STPM (Sijil Tinggi Pelajaran Malaysia) is a pre-university examination which is deemed to be equivalent to the A Levels examination in the UK.

For the past couple of years, the Ministry of Education in Malaysia had hinted on several occasions that the Ministry would look into making STPM less exam centric. It was finally unveiled in the first quarter of 2012, that effective from 2013, students sitting for STPM would not only be assessed solely on their performance in the examination at the end of the year as they would also be assessed continuously (via coursework) throughout their one and a half years of study in Form Six.

In general, there are no changes in the grading scheme and course syllabuses.

For more information, please refer to the following news articles:

New Assessment system for STPM
Term Evaluations for STPM students
Examinations: Is new STPM format on par with old one?