Leaked papers adversely affected UPSR exam takers' performance

There were fewer top scorers in the Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) this year, with 7.89 per cent of pupils scoring all A's compared to 9.15 per cent last year.

A total of 473,175 candidates had registered for the examination but only 460,407 sat for it and of these only 36,304 scored straight A's.

On the upside, Education director general Datuk Dr Khair Mohamad Yusof (pic) said this year's Average National Grade (GPN) was better than in 2011 (2.30) and 2012 (2.31)). The GPN decreased from 2.27 in 2013 to 2.29 this year.

GPN gauges candidates' performance in specific subjects, operates on a decreasing scale where a lower score indicates better candidate achievement.

Observers speculate that the leak could have affected the students' performance to a certain extent as they were frustrated with having to re-sit the leaked papers.

The UPSR exam kick-started from 9 to 11 September this year with setbacks caused by leaks in the Science, English, Mathematics, and Tamil language papers. Since the incident, a re-examination of the exam procedures has been done to prevent exam leaks from happening.

Related news:

• Nearly 500,000 students affected by exam leak
• UPSR Tamil and Maths papers also leaked
• Malaysian Education Ministry to keep an eye on UPSR re-examination
• Education ministry tightens security to avoid more exam paper leaks
• Officials might be banned from using communication gadgets over exam leakage concerns