spm level.....12 years of school from age 5........

their basic college is part our pre-u and part early ealry degree level.....they do not have pre-u like the british a levels/stpm.....

there is no public school exam for uni entry, unlike most of the commonwealth countries.....a high school 'diploma' is of little use as far as uni entry is concerned......hence they have difficulty in selecting good students for critical courses......thus all the critical courses are post graduate level.....they use the college degree cgpa (and sometimes additional exams) as basis for selection into professional courses in graduate school.....

This post has been edited by limeuu: Aug 27 2011, 09:33 PM

if you have just the american high school 'diploma', and want to enter msian/commonwealth universities, you will need to complete a pre-u course, be it stpm, a-levels, sam/ausmate, or a foundation........

that is partly because there isn't any way of benchmarking your academic ability from the diploma.......

and partly because you could be entering courses which requires you to have a college degree in america.........

o-levels is the same as spm.....and much more understood, in terms of extra-msia qualifications.....so there is nothing unusual in using o-levels as benchmarking equivalence........