to derive all the equation and relationships that are behind the simulator that we use at work”
Ok, so with these 2 paragraphs you answered your earlier question
“Do you really use all of them in your undergraduate studies, and at work now?”
And this should be applied to ANY FORM of knowledge acquired at any level, be it kindie, primary school, madrasah, till college, agree?
At least we’re not too far off… 🙂 I’m glad to know this.
“i think now those who have stpm and go to aussie for engineering is less smart.”
Err, those who have stpm graduated from world renown uni, and had a much better head start and at the same time enjoy their study years there, I’m not sure which part of that is less smart… (hear the tongue in cheek?) Of course, they all have solid FaMo bank account…
“msian ipta have about the same curriculum as those Australia/ us. But it is not flexible. You gonna do the subjects again in uni so why bother cramping everything in 2 years and tested in 2/3 hrs exam. It is the understanding of the concept is more crucial, and why keep on repeating to study the same thing again and again while there are other interesting things to do, remember life is short (I shouldn’t have spent too much time here! Sigh~). So matrix syllabus is designed to cater the current system we have in ipta”
If you look at the syllabus of Open U (no disrespect to anyone attending their courses there. I respect those who strive for life long learning) and compare it to Imperial college’s syllabus, I don’t think there’s a difference of 30%. I don’t know what the actual difference is, but basically any uni, especially newly established ones could just copy from any uni for the subjects they want to cover. Whether the content is delivered effectively is another matter. So what if you say the syllabus is the same? It could cover the same subject, same topic but keep using the same “Contoh 1” as I mentioned earlier. One could say I learn maths, I learn calculus, I learn statistics, but with this kind of delivery, is it equal? You tell me.
Btw, that “Contoh 1” thingy is about calculus, in a maths subject, if you’re interested to know 🙂 🙂
It’s not about repeating the same thing. It’s not about cramping everything to be tested in a few hours exam. You’re right in it’s about the understanding of concept, but to be grilled to the fullest. It’s about setting the bar higher, and whoever that swam through the tightest net, he ought to worth something, don’t you think so? Again, there’s a huge difference in public exam vs uni grading.
“– your orthodontic story should not indicate the foundation level they have. Vector is basic in physics and every foundation/ pre-u course physics covers this basic subject. It is not a matter of the syllabus/ standard; I see this is more an individual problem to not knowing how to apply the knowledge. The same thing could happen to our doctor who has stpm. Don’t get me wrong, I never say prospective doctors don’t need foundation in physics.”
As I said earlier, you learn basic vector in spm vs more physics in stpm are 2 different animals altogether. You expect spm leaver to have a very clear understanding of plenty of the concepts in physics? At what percentile?
So when a renown Australian uni is accepting and producing phd students with inept physics, who would think that it’s a big problem until you’re at the receiving end? More importantly, if you said it’s not a matter of syllabus/standard, then I don’t know what is it. Maybe like I said the uni is horrible by taking in those ‘who not knowing how to apply knowledge’, and grant them phd???? The last sentence in the above paragraph just showed the contrary of what you’re advocating. Ask those who go through matrik/4 subjects STPM and see how good they are, then you’ll know.
Those who studied medicine in our ipta in the old days ‘used’ to have 1st rate physics, Dr. Paga being one of them!
“-yes never think too highly about Mat Salleh, but we keep on sending our children to mat salleh uni, referring to their research and papers, and work hard to get their certification. How irony. I went through the American system with only SPM, no stpm, and also went through british system during my postgrad studies in imperial college London. I don’t think the british students, who should have the BEST uni foundation or as you said HIGHER standard since they had A level, did any better than me.”
The difference here is, to know your own limitation! If you know your strength and limit, you could very easily spot the strength and weaknesses of the other, provided you have sufficient level of knowledge. You could do well in your post graduate studies in imperial college, but do you think you can compete effectively with the British kids who went through A level if you’re to go through the matrik pathway? Give me an honest answer please. Now never did I say we should treat mat salleh as god like. Neither did I say we should trash mat salleh like dirt. If you know where the limitation is, then you’d know that anyone that operates out of your limit is someone you should learn from. ANYONE. Simple as that, no irony here.
Sigh, which brings out another story. I had a course mate whom ‘also’ graduated from ‘THE’ Imperial College, phd. But honestly apart from her near perfect English, during our undergrad years me and my other course mates can’t find anything special in her. She had an average result, scored well in NATO subjects, never good in more technical subjects, and always paired with some of the best in class in mini projects (well to tumpang the result, if you want to know). Years later upon hearing that she obtained a HUGE title we just want to know what is it in her that grant her a place in the prestigious Uni. Ahem, later on we found out she’s ‘posted’ there under some sort of student exchange by our uni which by then she worked as a tutor. Call it political, diplomatical or bilateral relationship ticket. But if we’re not to know this story, who’d thought that Imperial College also give away phd ‘quite’ cheaply? Oh, btw, she entered our course with pathetic stpm result (many should know why…) Ok, now we know that even renown uni has back door entry method… too bad.
“-nothing personal but you should really have a broader view of the issue”
I thought first you asked how useful is the old stpm syllabus, and at the same time agreed that any form of knowledge is important? And halfway down you said one (doctor, that is) is going to be judged by the medical knowledge, clinical sciences and critical thinking, and I’m rebuking how someone with a narrow band of knowledge just can’t be as good? How is that less broad than what you said? ???
hahaha, interesting debate both of you. I wonder how you know about my physics results! Yes, despite being in biomaths STPM class, I had the best Physics results in the state.One thing that physics helped me was analytical thinking which is a necessity in medicine. That’s why I became a physician. STPM is a tough exam, the toughest in the world but I do agree that most of what we learn may not be used in later life. BUT it makes you a better person, a more knowledgeable person. I know many who scored straight As in SPM but flopped in STPM, why? That’s why many afraid to do STPM. STPM test a lot of your critical and analytical thinking where as SPM is rot learning. No one will ever know what questions is going to come out. However, same cannot be said about Matriculation and Foundation studies. I know universities who had already told students what questions going to come out. It is also a form of rot learning and regurgitation. Foundations exams are prepared and marked by the uni itself. No standardisation. A lot of hanky panky happens. That’s why the standards of our education system is going down the drain. University graduates are subpar and employers are having tough time even recruiting fresh graduates.
