PKR: SPM grant cut will hurt rural, poor students

The prime minister’s decision to stop giving SPM scholarships is an “irresponsible shortcut” that will prevent rural and poor students from entering top universities, the PKR secretary-general has said.

Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said the government should continue to fund university preparation courses in co-operation with reliable institutions to help train such students for entrance exams at world-renowned universities.

He stressed that getting a place in top universities in the US and UK was a complicated process that involved tough exams that were foreign to such students, who were only familiar with the SPM and other national exams.

Applicants to Ivy League universities needed to score highly in the SAT Reasoning Test and be proficient in English while applicants to Oxford and Cambridge universities would have to endure a rigorous interview process, he pointed out.

“These tests and interviews require much preparation and mastery of English no matter how clever or great the potential of students from rural areas or lower income families,” Saifuddin(picture) said in a statement today.

“A majority of these students are Malays or Bumiputeras... who will be denied scholarships even though they excel in academic and co-curricular activities.”

Saifuddin urged the Najib administration to list many more institutions to help prepare students for entrance exams so that students may realise their potential by learning at top universities around the world.

He said there were currently not enough institutions with experience in getting students ready for university as most only focused on pre-university exams.

Saifuddin added that the government should form an expert committee to study how scholarships are awarded to ensure best returns from investment in human capital.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced yesterday that the Public Service Department (PSD) would only give scholarships to university entrants and not SPM top scorers from 2012.

However, he said students who do well in the Form Five SPM exam would still receive small bursaries so they could pursue foundation studies.

Despite Putrajaya handing out 500 special local scholarships recently on top of the 12,000 PSD grants given out annually, many top scorers were still disappointed they did not receive government funding to study overseas.

The main bone of contention in the annual allocation of PSD scholarships centres around the 1,500 overseas grants, of which only 20 per cent are decided based on merit.

Nine hundred are given out based on racial quotas, with Sabah and Sarawak natives getting 75 grants each and the remaining 10 per cent to special needs students.