Less than 10% of the total 485,160 Year Six pupils who sat for the Ujian Pencapaian Sekolah Rendah (UPSR) exam scored all As this year.
Education Ministry director-general Datuk Seri Abdul Ghafar Mahmud said the 9.48% accounted for 46,012 pupils, marking a slight decline of 0.54% from 2010's 10.02%.
Last year, 48,327 of 482,334 candidates obtained all As.
"This is just a small drop compared to those getting at least the minimum C Grade which has increased by 1.07% from 54.38% in 2010 to 55.45% this year.
"Such fluctuation in results is normal," he said announcing the overall results of the UPSR exam at the ministry here today.
However, he said, the overall performance of UPSR candidates this year is the best since the past four years when the National Average Grade (GPN) was first introduced.
In addition, he said, the percentage of candidates who got below than the minimum level (grades D or E or combination of both) for all subjects – has decreased by 0.51% from 3.39% last year to 2.88% this year.
Abdul Ghafar also noted there was a smaller gap between rural and urban schools this year compared to last year, attributing it to efforts, such as, the School Improvement Programme, Excellent Teachers and School Inspectorate.
“The gap between rural and urban schools has been narrowed down from 0.16 to 0.15 GPN value. I believe rural schools have improved a lot, from 2.40 GPN value last year to 2.38 this year,” he added.
He said national schools scored a better percentage of those obtaining A Grade in Bahasa Melayu (Pemahaman [Comprehension]) this year, which was by 1.9%, while in Bahasa Melayu (Penulisan [Composition]), the percentage showed a decline, by 0.6%, from last year.
However, the performance of vernacular schools, in terms of A Grade achievement, improved for both the Bahasa Melayu papers, by 1.3% and 1.9% respectively.
For the English language subject, Abdul Ghafar said, the Subject Average Grade (GPMP) value was maintained at 2.74 this year, similar to that of last year, but the percentage of A Grade scorers dropped by 0.5%.
As for vernacular schools, there was a decline in terms of both GPMP and percentage of A scorers, by 0.05 and 1.2% respectively.
For Mathematics, A scorers in both national and vernacular schools dropped by 0.3% compared to last year but its overall GPMP increased by 0.01.
On the other hand, the overall result for Science showed a decline in terms of GPMP and percentage of A scorers at 0.03 and 2% respectively.
The syllabus of Bahasa Melayu and English subjects differ between national and vernacular schools but the syllabus for Mathematics and Science subjects are the same.
