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ALL schools of various educational streams, including international schools, religious and those in the Unified Examination Certificate (UEC) stream, are required to pass Bahasa Melayu and History in SPM.
Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, stressed that the move will ease the controversy surrounding Bahasa Melayu as well as ensure that the requirements for admission to Public Universities is no longer be an issue.
“I explained the language requirement and demanded that all education systems in our country stipulate and make Bahasa Melayu mandatory according to the Ministry’s curriculum, including up to SPM.
“Whether in international schools, Malaysian children, without exception, are required to take the SPM Bahasa Melayu test and also Malaysian History,” he said when speaking at the National Education Plan 2026-2035 launching ceremony, today.
He said the same obligation also applies to religious schools and Maahad Tahfiz, which involve more than 400,000 students, in addition to the UEC stream.
According to Anwar, through this method, the path of students from international schools, religious schools or UEC to higher education is no longer an issue.
“We accept it as long as these conditions are accepted. I think the vast majority of people from all races, all districts agree… This country has established Bahasa Melayu as the official language,” he said.
In his speech, he also stressed the need to improve English proficiency as a second language and ensure that National Schools provide sufficient teachers, including for optional languages such as Chinese, Tamil and Arabic.
“The choice of Chinese, Tamil and Arabic must be available in schools… We hope that the never-ending language controversy can be resolved,” he said. – January 20, 2026