There were 506,620 pupils who sat for the UPSR this year compared to 507,320 last year.
He said that rural candidates also showed an improvement although they still lagged behind their urban counterparts.
"Overall, the gap between rural and urban pupils is narrowing. This can be seen in the contraction in the overall achievement disparity between rural and urban pupils," he said.
He said that the gap between rural and urban pupils achieving excellent results this year was 3.64 per cent compared to 4.22 per cent last year.
The gap for good performance between the two areas is 5.55 per cent this year compared to 6.25 per cent last year.
In terms of subject, Tamil language showed a strong improvement in the number of students obtaining Grade A, which is 3.6 per cent, while Mathematics also showed a strong increase, which is 4.2 per cent.
Meanwhile, 2,725 of 24,826 UPSR candidates in KUALA LUMPUR obtained 5As and 7As in the examination.
Federal Territory education director Sulaiman Wak said 66.89 per cent of 16,607 candidates passed the examination.
"Although the percentage is down from 66.94 last year, the percentage of those scoring all As increased to 10.98 per cent compared to 10.90 last year," he told reporters.
He said 94 candidates in SK Setiawangsa scored all As, 80 in SK Bukit Damansara and 76 in SK Taman Tun Dr Ismail.
In PENANG, the state recorded an increase in the number of students who passed in all subjects this year.
State education director Ibrahim Mohamad told a news conference that of the 26,259 students who sat for the UPSR, 17,638 managed to pass in all subjects.
He said the number of student who achieved all As was 3,177 or 12.10 per cent.
Two schools managed to record 100 per cent passes this year namely Sekolah Model Khas Tok Jaya in Butterworth and SJKC Kuang Yu in Kepala Batas.
Sekolah Kebangsaan Batu Lanchang emerged as the state's best UPSR performing school with 70 students scoring 5As.
MySinchew 2009.11.19
Jawatankuasa - Hari Anugerah Kecemerlangan 2009