Our government policy is to produce graduates to satisfy the people(graduates in every family). They want people to think that they are improving their lives. So, mass production with no quality. Of course, inbetween all these students/graduates, there will always be good students , no matter which uni they go to. You must put everyone in a level playing field to know who are the better ones. Unfortunately, this will never happen in Malaysia.
jkl
I understand how the Australian system works as I have like 30+ friends went there for tertiary education.
“All Australian Universities are COMMUNITY universities, NOT elitist ones. This means they don’t select the best students to admit, but set a cut off (which is usually not very strict) and will accept anyone who satisfy that cut off. Nevertheless, they are ranked highly internationally. This is achieved by being strict in their assessments and standards. Accordingly, the drop out rate can be very high. This is in tandem with the Australian philosophy of giving everybody a fair-go. There are exceptions to this of course, and Australia is one of the most difficult places in the world to enter medicine.”
I’m in agreement with the philosophy of giving everyone a fair-go, but there’re subjects which can’t be tackled by passion alone. I’m all for high drop out rate if the student can’t make the cut. I took issue when the entry requirement are set too low.
I don’t want to share old stories as many see it as non-relevant. Just to share, my brother working as a teacher in a private school teaching A-level subjects. He’d a student who scored 3Bs, and get accepted into John Cook University of Queensland for pharmacy! Ouch, I thought 3Bs can maybe get you in perhutanan locally??? (no disrespect to forest rangers!)
“Finally, don’t be confused between the content and the assessment system of a course. How much needs to be taught at school level is a policy matter of each country, and there is no “right” way. A Levels and STPM covers more content. Matrik and Year12 covers less content. This is then correspondingly made up for at University level. Hence, for example, Laws is a 3 year programme in UK, and a full 4 years in Australia. This is only a problem in Malaysia as both system exist side by side and unfortunately taken as equivalent.”
If they make up for the content it’d be nice. The scary part is there are double major, double degree (any triple major??? 🙂 ) programs, mainly to suck up your famo bank account! I thought it’d be tough enough to go through just one program if it’s delivered the way how it supposed to be?
“Assessments and grading systems are also different. While the A Levels have large content, the gradings are easy! The statistics reveal how easy. 27% of students gets a A grade in a subject on average. 18% gets 3A or better. 4% gets 3A* or better. In the ATAR system, 3A is equal to ATAR 82 or better, and 3A* 96 or better.”
Actually you’re comparing 2 totally different sample group. A level students are heavily filtered, whereas ATAR is almost like the spm group. It is incorrect to compare by percentile alone. That’s why some uk uni set a ridiculously high requirement for those who apply with ATAR score. When one of my friend applied to University of Leeds with ATAr result they refused it at first due to not an A-level equivalent. But after seeing his 95% result they made an exception for it. That’s for a place in ‘mere’ computer science. I thought that’s good enough for Monash medic, which considered as the top 3 in Australia???
– I think you missed my main point: why would you need to spend 2 yrs in stpm, if the foundation can be shorten to 1 yr, and continue learning in uni
-why would someone spend 2 yrs studying chemistry, then continue studying the same thing again in first year uni. It is not only a waste of time, but the fama money for boarding and food, plus in aussie the cost can be double or triple, unless you have super solid fama bank acc!
-basic physics in spm does not count as foundation in physics, maybe roughly matrix covers 50% of stpm then the engineers who need more physics will cover another 50% in uni
-look if I were to go through the matrix pathway, I will not end up in first year undergrad uk engineering because they don’t cover the foundation again in their first year. That’s why they need A level/ IB as a req to UK engineering. It is only 3 years program, compare to 4 years in Malaysia/ us/ aussie, so the first out of 4 years, the courses cover the foundation which you have covered in STPM. So for stpm leavers, basically you have overlaps of 1 yr between stpm and the first year of the 4 yrs program, why not save the 1 yr for something else? I could fare well with the brits because I covered the basics during my freshmen year in uni!
-aha, hopeless. Any school that accepts the special race in Malaysia will be labeled bad. Soon I should expect to hear some labels for oxford, Cambridge and MIT because those uni also accept Malays lollll… it is hopeless, no matter how good u are, as Dr Paga said the malay will never earn the due credit in Malaysia. I should really stop commenting here
engr:
“– I think you missed my main point: why would you need to spend 2 yrs in stpm, if the foundation can be shorten to 1 yr, and continue learning in uni”
I understand your point perfectly. I’m only stressing that, not only studying full STPM syllabus is good, we have to study 5 instead of 4 subjects! Remember the uni grading is never as tough as public exam, and that force you to pick up the knowledge.
“-why would someone spend 2 yrs studying chemistry, then continue studying the same thing again in first year uni. It is not only a waste of time, but the fama money for boarding and food, plus in aussie the cost can be double or triple, unless you have super solid fama bank acc!”
Like I said, they could enjoy their sweet time, honey moon year they call it. Or they could treat it as refresher course, which could only be good! Also, those who went there on fama funding definitely have thick pockets! Of course I’m jealous, not about the uni they went to, but the fama account 🙂 🙂
“-basic physics in spm does not count as foundation in physics, maybe roughly matrix covers 50% of stpm then the engineers who need more physics will cover another 50% in uni”
See the above.
“-look if I were to go through the matrix pathway, I will not end up in first year undergrad uk engineering because they don’t cover the foundation again in their first year. That’s why they need A level/ IB as a req to UK engineering. It is only 3 years program, compare to 4 years in Malaysia/ us/ aussie, so the first out of 4 years, the courses cover the foundation which you have covered in STPM. So for stpm leavers, basically you have overlaps of 1 yr between stpm and the first year of the 4 yrs program, why not save the 1 yr for something else? I could fare well with the brits because I covered the basics during my freshmen year in uni!”
Nevermind the overlaps, it only enhances and strengthen what you learned.
