Photo shows Raden Zul Ezkandar, who is eyeing a spot in UIA after his SPM case has been settled.
BINTULU (July 5): The mother of the student, whose Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) examination results for Bahasa Melayu (BM) were marked with ‘Tidak Hadir’ (Absent) status, hopes that such incident would not befall other people’s children in the future.
Dayang Rawdiah Awang Mahmud also stressed that what happened to her son Raden Zul Ezkandar Raden Bustari must not be taken lightly by the relevant parties.
The 17-year-old teenager had the results of his BM paper and oral examinations marked ‘Tidak Hadir’, despite him having actually undergone both tests.
The case was considered solved when he finally obtained B+ for the paper examination and ‘Excellent’ for the oral examination.
Raden Zul Ezkandar was a private SPM 2021 candidate, who sat for the public examination at Institut Tahfiz Bintulu.
His ‘Tidak Hadir’ plight immediately went viral on social media after Dayang Rawdiah wrote about it on Facebook.
“This mistake should not have happened in the first place. SPM is a very important agendum in determining the direction of a student; a ticket for them to book a place at an institution of higher learning,” she said when contacted.
It is made known that Raden Zul Ezkandar is applying for a spot at the International Islamic University Antarabangsa (UIA) in Kuala Lumpur.
On her viral Facebook post, Dayang Rawdiah said the main reason for it was not only to highlight her son’s situation, but also to raise awareness about the fate of the children from less-fortunate families in the rural areas should this ever happen to them.
“Imagine if these children suffered the same fate, given the ‘Absent’ status twice – how could they fight if the parents were not from the educated group?” she stressed.
Dayang Rawdiah, 51, also said in such a case, the local community leaders, longhouse chieftains and village headmen must be able to help and in this respect, she highlighted the importance of them knowing the proper channels to be used to resolve it.
“The examination board should do random checking first before releasing the results: choosing 10 per cent of the cases, doing a little work on the ground, not relying too much on the online system, and always making sure that the system gets regular upgrading,” she said.
Dayang Rawdiah also believed that what happened to her son was not an isolated case; she was sure that it had occurred before.
“I decided to make this issue viral because when the checking was done, it came back with the same reason which shouldn’t be so, as if there was no cross-checking with the place where he took the exam.
“Again, I hope that the examination board and the Ministry of Education would run some random checks before releasing the SPM results because the damage after that would impose a massive impact in terms of the time wasted and the cost incurred by the government.
“This would also cause unnecessary stress to the officers at the District Education Office, as they’re the ones who have to deal with enraged parents.”
Dayang Rawdiah also expressed hope that after the issue had gone viral, it would open the eyes of those in charge to be more transparent and meticulous in carrying out their duties.