In a letter to FMT, Faiz Hussin said students in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia’s (UKM) Permata Pintar programme in 2025 did not excel in the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) examination.
He highlighted that Permata Pintar recorded a “miserable” school average grade (gred purata sekolah, or GPS) of 2.12, placing it outside the top 50. “If these are our brightest minds, why are they failing to shine?” he asked.
By contrast, Kedah-based Akademi Sains Pendang reportedly topped the SPM rankings with an average grade of 0.91, according to an unofficial list.
GPS is calculated by averaging points assigned to grades on an increasing scale, starting from zero for an A+, one for an A, two for an A-, up until nine for a G. Lower GPS figures indicate better performance.
Faiz said few achievements in Malaysian education were as prestigious as securing a spot in Permata Pintar, which selects the top 0.025% of primary school pupils — roughly 100 out of 400,000 candidates each year.
Yet they could not get places in the world’s top universities. “The only honest question left is: what is it for?” said Faiz.
Faiz said that at a Permata Pintar town hall meeting, the mother of a pupil did not receive an answer when she asked about the programme’s key performance indicators.
Other parents called for a clear, measurable goal: securing places in the global top 50 universities. “To date, there has been no response. No KPI. No public commitment. Silence,” he said.
Faiz also highlighted structural flaws with the programme, where students complete the SPM syllabus by Year 3 but are not allowed to sit for the exam until the end of Year 5. The two-year gap means much of what they learned is forgotten, he said.
Meanwhile, students spend Years 4 and 5 of the programme on an American high school diploma, a qualification not recognised by any public or private university in Malaysia. It is recognised by only UKM, which Faiz said “artificially limits” students’ options.
UKM declined to comment when contacted on the allegations concerning the Permata Pintar programme until it receives further guidance from the education ministry. FMT has since reached out to the ministry for comments.
Conflict of interests
Faiz said approximately 70% of Permata Pintar graduates end up at UKM, where they are enrolled in the ASASIpintar foundation programme or directly into non-professional degree courses.
He lamented that these students, with proper guidance, could attend top-notch universities such as Oxford and Cambridge in the UK and Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US.
“Instead, they find themselves in a foundation programme at a university not ranked in the global top 100, taking courses described by parents as sub-par. Worse, a majority cannot even pursue professional degrees like engineering or medicine.
“For a programme whose stated objective is to produce excellence in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, this is a catastrophic failure,” he added.
Faiz also questioned if there was a conflict of interest on UKM’s part, saying it could generate more fees by enrolling Permata Pintar graduates in its foundation programme.
He argued that the programme traps bright students in a “closed loop” not because of a lack of ability, but because it was designed to keep them in the system.
“The original promise of Permata Pintar was to produce Malaysia’s next generation of scientists, inventors, industry captains and global leaders. Instead, we are producing frustrated parents and underplaced students.
“This is not a story of individual failure, but of systemic failure in a programme that selects the best yet refuses to let them fly,” he added.