“-aha, hopeless. Any school that accepts the special race in Malaysia will be labeled bad. Soon I should expect to hear some labels for oxford, Cambridge and MIT because those uni also accept Malays lollll… it is hopeless, no matter how good u are, as Dr Paga said the malay will never earn the due credit in Malaysia. I should really stop commenting here”
Ahem, now you got it wrong. The ‘she’ I mentioned is never a malay. ‘She’ is a bumi nonetheless. That’s why she entered our course with lesser result than ours… That’s also why she studied STPM instead of asasi isn’t it? And just to cool you a little, in my workplace the then one and only computer hacker is a Malay. He’s so talented that now he’s an ASTRONOMER!!!!!!!! The top programmer is also a Malay. He’s since left and earns huge salary by developing 3D games! Anyone in IT world know that 3D gaming can’t be developed by the run of the mill programmers. Would my ex-colleagues earn their due credit? I still tell all my junior colleagues about how they missed their chance to meet ‘god-like’ people… in computer world at least.
@xyz: ATAR 95 will definitely NOT get you a place in Monash Clayton Medicine. 99.5, maybe.
“@xyz: ATAR 95 will definitely NOT get you a place in Monash Clayton Medicine. 99.5, maybe.”
Actually there are 3 components, one being ATAR, 2nd is the UMAT score and most importantly the interview. So scoring ATAR (95) and a good UMAT score guarantees an interview. Success in the interview is key. Having 99.5 in ATAR don’t mean a thing.
This is what being stated at the Monash website.
Students studying Year 12 are required to obtain a study score equivalent to at least 35 in English (EAL) or 30 in any other English and a study score of at least 30 in Chemistry in VCE (or equivalent) with the ATAR floor of 90. However, to be competitive, results need to be at least equivalent to an ATAR of 95 or above, be at least equal to or greater than 3 A’s at “A Level” including an A for Chemistry, IB results of 39 overall or greater or a MUFY overall score of 355 or greater.
http://www.med.monash.edu.au/medical/central/requirements.html
It further confirms with my earlier reply to jkl that ATAR is never the equivalent of A-level and why you can’t compare the 2 due to totally different sample groups and syllabus covered. If jkl’s figure is accurate, then the 3As in A level means 82%, meaning Monash sees 82% A level equal to a 95% ATAR.
@xyz: UMAT or ISAT (for internationals) determines if you have an interview. Then you wouldn’t know the outcome till about a month (if I remember correctly) after Yr 12 results are out.
There’s a couple of us here who’s had relatives going through the Oz and UK medical school application process, so we are quite familiar with how it respectively works. 😀
xyz, you are mistaken in several aspects.
1. You are quoting Monash minimum qualifications. That will NOT get you admitted.
2. Selection is not based on the ATAR, as the process starts long before the results are released. A good UMAT/ISAT gets you an interview, but you will not know the outcome until the Year12 results are out. In recent years, the lowest ATAR admitted I believe is 99.65.
3. Aussie university selection policy is for their own needs. Why should you question their methods of giving everybody a fair go? In spite of this policy, the Go8 unis are well ranked.
4. Education is a major “export” of Australia, and the selection cut offs are often lower for Internationals. Not a good thing, but that’s the fact. It’s similar for all countries “exporting” education, including the UK.
5. You must look at the A levels and Year 12 systems in the parent countries’ context and not the Malaysian context. In their respective countries’ context, the cohorts are basically the SAME. Unless you think Brits are intrinsically smarter than Aussies! Both are for preparation into tertiary education. About equivalent percentages of both cohorts continue beyond O levels/year10 into A levels/years11-12. The normal curve distribution of both large cohorts will be equivalent as well.
However, the ATAR system plots this Gaussian curve better, and differentiates the top band better. The A levels system unfortunately differentiates top scorers poorly. We know that candidates with 3A* will be the top 4%, but the universities cannot tell who is top 1%, or top 0.1%. That is why the elitist UK unis (Oxbridge) have given up on the A levels results and have their own ways of selection.
The point is, all these are basically ways to help Universities select the right students. The two systems do this in different ways, and both are valid ways. The right students need not be the students with the most knowledge at entry. In fact, more important is not the “presumed knowledge” at entry, but the “presumed ability” to succeed in the course and profession. In this aspect, a ranking system coupled with aptitude testing gives the best predictive value.
6. Aussie Double degrees work on the basis that the Australian Bachelor’s Degrees generally is made up of 2/3 to 3/4 core subjects, and 1/4 to 1/3 electives, which can be anything outside the core subjects. Therefore, in a double degree programme, the core subjects of one degree becomes the electives of the other, and vice versa. So eg, 4 year Laws and 3 years commerce courses can be combined into a 5 year double degree programme. And yes, it IS tough, doing a double degree in an Oz uni. The drop out rate (including into single degree) is very high.
7. Finally, as to Monash equating 3A(top 82%) to ATAR95, that is precisely the problem with A levels. That is why the A* was introduced, and why Aussie Unis are now starting to want some A*s. And why it is easier to enter popular courses with A levels (note that this will be almost be all International students), and why using ATAR to enter Aussie undergraduate Medicine is one of the most difficult in the world!
jkl
“1. You are quoting Monash minimum qualifications. That will NOT get you admitted.”
“2. Selection is not based on the ATAR, as the process starts long before the results are released. A good UMAT/ISAT gets you an interview, but you will not know the outcome until the Year12 results are out. In recent years, the lowest ATAR admitted I believe is 99.65.”
Agreed, but I think we’re not doing an effective comparison, knowing that most of Oz med school are graduate program. Please read my next reply.
“3. Aussie university selection policy is for their own needs. Why should you question their methods of giving everybody a fair go? In spite of this policy, the Go8 unis are well ranked.”
“4. Education is a major “export” of Australia, and the selection cut offs are often lower for Internationals. Not a good thing, but that’s the fact. It’s similar for all countries “exporting” education, including the UK.”
I’ve never questioned their policy because that’s solely their business. In the same breath why would you question our local-u policy then (pls pls, I’m no BN supporter, I just find the sudden spike in tension when I mentioned about the Oz way) ??? If you say the international students are of lower standard, fine. That means you’re mixing the so call real good ones with the not so good ones, right? Then what’s the difference between Oz U and our local U, albeit our local U take in all local students with wider variance?
“Well ranked” is subjective. Those Uni-ranking thing has a huge emphasis on international students, something like 7.5% in TIMES if I’m not mistaken. That’s the ‘strength’ for Oz uni. On top of that it heavily favours those which language of instruction is in English. Do you seriously think uni like Peking and Tsing Hua or Tokyo U is behind the likes of Melbourne or Monash? In fact, if you’re to ask those who did not study in Oz, hardly anyone heard of the Go8. It’s only famous in Oz, and somehow, to some Malaysians. Try to form an ‘elite’ group is different than really belonging the elite unfortunately.
