More universities needed to resolve selection problems

 MANY parents and teachers have voiced their frustration over the selection process of this year’s school leavers into higher tertiary institutions. 

From my observation, many of these school leavers are those who achieved good grades into universities but the courses which they have applied for are very competitive like engineering courses. 

The student may have scored way above the cut-off mark, for example a GPA of 3.4. 

There can be 20 to 30 students who scored 3.6 to 4.0. Due to limited spaces, when it is scaled down, the poor student gets to miss out. The worst fact is that it is a seasonal change. 

One particular year you may have all the cream coming through with the highest GPAs from 3.6 to 4.0 that students with a GPA of 3.4 to 3.5 would miss out. The next year, the highest GPA of school leavers who applied could be 3.5.

Which means students with GPAs such as 3.0 to 3.4 would have been selected.

This comes back to the Government to build more universities and tertiary institutions to cater for increased number of school leavers. 

This should be a priority than assisting other countries to host the Pacific Games which we already spent fortunes hosting it ourselves.

Jaws Mahn, Via email