Compiled by TAN SIN CHOW and HANIS ZAINAL

MANY outstanding students, inclu­ding those who scored cumulative grade point average (CGPA) of 4.0, will not be guaranteed a place to study medicine at public universities, reported Sin Chew Daily.

Deputy Education Minister Teo Nie Ching said this was because the 11 public universities in the country could only accommodate 484 students for medical studies.

She said the ministry’s statistics showed there were 2,730 applicants this year, with 2,490 meeting the minimum requirement.

“Only two out of 10 applicants will be accepted. This means that only about 20% of the applicants will get to do medicine,” she was quoted by the daily as saying.

Teo was responding to complaints that there were those who scored straight As but were denied places in public universities to take up medical courses.

The Education Ministry, she said, would review those applications, but stressed that there would be no guarantee that the Government would be able to accept all the applicants into public universities.

Citing Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia as an example, she said each student pays only RM12,000 for a 10-semester medical course.

“But the actual fee is RM329,000, which means the Government has to subsidise 96% of the cost for each student,” she said.

> China Press reported that Tai­wa­nese singer-actor Jimmy Lin, who was on holiday with his family in Bali, felt strong tremors after nearby Lombok, another Indone­sian resort island, experienced a 7.0-magnitude quake on Sunday.

He immediately took to Facebook to report his safety to his fans.

Recalling the incident, Lin said his family of five rushed outdoors after feeling the tremblor.

“I even ran out to the sea to see whether there were any signs of water receding as there could be a possible tsunami. Hope everyone is safe and sound,” he said.

His fans were relieved upon knowing that he was safe, with some urging him to return to Tai­wan immediately.

The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.

