Chinese students `not excluded'

Malaysia's education minister, Tan Sri Musa Mohamad, has denied that an ethnic quota system was denying large numbers of top-scoring students entry to university. He said reports that many ethnic-Chinese applicants were being kept out of college were based on a misunderstanding over the number of students in 2001-2002.

Musa claimed that it was not true that there had been occasions when places at universities were kept vacant because they were not taken up by ethnic Bumiputeras under the quota system.

In fact, he said, it had been a yearly phenomenon that many eligible Bumiputera students were denied entry due to insufficient places. He also denied claims that unqualified Bumiputera students were gaining entry.