I find it laughable when some people quote the uni-ranking repeatedly to, what, lure Malaysian students over? I don’t see OxBridge doing it. I don’t see Harvard or Yale doing it. Why? They don’t find a ‘need’ to do it because those cream de la cream flocks there automatically.
“5. You must look at the A levels and Year 12 systems in the parent countries’ context and not the Malaysian context. In their respective countries’ context, the cohorts are basically the SAME. Unless you think Brits are intrinsically smarter than Aussies! Both are for preparation into tertiary education. About equivalent percentages of both cohorts continue beyond O levels/year10 into A levels/years11-12. The normal curve distribution of both large cohorts will be equivalent as well.”
Err, when you’re subject to a lower standard (A level vs Y12), a lot of the not so good ones swam through. Real good ones will not show their true potential for the standard is low, and so so ones shine equally bright. In fact, if you’re to go through the old MCE/HSC or the old SPM/STPM pathway, you’ll understand what I meant. Btw, I’m not the only one saying this. Dr. paga had a reply earlier mentioning this : ” I know many who scored straight As in SPM but flopped in STPM, why? That’s why many afraid to do STPM. ”
“However, the ATAR system plots this Gaussian curve better, and differentiates the top band better. The A levels system unfortunately differentiates top scorers poorly. We know that candidates with 3A* will be the top 4%, but the universities cannot tell who is top 1%, or top 0.1%. That is why the elitist UK unis (Oxbridge) have given up on the A levels results and have their own ways of selection.”
I think you’re way off in this case. Not only they are using A-level as benchmark, but to use ATAR to just apply for ANYONE of their subject (which the lowest is A level AAA), the minimum is 98.5%
http://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/courses/entrance-requirements
Looks like oxford disagrees with you quite a bit. On top of that, like I said, A level is pre filtered while Y12 is more like spm group… You want the top 1% of ATAR, which could give you 3000 students, or the A level A* at 4 % which could give you 200 students?
to be continued…
No idea why you are comparing STPM with Year 12 in such detail. Why don’t you compare it with IB and the unified exam? I thought the discussion was STPM vs matrix.
If you are considering medicine in Oz 99 is not a fantastic ATAR, try being the top 0.5 – 0.1%. 99.9 ATAR will almost guarantee you medicine nothing else.
I want to point out that being a high scorer does not indicate success or competence in ANY profession. The only reason medicine requires high marks is due to the demand. In Australia there are 2 – 3000 applicants for a uni with only 200 places. The only way to allocate fairly is with ATAR or equivalent. ATAR, IB, the unified exam , A levels are all accepted. IB score have a very good conversion rate to ATAR so many are actually choosing to do that. Maybe that should be that common exam in Malaysia.
jkl, continue here…
“The point is, all these are basically ways to help Universities select the right students. The two systems do this in different ways, and both are valid ways. The right students need not be the students with the most knowledge at entry. In fact, more important is not the “presumed knowledge” at entry, but the “presumed ability” to succeed in the course and profession. In this aspect, a ranking system coupled with aptitude testing gives the best predictive value.”
As I keep on repeating, on top of the inherent advantage of acquiring more knowledge, a higher standard will only bring out the best of the students.
“6. Aussie Double degrees work on the basis that the Australian Bachelor’s Degrees generally is made up of 2/3 to 3/4 core subjects, and 1/4 to 1/3 electives, which can be anything outside the core subjects. Therefore, in a double degree programme, the core subjects of one degree becomes the electives of the other, and vice versa. So eg, 4 year Laws and 3 years commerce courses can be combined into a 5 year double degree programme. And yes, it IS tough, doing a double degree in an Oz uni. The drop out rate (including into single degree) is very high.”
I understand how it works, but I’ve seen many examples of those (a
“7. Finally, as to Monash equating 3A(top 82%) to ATAR95, that is precisely the problem with A levels. That is why the A* was introduced, and why Aussie Unis are now starting to want some A*s. And why it is easier to enter popular courses with A levels (note that this will be almost be all International students), and why using ATAR to enter Aussie undergraduate Medicine is one of the most difficult in the world!”
Seriously do you think Monash don’t know their business to equate 3As to ATAR 95? As far as I see if Monash want to choose the top 4% to make it an equal to ATAR 95, they could have specify it as 3A* instead of 3A, isn’t it? When you say to enter Oz undergrad program is one of the toughest in the world, I could also say the old UM intake for STPM is WAY tougher!
Ok, now let’s work on some maths to know the level of difficulty . Knowing that most of the Oz medical courses are graduate course, those who do bio-medic most probably have an eye on medicine
I don’t know the number of Y12 students in Australia, but let’s use our SPM number as a reference and extrapolate from there.
– In 2014 we have about 450k students doing SPM.
– Our population is 30 million, Australia has about 20 million people
– Assuming all Australian kids of the right age are doing Y12, and the age distribution is the same as Malaysia, that’d be about 300k
– Number of uni offering medical programs = 19
– Assuming each uni is offering 200 places (I think Monash has something like 300 for Clayton, plus a few more hundreds in other campus) Actual figure should be higher than 200, but let’s just assume 150 places is reserved for local
– total no. of places = 19*150=2850
– Assuming half of Y12 students choose Art, and half of them choose science
– That means there are 150k science students
– Top 1% means 1500 students. But not all top students do Medicine right? Else where’d all the talented engineers and scientists went to?
– Let’s assume they are not infected with the ‘doctor wannabe pandemic’, and half of all top students become doctor, That gives you 750.
– To fill in 2850 places, you need 4% of your top students. Which is not to high a standard….
I believe the actual figure is lower because not everyone do Y12, meaning we’ve to expand the group beyond 4%
Of course we’re assuming all the top 4% who enrolled in to courses like bio medic continued on to become doctor. Factors such as those who dropped out halfway is contra by those who worked harder to attain the necessary standard.
Which is why Monash Bio Medic “clearly in” ATAR score is 95.5%!!! Looks like my postulation is quite accurate… 🙂 🙂
If you look back into Malaysia, which we all scream and shout to death,
– No. of places, last check was 6-7k
– 450k students, half of them do science, that’s 225k
– Top 1 % = 2.25k
– Half of those do medic, that’s 1.125k
– To fill in 6-7k places, we need 6% of the top students. Err, it’s lower, but not waaayyy off. Ok, not all are based solely on merit, so it’d be, maybe 4% from one ethnic group, 8% from another ethnic group etc etc..
