The Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM), or the Malaysian Certificate of Education, is a national examination sat for by all fifth-form secondary school students in Malaysia. It is the equivalent of the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) of England, Wales and Northern Ireland; the Nationals 4/5 of Scotland; and the GCE Ordinary Level (O Level) of the Commonwealth of Nations. It is the leaving examination of the eleventh grade of schooling.

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The SPM is sat for by secondary school students before further studies in foundation, STPM, matriculation or diploma. The examination is set and examined by the Malaysian Examinations board. For students attending international schools, the equivalent exam they take is the International General Certificate of Secondary Education exam, and the Unified Examinations Certificate is equivalent to Advanced Level. All SPM examination papers are considered official confidential property and are protected under the Official Secrets Act 1972 of Malaysia.^[1]

In 2021, the Malaysian Ministry of Education introduced a new SPM format for the new KSSM syllabus, which replaced the old SPM format for the old KBSM syllabus.^[2] For English, the Common European Framework of Reference syllabus was implemented for the English paper and the result statement is handed out with the SPM Certificate.^[3]

The SPM allows Malaysians to continue their studies to pre-university level. Originally there were two versions of the SPM, which were introduced in 1964: the Malaysian Certificates of Education taken by students studying in English schools and SPM (Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia) taken by students studying in national schools. The difference between the two was that the SPM was conducted using the national language (Bahasa Melayu) while the MCE was conducted in English. The MCE was discontinued in 1976 when the Ministry of Education took over the examination from the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES) and merged it with the SPM. The predecessor of these exam were SPPTM (Sijil Pelajaran Persekutuan Tanah Melayu. Started in 1962) and FMC (Federation of Malaya Certificate. Started on 1957) before the formation of Federation of Malaysia.^[4]

When releasing the results, only the letter grades (and not the actual scores) are revealed to the candidates. Candidates may request a remarking (regrading) if they suspect errors in the original marking. Although no list of rankings is released to the public, the names of the top ranked students in the country and in each state are released to the press.^[7]

Since 2010, the Ministry of Education has imposed a ten-subject limit on every candidate while lowering the minimum number of subjects from eight to six. Students are allowed to take two additional subjects (from Arabic, Chinese, Tamil, Iban, Kadazandusun languages and Bible Knowledge) but they will not be considered for government scholarships.^[8]

Candidates are assigned grades based on their scores in each subject. The exact grading scale used every year has never been made public.

Since 2009, the grading system ranged from A+ (the highest grade) to G (for gagal or fail; F is not used). The previous system assigned a grade point and a letter to each range, with 1A ("1" being the grade point and "A" the letter grade) as the highest and 9G the lowest.^[9] The Kepujian (Pass-With-Credit) grade is equivalent to the UK GCSE Pass-With-Credit grade as stated on the back of the certificates.

The Malay language (Bahasa Melayu) was slowly introduced into the national school system from 1960 but was only made a compulsory subject in 1970. Furthermore, a credit in Bahasa Melayu is essential in order to secure a seat in sixth form. One of the many problems associated with this change is that many "good" students were unable to continue their post-secondary education because of their examination result in Bahasa Melayu. In 1972, the BM failure rate was nearly 40%, and the July Paper was introduced as a solution so that students would be given a second chance to retake the paper.^[10]

As time passed, changes were made in education policy and from the higher education institution standpoint. In 2013, history became the second compulsory subject. Many universities also required students to achieve at least C in Mathematics or, in some colleges, to achieve at least a passing grade. Because of this change and demand the examination syndicates announced that the history and mathematics papers would become available to retake along with the Bahasa Melayu paper in the SPMU.^[11]