PTPTN loan freeze ‘betrayal’ of Malays in Selangor, says Khalid

Khalid said the Malay students were being punished to further Umno’s agenda. — File pic

SHAH ALAM, June 7 — The National Higher Education Fund Corporation’s (PTPTN) freeze on loans to Universiti Selangor (Unisel) applicants is a betrayal to Malays studying there, a PAS MP has said.

“More than 90 per cent of Unisel students are Malays; when you don’t approve the loan, you are betraying and insulting the Malays.

“This shows how Umno is willing destroy the future of Malay students just because they are in Selangor,” Khalid told reporters.

Malaysiakini reported on Tuesday that PTPTN had halted loans to students applying for places in Unisel for an unknown reason.

According to The Star today, Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Khaled Nordin said it was a temporary move that was made following “political pressure” from the opposition over free education.

“PTPTN wants to determine how serious the opposition is in wanting to provide free education. If it is serious, then students in state-owned private institutes of higher learning like Unisel need not apply for study loans from PTPTN because education will be provided free to them,” he was quoted as saying.

Khaled had also referred to the matter on his Twitter account on Tuesday night, suggesting that Unisel scrap its student fees to “fulfil” Pakatan Rakyat and Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s promise to offer free education for all and to abolish PTPTN should they come to power.

In response, PKR strategy director Rafizi Ramli flayed the minister for punishing the students to take “revenge” against PR over the ongoing PTPTN debacle.

Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin today weighed in to say it was “fair” of the PTPTN to freeze loans to Universiti Selangor (Unisel) applicants to “test” if the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) could provide free education as claimed.

“If the (Selangor) MB says there’s no need for students to take the loans, then PTPTN need not give out the loans,” Malaysiakini previously quoted Muhyiddin, who is also education minister, as saying.

PR and Barisan Nasional (BN) leaders have been at loggerheads over the federal student loan scheme PTPTN, which the opposition claims should be abolished before the country is saddled with a massive education loan debt in the future.