But if you’re to factor in the ‘doctor wannabe pandemic’ in Malaysia, then maybe more than half of the top students would want to do medic, that would actually shrink the percentile of the required top students.
Then we’d start another topic of teaching quality in school, in uni, laws governing, working attitude till the cow comes home. Please, again, me no BN supporter…. 🙂 🙂 🙂
Am I suppose to call you Okasang? You’re only the mother of your child… 🙂 🙂
“No idea why you are comparing STPM with Year 12 in such detail. Why don’t you compare it with IB and the unified exam? I thought the discussion was STPM vs matrix.”
Actually it was started because “engr” wants to know why don’t we shrink stpm syllabus to matrix or Y12, which I disagree.
“If you are considering medicine in Oz 99 is not a fantastic ATAR, try being the top 0.5 – 0.1%. 99.9 ATAR will almost guarantee you medicine nothing else.”
I’m not saying it’s not fantastic. If you’re to read carefully, I’ve been saying Y12, with a lesser syllabus and works much like SPM, can’t bring the best out of the students. In fact this has nothing to do with a place in medicine or not! I’ve been giving example with all sort of discipline in study. Funny you need such detail explanation.
“I want to point out that being a high scorer does not indicate success or competence in ANY profession. ”
This I agree wholeheartedly!!!
“The only reason medicine requires high marks is due to the demand. In Australia there are 2 – 3000 applicants for a uni with only 200 places.”
I thought this also applies to our public local u, medic especially? Or any other good Uni in the world?
“The only way to allocate fairly is with ATAR or equivalent. ATAR, IB, the unified exam , A levels are all accepted. IB score have a very good conversion rate to ATAR so many are actually choosing to do that. Maybe that should be that common exam in Malaysia.”
Again, just because it suites the Australian system means we have to change to it? Isn’t it pathetic to settle, well, for the lesser? Or do Malaysian students have no where else to go apart from the mighty Australia ??? 🙂 🙂 🙂
I will not enter into any argument here, just stating the facts.
There are about 3500 medical graduates per year in oz, having reached a plateau from next year.
No matter what Oxbridge says in their website, they do NOT select based on A Levels results, conditional offers are given before even the A2 is sat, and the condition they set for their offers are almost always met and surpassed by the offered students, as it’s low, 3A or 2A1A* only. It’s NOT the 3A that got you in. It’s the sum total of the personal statement, entrance exams, and interviews. If you have ever applied for Oxbridge you will know.
Australia’s population is 23 million.
The undergraduate entry stream in Oz is limited, only accounting for 1/3 of places available. Hence the tight competition. The selection for the graduate entry programmes is another story.
And finally, the Australian Year12 is NOT SPM equivalent.
And I don’t understand why Monash BioMed is brought in here, Monash medical programme is undergraduate entry.
I’m not interested to enter into any argument. Just find it curious people get so upset when I point out how some of the ‘highly’ regarded place to study is not as ‘high’ as one think it is…
“There are about 3500 medical graduates per year in oz, having reached a plateau from next year.”
Meaning soon they’ll be like Malaysia, with overflow of doctors!!! Unless their service time is extremely short.
“No matter what Oxbridge says in their website, they do NOT select based on A Levels results, conditional offers are given before even the A2 is sat, and the condition they set for their offers are almost always met and surpassed by the offered students, as it’s low, 3A or 2A1A* only. It’s NOT the 3A that got you in. It’s the sum total of the personal statement, entrance exams, and interviews. If you have ever applied for Oxbridge you will know.”
First you said it’s not based on A level results, then you said the the result is low (which is as low as ATAR 95, at least), and easily surpassed. I suppose you should say if it’s not the A level result, one should be able to go in with CCC?
No need to apply to know about the “secret’ of the conditional offer… I knew it all along. A lot of uni have entrance exams and interview, even plenty of China and Taiwan unis have it. They also set the minimum requirements.
“Australia’s population is 23 million.
The undergraduate entry stream in Oz is limited, only accounting for 1/3 of places available. Hence the tight competition. The selection for the graduate entry programmes is another story.”
When your top rated students went to undergrad programs, where do you find students to fill the remaining places? If you take in those with ATAR 99, which many of you do not think it is possible because it’s too low, who are the rest who go offered? Yes, they are graduate students, of lower percentile of the previous years. Simple maths, no magic.
“And finally, the Australian Year12 is NOT SPM equivalent.”
I never said it’s spm equivalent, but the sample group is much closer to the spm group than A-level’s. The syllabus cover is also more SPM than A-level though… In case you ask, I read my friends’ books.
“And I don’t understand why Monash BioMed is brought in here, Monash medical programme is undergraduate entry.”
Err, I don’t know whether whom to trust, because my friend told me there are multiple programs, Clayton being the undergrad program, and plenty of people do biomed first to enter the graduate program. My info might be outdated.
-lol, I can’t leave this site forever, it is an entertainment to read the comments here :p
-I still believe you need to be familiar with the system/ issue before talking about it, my 3 months in ausmat wasn’t enough to comment more about aussie yr 12. But I believe anyone with spm shouldn’t have difficulty to do yr 12, the transition wasn’t hard
– according to the latest TIMES overall ranking, todai >Melbourne> qinghua /beida > other aussie uni
-you can be proud of and think highly of your STPM/ A level, but I feel it is inappropriate to call other system as a lower standard, or even to generalize the products of the system as no quality. Look at this case: both meiling & qingya go to the same high school and always share 1st / 2nd place in class, after spm with both 9As meiling continues with stpm, but qingya goes to matrix. Both of them end up in UM mechanical engineering, graduate with the same 3.8 cgpa, except meiling finishes a year later. do you still consider meiling as a better quality engineer than qingya just because she went thru stpm?
– how about engineers who go to American uni without any pre-u program, even worse no? (crying emoticon) to apply into good school in us, they don’t only look at high school cgpa / spm, but your personal statement, scholastic aptitude test SAT, volunteer work, research experience etc. as jkl said, it is not about “presumed knowledge”, but the ability to learn new concepts
-I still remember this conversation between Indian and American friends during our material sc class: Mumbai boy-we already covered this subject in high school. And the American replied- but that doesn’t make you any better than us. Indeed, the Indian boy wasn’t any better than us! So why so proud of your toughest-in-the-world stpm/foundation?
