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THE SPM (Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia) exam is a gateway to many educational opportunities, and the Malaysian Examination Syndicate (MES) serves as its gatekeeper.

Despite the many innovations that MES has embraced, the frequency of the SPM exam has remained unchanged since the 1970s: It is still conducted at the end of the year, with an opportunity to repeat the Malay, History and Mathematics papers in July of the following year.

The Education Ministry and MES must work together to increase the frequency of the SPM exam to at least twice a year.

This would align the examination with other international examinations like the IGCSE (International General Certifi-cate of Secondary Education), which is conducted during both summer and winter sessions.

The IGCSE embraces the concept of retaking papers to improve grades, giving students opportunities to recover from setbacks.

In contrast, the SPM exam forces students to wait an entire year to repeat certain subjects.

For example, students who wish to pursue degrees in engineering or medicine often need to spend an additional year to sit for the SPM exam again to improve their Additional Mathematics or Physics grades.

Waiting almost 14 months for this opportunity is excessively long, especially in a fast-paced world.

For the July session, MES should expand the list of subjects students can sit for again to include Accounting, Addition-al Mathematics, Biology, Chemistry, Economics, English and Physics.

These subjects are often key requirements for admission into many programmes.

If students could sit for these papers and receive their results before the end of August, they would still have a chance to gain admission into tertiary institutions or other programmes by September of the same year instead of waiting another year.

That year is effectively lost due to the limited frequency of the SPM exam.

While cost, manpower and time constraints may be cited by MES as reasons for not increasing the frequency of the SPM exam, it must recognise that this is a crucial examination for many students. Stake-holders should therefore work together to remove this barrier.

FG

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