SPM 2021 exam will be held in 2022

He said the oral and practical science tests for SPM 2021 would be held in February 2022 while the written examination in March 2022.

Radzi said the Ministry of Education (KPM) made the decision after taking into account the current situation and challenges that SPM 2021 candidates have to go through.

"KPM's experience in managing SPM 2020 allows us to move the period or date of the 2021 examination to 2022 and we are confident that all processes related to SPM 2021 will be able to run smoothly as was successfully implemented for SPM 2020," he said in a virtual press conference on the operation of schools.

Radzi said the implementation of SPM 2020 was challenging because KPM had never been through a pandemic situation since independence and many improvements had to be made and involving a large number of staff, numbering about 48,000 people.

"In its implementation, there was no history in how to implement the SPM in a pandemic.

"The Malaysian Examinations Board issued a fairly complete set of standard operating procedures (SOP). In the past, the distance between desks was 0.8 metres and we increased it to 1.5 metres and students who came although not necessarily positive but had a cough were placed in a special room with only three to four people until almost all the classrooms were used," he said.

He also said that in the past, teachers would gather to mark papers, but in SPM 2020, for the first time in the history of the country, marking of SPM 2020 papers was done online.

"That was not an easy task as more than five million examination papers need to be scanned one by one to be included in the system to enable online marking," he said.

Radzi said the SPM 2020 results could also be checked online compared to before when students had to go to their schools to check.

The results of the SPM 2020 examination will be announced on June 10 starting at 10 am through two methods, the first online at the link myresult1.moe.gov.my or myresult2.moe.gov.my for full results.

Checks can also be made via the short-messaging service (SMS) to get a summary of the SPM 2020 results by typing SPMNoKPAngkaGiliran and send to 68886.

A total of 401,105 candidates registered to sit for the SPM 2020 examination that was held from February 22 to March 25 this year.

Radzi also said that previously the SPM certificates would be printed about five or six months after the results came out but for the SPM 2020, the certificates would be printed after the results are out.

"This shows that within a short period, we have achieved many successes in meeting the challenges in holding SPM 2020 and making many improvements through its implementation," he said.