A document has been making the rounds on Facebook since April 1, 2026. It bears the Malaysian coat of arms and is formatted to resemble an official media statement from the Ministry of Education Malaysia (MOE). Translated through Google Translate, the statement claims to show how students of different racial groups performed in the 2025 Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) — Malaysia’s national examination for Form 5 students, roughly equivalent to Singapore’s O Levels. Specifically, it claims that among the students, 31.43% of Malays, 88.21% of Chinese, and 81.48% of Indians had achieved A+ grades in the exams.
The document began circulating just one day after Education Director-General Mohd Azam Ahmad officially announced the 2025 SPM results on March 31. That timing matters, suggesting the document was deliberately crafted to ride on public interest in the freshly released results.
When we checked the Malaysian Examination Board’s official website, which publishes analyses of results each year, we were unable to find any racial breakdowns in their findings. Their breakdowns cover performance trends over time, as well as differences between urban and rural students and overall candidate pass rates — however there is no mention of results broken down by race.
On the same day of the claim, April 1, the MOE posted on its official Facebook page stating that it had “never issued any statement regarding the 2025 Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) results based on race, as has been spread online.” The ministry added that the circulating document appeared designed to “confuse the community”. The denial was reinforced the same day by Deputy Education Minister Wong Kah Woh, who addressed reporters directly and described the viral document as “101 per cent incorrect”, according to Bernama, Malaysia’s national news agency. Wong emphasised that the SPM examination and results announcement had been conducted strictly in accordance with established standards, and that the race-based breakdown was not part of any official results release.
The official denials are further supported by our partners at MyCheck Malaysia, a member of the Asian Fact-Checkers Network, who observed that the document does not hold up to visual scrutiny: the font and format are inconsistent with genuine MOE publications, and the logo used differs from the one that appears on authentic ministry documents. In other words, the forgery was apparent even before any official statement is consulted.
This claim needs to be understood in the context of Malaysia’s long-running and deeply sensitive debates around race and educational opportunity. Malaysia operates a system of affirmative action policies — collectively known as Bumiputera policies — that were introduced after the racial riots of May 1969 and are designed to uplift the economic and educational standing of the Malay majority. These policies, which include preferential access to university places and scholarships, have remained a source of ongoing public debate between those who view them as necessary for social equity and those who argue they disadvantage non-Malay students.
The fabricated figures were not random. Showing Malay students achieving A+ grades at a rate of just 31%, far fewer than the 88% for Chinese and 81% for Indian students, would directly pour fuel on this fire — suggesting either that the policies are failing their intended beneficiaries, or that non-Malay students are achieving stronger academic results yet still face structural disadvantages in university admissions and scholarships, with either reading being inflammatory.
Finally, the document’s use of official government branding compounds the danger: content that impersonates a government ministry carries a false authority that makes it more likely to be believed and shared, and harder for ordinary readers to dismiss. These factors result in a claim that is opportunistic and strategically crafted to provoke racial tensions in Malaysia.
In summary, the document circulating on Facebook is a fabrication. The MOE has officially denied publishing it, while posts on the Malaysian Examination Board’s website show that the official examination board does not produce race-based breakdowns of results. The false claim might have been an effort to stoke racial tensions in Malaysia. We rate this claim as false.