-but I have to admit, xyz I admire your argumentative skills 🙂
btw, look at this
http://www.imm.ox.ac.uk/new-science-and-nobel-prize-winners-wimm-day-2015
http://www.nst.com.my/node/79093
she cant be msian malay right? but.. she is…
wait… she didnt go through stpm.. must be one of those who enter oxford from back door lorrrrr
xyz, I just state the facts, and you mis-interpret them. Either you choose to twist them, or you really don’t know the system. Cases in point, the Oxbridge selection process. And the Australian graduate entry selection process, and why they do it that way.
You obviously like to argue, and twist facts to suit your arguments. I stop here, it is pointless. Others may benefit from the facts I have explained above.
Xyz maybe a uni in Japan might interest you 😉
jkl, no hard feelings please.
“xyz, I just state the facts, and you mis-interpret them. Either you choose to twist them, or you really don’t know the system. Cases in point, the Oxbridge selection process. And the Australian graduate entry selection process, and why they do it that way.”
Oxbridge selection process as you mentioned, give a ‘low’ entry requirement of 3As or 2A1A*, but similarly states that ATAR must be 98.5 and above. Just wonder what does that means. Do you mean to say that, once you get a conditional offer, if you score 3Ds you can still get in, or for that matter ATAR 95%? No way right? So how is this twisting your ‘facts’ when you’re the one saying that they don’t rely on A level result?
“You obviously like to argue, and twist facts to suit your arguments. I stop here, it is pointless. Others may benefit from the facts I have explained above.”
Again, you mentioned Australian entry requirement etc, but at the same time I’m just posting some figures here. If what you said is correct, then 1/3 of the Oz med school places is for undergrad, they must take in 3500 / 3 = 1166 students. Minus maybe 1/3 for overseas and under privilege students. So there are 800 places up for grab. Tell me, if the 800 local students are all at 99.5, unless you’ve 1million people doing Y12 each year!!!
0.5% of 1 mil = 5000
Half of them doing art = 2500
Half of the science students doing medic = 1250
When the numbers do not support what you said, it has become I who twist the fact then???? You can point out which of my estimation is way off, else the maths do not seem to agree with you.
This is broad estimation in that 50% of the science students choose to do medic, which I find it puzzling since Oz might not be as ‘doctor crazy’ as a 3rd world country like Malaysia.
What about those who enter the graduate program? Are they at ATAR 99% also? Find me the number of students to fill in the remaining 2333 places please… As I said much earlier, it’s not a good comparison when most of the med places are meant as graduate study.
What facts of yours that I’ve twisted? This is the ability to do critical thinking and some extremely simple analysis. I hope none of us are falling into hypes. I’m sure this analysis is new to a lot of you who only heard of good things when mentioning about Oz med schools but never really try to analyze it for yourself.
Conditional offers are conditional on achieving or exceeding the state condition, why talk about D’s?
99.5 is Monash Clayton cut off, why extrapolate to other universities?
Is that not twisting?
jkl “Conditional offers are conditional on achieving or exceeding the state condition, why talk about D’s?”
I thought you’re the one who said exactly the below
“That is why the elitist UK unis (Oxbridge) have given up on the A levels results and have their own ways of selection.”
Just what do you mean by ‘given up on the A levels results’ ?????
Who is twisting what???????
If it’s not based on A levels results then what is the conditional offer talking about??????
You should put it as this:
Oxbridge do not take in students based on A levels results ALONE!!!!
Simple as that, and that applies to a lot of uni that ask for interview, as I replied to you mentioning not only uni in UK and Oz does that, plenty of places do have entry exams and interview!
I understand it all along, just to point you the obvious, which you took it so personally and can’t see the obvious.
“99.5 is Monash Clayton cut off, why extrapolate to other universities?
Is that not twisting?”
Oh, did I not mention to you it’s not a good way to determine the standard? I wrote the below in one of the reply to you, which obviously you choose to ignore.
“Agreed, but I think we’re not doing an effective comparison, knowing that most of Oz med school are graduate program. Please read my next reply.”
Judging by the fact that you’re not too happy when I mentioned Oz standard being not too high, I guess you must be a Monash graduate then… 😦 And yes, I told you my friend was ‘qualified’ to apply for a place there.
Can you also please tell me if there’s graduate program in Monash? I thought you said it’s purely undergrad?
But one last thing, just tell me, with all the figures not in agreement with you, do you think the ‘net’ in Oz med schools are too loose???????
engr:
“-I still believe you need to be familiar with the system/ issue before talking about it, my 3 months in ausmat wasn’t enough to comment more about aussie yr 12. But I believe anyone with spm shouldn’t have difficulty to do yr 12, the transition wasn’t hard”
Ok, you tasted it first hand, it’s a smooth transition. Unfortunately you didn’t
“– according to the latest TIMES overall ranking, todai >Melbourne> qinghua /beida > other aussie uni”
Please read from one of my reply to jkl. How many people (people outside of your own country, that is) will cite a scientific research paper in Chinese or Japanese? How many foreign students do Qing Hua, Beida, or Tokyo U take in as compare to education exporter in Oz? The last time I checked, TIMES put a weight of 7.5% for international students (and/or) international teacher. They also have a high weightage on how many times a paper is cited by international students etc… Also, just how many foreigners are proficient in conducting courses in Chinese/Japanese? That’s why I said the uni ranking is heavily skewed to those which language of instruction is in English. If you do not trust the standard of Asian uni, just look at how the uni in France, Germany, Italy is ranked. Look at uni such as Berlin, Heidelberg and Gottingen. You mean those unis are worse of than the likes of Melbourne and Sydney and ANU???? This must be the joke of the millenium!!!! hahahaha…
“-you can be proud of and think highly of your STPM/ A level, but I feel it is inappropriate to call other system as a lower standard, or even to generalize the products of the system as no quality. Look at this case: both meiling & qingya go to the same high school and always share 1st / 2nd place in class, after spm with both 9As meiling continues with stpm, but qingya goes to matrix. Both of them end up in UM mechanical engineering, graduate with the same 3.8 cgpa, except meiling finishes a year later. do you still consider meiling as a better quality engineer than qingya just because she went thru stpm?”
