UPSR fiasco embarrassing, says Muhyiddin

The Primary School Achievement Test (UPSR) fiasco was something very embarrassing as Malaysia is seen as a country as having among the best education systems in the world, Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said.

Muhyiddin, who is also Education Minister, said he regretted leaks of examination papers were still happening when the Education Ministry had long established a sound education system.

"This something I can say is very embarrassing, it (leaks) is still happening," he said when opening the National Union of Teaching Profession's (NUTP) tri-annual delegates' conference at a hotel here today.

Last Wednesday, the Malaysian Examinations Syndicate (MES) had announced that this year's UPSR Science 018, 028, 038 papers which the students were to sit the next day were found to have been leaked and thus postponed the sitting pending the issuing of new question papers.

On Thursday, Second Education Minister Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh said the English Language 1 and 2 papers, which the pupils had aready sat for, were also found to have been leaked and were thus cancelled.

Thereafter, the MES announced that the students would have to resit the papers on Sept 30.