SPM success celebrated, but absentees still overlooked

As school leavers got their SPM results recently, education must not only uplift those who excel. It must also refuse to abandon those who fall behind, writes TESL student Irham Zulkernain.

As the 2025 SPM results were recently announced, the Education Ministry unveiled a new milestone – 13,779 candidates achieving straight As, a slight reduction from the previous year’s 14,179. At the same time, the director-general of Education, Datuk Dr Mohd Azam Ahmad, highlighted a reduction in absentees, from 8,076 in 2024 to 7,099.

These are commendable achievements. But they are not enough.

We rightly celebrate our top students – those who earned straight As and those who succeeded by their own measure. These are young Malaysians with pathways to universities, scholarships, and upward mobility. In celebrating them, we are celebrating the nation’s future.

But in doing so, we overlook an invisible group.

The absentees are often reduced to statistics, numbers used to demonstrate improvement. Yet each figure represents a young Malaysian who missed out on one of the most important examinations of their life – individuals who will continue to live, work, and contribute to this country for decades to come.

Why, then, are they not being addressed with the same urgency?

We celebrate the reduction – from 8,076 to 7,099 – but in doing so, we forget that last year’s 8,076 did not simply disappear. They remain, carrying the long-term consequences of missed opportunity. They have merely been replaced by a new cohort of 7,099 candidates. Across two years alone, thousands of young Malaysians have been left behind, even as we celebrate incremental progress.

If we are serious about education, then our proactive measures must be equally serious.

The Education Ministry highlighted a continued focus on student attendance. While this recent reduction is a testament to the Students at Risk Intervention Task Force and initiatives like Ziarah Cakna, the fact remains that thousands of young Malaysians are still missing their primary gateway to higher education and formal career paths.

Effective support begins with understanding root causes. On the ground, I have witnessed students forced to work to support their families. I have seen others withdraw from school to care for sick parents. These are not choices, they are circumstances. And this is not their battle. Their battleground should be in the classroom, not on the roadside selling pisang goreng. Their sole duty should be education.

Real corrective action must begin early, in Form 1, or even before.

More importantly, it must be meaningful. It is not enough to tell a student to attend school if they cannot afford food or lack transportation. Systemic rescue must address these barriers before they push students out of the system entirely.

Current efforts often amount to last-minute appeals – teachers visiting students to say, ‘You have SPM this year, please come.’ But a student who has been absent for years cannot be rescued by a single visit weeks before the exam.

Otherwise, we are not intervening. We are reacting, and in doing so, we are failing.

What is needed now is not another announcement, but a comprehensive diagnostic study – one that goes beyond surface-level statistics. This study must answer specific, actionable questions: How do we financially support students forced into labour? How do we build safety nets for young caregivers? How do we address unmet learning and mental health needs?

The Education Ministry should lead this study in partnership with the Department of Social Welfare, and it must involve ground-level research – interviews with absentee students themselves, their families, teachers, and community leaders. Not surveys conducted from an office, but real conversations in the communities most affected.

Such a study could be completed within 12 months. Crucially, its findings must not become another report gathering dust. Establish clear accountability: recommendations presented to Parliament, with a mandatory timeline for implementation.

Create an inter-agency task force to coordinate action across existing programmes – the Social Welfare Department, state zakat institutions, and corporate social responsibility initiatives. Malaysia has the resources. What we lack is coordination and early action.

I care about this not because SPM is everything, but because it represents opportunity. Every absentee represents a young Malaysian denied that opportunity – not by lack of ability, but by lack of support. That should keep us awake at night, not celebrate.

These absentees are more than just this year’s data points. They are young people whose educational journeys were interrupted by circumstances beyond their control. The fear is not that they will fail in life – many will succeed through other paths. The fear is that we, as a nation, will forget them the moment the celebrations end.

A reduction in numbers is not success. Success is when there are no numbers left to reduce.

Education must not only uplift those who excel. It must also refuse to abandon those who fall behind.

Irham Zulkernain hails from Kelantan and is a TESL student at Universiti Teknologi Mara.