Unless someone is so desperate to complete his/her study and quickly get a job, I’m just curious how come people would see learning MORE KNOWLEDGE as a wastage????!!!!!
Just ask yourself these questions.
-If they are doing mechanical engineering, would Qingya have the knowledge of Biology and Chemistry of Meiling? No.
-If they are doing medic, would Qingya have the knowledge of Physics and maths of Meiling? Again no.
In fact, my dentist/orthodontist example tells you EXACTLY my point.
“– how about engineers who go to American uni without any pre-u program, even worse no? (crying emoticon) to apply into good school in us, they don’t only look at high school cgpa / spm, but your personal statement, scholastic aptitude test SAT, volunteer work, research experience etc. as jkl said, it is not about “presumed knowledge”, but the ability to learn new concepts”
Yes, see the above. A genius will be a genius, and you should point out that Einstein didn’t do A level/STPM as well 🙂 🙂 But what I’m telling you is about the general group, none genius but slightly above average and hardworking type! I believe plenty of people fall into this group.
So you can learn new concepts, bravo. But never forget that you do not have the solid background on some other areas. Understanding the concepts is far from the ability to put it to good use. And how often do you see new concepts in biology is being taught in mechanical engineering? 🙂 🙂
“-I still remember this conversation between Indian and American friends during our material sc class: Mumbai boy-we already covered this subject in high school. And the American replied- but that doesn’t make you any better than us. Indeed, the Indian boy wasn’t any better than us! So why so proud of your toughest-in-the-world stpm/foundation?”
You know what? Why is the stpm is the ‘toughest-in-the-world” is because a lot of people wanted to take the short cut, and a lot of people wanted to “sell” you education service (short of degree cert) and EVERYONE seems to be infected by the “learning more is going to cut short my life by one year, going for a tougher exam is a waste of time since there’s an obviously easier path to take and it can bring me to fancy uni” disease!!!
I was not proud. I don’t have to. I just want to stress that the standard should be higher.
Finally, I find it funny you have to bring up the racial crap again. I though both you and I agree on reaching a balance between meritocracy and affirmative action???? 😦
aha, you got it. I’d have not brought up any racial crap here if the commenters did not start it, instead of discussing about medical issue and sharing useful info.. some commenters grandiosely comment ‘ bumi this and bumi that ’ as if they are the best students/people in the world with world class recognition. the superior I-am-better-than-you and you-are-smart-because-you-have-Chinese-bit mentality need to change.. tho, I may sound like super bumi/malay, I still visit my jiujiu, yima and non-malay cousins occasionally.
between SPM and matrix, I still don’t see any problem for people to use an alternative way to achieve their dream as longs as it doesn’t jeopardize their professional capacity. And by saying this does not mean I would settle for lesser quality. Also worth mentioning, I also don’t support those self-recognized pre-uni programs run by private colleges. I bet many would have not done stpm if they were given other option (overseas scholarship with an alternative pre-u program) after spm.
I would also like to highlight that many are not fortunate enough to have rich parents to support them for an extra year in school, they would do their best to get job as soon as possible to take turn to support the family, and trust me this has been one of the factors for some students when deciding which course/ profession to go for
Interesting post, doc !
A good medical student does :
1. always revise basic sciences (anatomy, physiology, biochem…)
2. divide among themselves and cover the whole ward
3. clerk clerk clerk all patients which they have to cover and follow their progress until discharged
4. practice examination on each patient
5. clerk patients at clinic and present to doctors until the last patient
6. study after clerking each case to enhance the knowledge
7. always follow ward rounds with specialists
8. always get a chance to do procedure like venepuncture, IV line, CBD,….
What a bad medical student do :
1. missing in action
2. clerk cases because they have to present during bed side teaching
3. poor knowledge of basic science
4. go inside OT or following clinic just to fill in log book
5. copying others logbook so that theirs look good in front of lecturers
6. never have a chance to do simple procedure during clinical years which is impossible…
and they claimed they are the best just because they pass the exam
(this is the current trend of medical students)
hahaha, well said! Most of them enter medical school for wrong reasons. Thus, they just want to pass exams similar to their schooling days.
I am a non bumi .im not good in eng either.do u think eng is so important to be a doc?do you think I can be a doc if I say I love reading n studying so much?I applied for a public uni n I got it(foundation in med).
Reading and studying does not make you a good doctor. You need intelligence and analytical thinking. English is a necessity in medicine but not necessary to be a good Queen’s English. You will improve on your english along the way since most of your readings will be in english
even worse, they go around blogs and claim to be smart , reality is they dont even have a clue how housemenship like in malaysia
It is very disheartened that they are behaving like this MIA, copying logbooks, very reluctant to do ward work….
To be a good doctor, they should prepare themselves during student life.
With this kind of attitude, they will be very stressed during housemanship and keep complaining because of
1. poor presentation skills and history taking
2. limited knowledge
3. no experience doing simple procedures
4. missing in action like what they did during student life
Why yr posts are so pessimist ?
Being a doctor can save lifes, but you sound like preventing our generations to join such wonderful career
That’s because the truth always hurts! I am telling you the reality out there and why you should not do medicine for wrong reasons! Try going to any uni and do a simple survey. 70-80% do medicine for guaranteed job and money! Saving life’s is one thing and living a life of your own is another story all together.
Pessimism is good. If after all these negative information, someone still wants to be a doctor, then good, we know he is the real stuff. Hopefully those with the wrong motives and expectations will not proceed and mess up the profession.
There will be enough youth with the ability and interest to fill all medical school places.We only need 3000 new doctors a year from now on, easily supplied from IPTA and the good well established IPTS. The list of recognised foreign Med schools needs to be reviewed and shrunken.
Naaahhhh, you just can’t be too cruel to the Gen-Y. They need a lot of care and pampering. Can’t scare them too much. They are labeled with ‘Fragile, Handle with Care!’ sticker 🙂 🙂
Clarification on Australian uni. They requirement for foreign students are lower then locals as they are full fee paying and on a different quota. The scores in the manual is only a guide. It says that you need an ATAR of 95 for med but in reality it is usually at least 98.5 above as they take in from the highest ATAR until places are full and you are not penalised by preference. Your chance of getting uni of Melbourne as first choice is the same as someone who put uni of Melbourne as second choice but did not receive their first choice uni. U which do not need UMAT will need ATAR above 99 or special circumstances.
