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PUTRAJAYA: The practice of listing top students who excel in the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) is back after an absence of a few years.

This year, Gladys Tan Yee Kim from SMK Green Road in Kuching emerged the top SPM student in the country with a score of 10A+’s.

The practice was stopped as the ministry was moving towards a more holistic education system and there were suicide cases involving several students who did not perform well in public examinations.

Announcing the list, Education director-general Tan Sri Alimuddin Mohd Dom added that the country’s top school was SM Sains Seremban (see list).

He said a total of 7,987 students obtained a combination of A+, A and A- in all the subjects taken in the SPM last year, adding that 214 students from government schools and 41 students who were either from private schools or private candidates, obtained A+ in all subjects taken.

“We have implemented a more detailed grading system starting from last year’s SPM and an A+ grade is considered a super distinction,” he told reporters when announcing the analysis of the SPM and Sijil Tinggi Agama Malaysia (STAM) 2009 results at the ministry yesterday.

Alimuddin added that A+ was the highest possible grade, which meant students would have scored more than 90% in the subject (see chart).

Students are now graded according to A+, A, A-, B+, B, C+, C, D, E and G compared to previously when the grades were from 1A to 9G.

On the number of subjects taken by students, he said 3,052 students sat for 10 subjects, 2,230 took 11, 1,700 took nine while only one student took 17, four took 16, and 13 took 15.

Alimuddin said 538 students with special needs were among the 465,853 who sat for the SPM.

He said Ng Jin Lui from SMK Gajah Berang in Malacca, who is visually impaired, was the top special needs student in the country with four A+’s, three A’s and four A-’s.

In Science, English and Moral Education, Alimuddin said rural students did better than their urban counterparts.

For the overall results, Alimuddin said 364,046 students obtained the SPM certificate this year compared to 347,443 in 2008.

Of the total who obtained the certificate, 199,155 passed all their subjects compared to 181,419 in 2008.

On the overall achievement of schools for SPM in relation to National Key Result Areas, Alimuddin said a majority of them were in the excellent, good and moderate categories.

“About 143 (6.7%) of the schools are in the ‘with potential category’,” he said.

Meanwhile, he said 3,138 students obtained the STAM certificate with the minimum grade of Maqbul (Pass).

“Their achievements mean they will be able to obtain a place at Al-Azhar University in Egypt and other institutions,” he said.