Ok, maybe I am being sour grapes. But I have never, and will never, see the point of sitting for 21 subjects for SPM (that's apparently the maximum number of subjects you can sit for).

So it really tickled me to read this article in the Star about how this 53-year old man and his 13-year old son claimed to have sat for the SPM exam together, AND scored 24 A1s.

Me thinks other people are getting fed up of reading about SPM results, and kiasu students scoring 16 A1s too.

Heh.

Claims of father and son getting 24 1As in SPM false, says official (oh, the horror!)

IPOH: It was a first of a different kind for Perak when education officers were alerted to a report of a father and son who claimed to have obtained 24 1As for their SPM examination.

The 53-year-old man, seeking publicity in the Tamil Nesan daily, claimed to have sat for the exams at a well-known school here with his 13-year-old son and both achieved 100% marks in all the 24 subjects.

State Education director Datuk Mohammed Zakaria Mohd Noor said his officers had investigated the matter after S.B. Bala, the Tamil Nesan Ipoh bureau chief, asked the department to verify the results.

"This is the first time we have come across such a case of falsifying result slips. It is also possibly the first such case in the country," he told reporters on Wednesday after announcing the performance of Perak students in the 2006 SPM examinations.

"We believe the man was trying to gain publicity and glamour," he added.

"Maybe this case reflects the negative aspect of students focusing only on academic performance," he said, adding that the proposal for SPM candidates to take only 12 subjects was timely.

Zakaria said the department's initial investigation showed that the result slips were fake.

"There are no such candidates for last year's SPM. The format of the result slips is more or less the same as the original ones, except the font is different and certain subjects are wrongly spelt," he said.

He added that it was impossible for a 13-year-old and a 53-year-old to be sitting for the SPM.

"There are 108 subjects for SPM students to choose from. The maximum number of subjects that a candidate can take for the exam is 21," he added.

Zakaria said his officers would have to conduct further investigation into the case and he would be informing the ministry about the matter.

"It is a serious offence to falsify your academic results," he warned.

Zakaria also thanked the media for taking the correct step of verifying the matter before publishing the case.

He also urged students to be careful when applying for university entrance online because they could be penalised if they keyed in the wrong results.