Australia year 12 is different in all states therefore ATAR standardises the result and is not a grade or a score. It is definitely acceptable overseas. No one will say it is equivalent to STPM ( what is? ) but I would say it is much better then matrix.
You cannot enter University of Melbourne Medicine with “ATAR” scores. It is a Graduate entry programme, and the selection process looks at GAMSAT and your 1st degree results.
Just picked a uni for example not referring to course applied for
Btw you can enter medicine with ATAR via chancellors scholar programme guaranteed entry without GAMSAT. ATAR above 99.9
That is because all the graduate entry med schools in Oz realised they are missing out on the top students, the majority of whom choose to go into the undergraduate entry med schools. To harness this group, graduate entry med schools have introduced several programmes to attract the top scorers. Melbourne’s “chancellor scholar” is one, another is the double degree programmes, eg UQ’s BSc/BA/BMedSc-MBBS 6 year double degree, limited to students with OP1. A third is “guaranteed” progression pathway, when students are guaranteed entry into graduate entry Medicine if they surpass a set CGPA at the 1st degree (usually BioMed) level.
There is much debate in Australia on this matter, as the system runs both undergrad and graduate medical programmes concurrently. It is not an issue in North America, as all their programmes are graduate entry.
http://www.godyears.net/2015/05/why-i-will-never-allow-my-child-to.html?m=1
Greetings doctor. May I know where is better to study medicine? IMU, Monash or NUMed?
All are OK
Dr, I heard many of my friends studying medic in IMU blaming that their lecturers are lousy. The lecturers themselves can’t even understand the thing they teach. Medical students there often do self study. Moreover, they get to attend one or two hours each day which I think is ridiculous for a medic course. How true is it? Among all the private medic uni, which uni do u prefer most? How about Perdana university? I am looking forward to your reply. Thank you in advance.
Hi Yii,it’s either that your friends are way way too good for the lecturers or that they are spot on.if you don’t mind Shah Alam,might like to consider MSU-International Medical School a try!.I don’t know about IMU though but in MSU IMS,you have to pass a medical test for legibility.Excellent CGPA 4 may not necessarily sail you in to MSU medical school.The classes are held throughout. The day till 4pm daily for the 1st year and there are homeworks or,DSL directed self learning modules type of homeworks daily that you are required to complete for the whole week for submission as part of your 1st year academic learning program.Then again,no learning Institution is perfect!.Good Luck!
One more thing about MSU-IMS is this that the university is building a teaching hospital cum MSU Hospital.Dont take my word for it but go and have a good look at the site of the construction and ask around.All the best!
I think it depends on the curriculum. Nowadays most medical schools conduct self directed learning where lecturers are just facilitators. This type of program may be good in developed countries where students are more matured and already has a basic degree but in Malaysia, it is difficult to conduct as such. Every university have their own problems. I rather go to IMU than Perdana
That has been a recurring complain with IMU, that they have very little contact time with lecturers. Paga has explained already why. I just need to say that IMU has been sending students to partner universities for 20 years, and the majority of these students have coped with Phase 1 well, adapted into the partner Universities’ clinical programme well with no deficit in knowledge, and graduated without problem. This is with the background of a not commonly known fact, that in the PMS stream, 20-25% of students will drop out/get held back/failed out/converted into local stream by the end of Phase 1 before they match to PMS.
Therefore, I think the right Malaysians, in the right environment, and given the right guidance, can learn independently, and that is good training for the rest of their working life where self CPD is life long.
It is only some Universities that feel the students need to be spoon fed, and perhaps, with many mediocre students taken in, that their students may have a problem with self learning, and need spoon feeding.
Jkl, in that case, why don’t the students of all courses just do their own study at home? Can save the tuition fee some more.
By asking this question, it shows you are not familiar with medical education in particular and education in general. Self learning in this case is not non directed learning that you can randomly do yourself. It means self research, and learning based on specific directions set by a syllabus, supervised by a tutor. The opposite is taught learning, the traditional “sitting in a lecture hall listening to a lecture copying notes” method. Otherwise known as spoon feeding. Traditionally, that is the type of learning in Malaysian schools, and this is carried on in tertiary education in many universities.
IMU employs a lot of such learning, and hence after about 2 or 3 contact hours of traditional lectures, projects and group works are given, and the rest of the time is spend on these projects. The outcome is presented at the end to a supervising tutor.
Hence parents, and the uninitiated, all see the 2 hours of contact a day, and say IMU is not teaching their students. Students used to the Malaysian education system will find this method new, and can have adaptation issues. Those who have done IB or SAM/AUSMAT will be more familiar with this method.
Jkl, try to think from a different perspective, why does IMU want their lecturers to teach only 1-2 hours a day? Most probably because they want to cut down the cost spent on lecturers so that they can EARN more. That’s the reason. It’s too hard to tell the students their motive behind, so they come out with the reason saying that self directed learning should be the way of learning among students. Don’t you think this should be the real reason behind?
Self directed learning is the norm in many medical schools nowadays. Even Monash does that.Lecturers are just facilitators. Even in Monash, there are NO lectures from year 3 onwards. Mostly are Problem Based Learning, which in Monash Australia , are even conducted by paramedics. However, I always felt that these type of teaching is not yet suitable for our students as we are spoon fed since school days.
No. Such limited contact hours teaching systems exist in many med schools.
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Oh how true your predictions come to be Dr Paga.
It wasn’t a “loan”, it was a “scholarship”, advertised so attractively by the dean and a few subject coordinators, but terribly, it turned into a scam, hence becoming the heavy “burden” for many ex-AUCMS students after the institute collapsed even up till now, leaving many students with uncertainties in the coming days, months, years.
Yeahh nowadays, also having the same problem where too many undergraduates student with least vacant to do housemanship . The worst part is, they have to wait about 6 months – 2 years before they can start doing internship… JPA only for bumis? Perlu ke racis sampai macam ini? Dianiaya di negara sendiri… indian n chineese ppl isnt Malaysian ?
I think you should read in more detail. Scholarship are predominantly given to bumis with some to non-bumis. When I got 8As in SPM, in 1980s, scholarship JPA for medicine is only given to bumis