New loan scheme means govt has ‘no money’

The new SS1M student loan scheme is a sham and will only further burden graduates, says Sarawak DAP.

KUCHING: The government’s latest loan scheme – Skim Prihatin Pendidikan 1Malaysia (SS1M) – to shift the responsibility of education to the people is a clear indication that the public coffers have dried up, says Sarawak DAP.

“The government has no more money and that is why it wants to shift the responsibility of education to the people.

“This is an added burden to the people,” said state DAP secretary Chong Chieng Jen.

Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak on Wednesday announced the SS1M to assist students at tertiary level to obtain loan. The SS1M is in addition to the existing PTPTN loan scheme.

Najib said that the government introduced the scheme as additional funding, with the loans limited to RM150,000 for a medical specialist course and RM100,000 for the critical courses chosen.

Chong, who is Bandar Kuching MP, said: “What the government is doing is to shift the responsibility of tertiary education to the people, leaving them high and dry.

“The only rationale for the government to do that is that it has overspent and that it needs to shift its responsibility to the rakyat.

“The overspending of public coffers is due to the high level of corruption and wastage and this will result in the whole generation of the population [falling] in debt.”

Calculating the repayment and duration of the loans, Chong said any student who took a RM100,000 loan for a three-year tertiary course would end up paying for the loan for the next 15 years at RM1,000 a month. This, he said, included the bank interests.

“He finally end up paying a total of RM115,000 plus interests. What about his other loans such as car, housing and other expenses?

“What the government is doing now with SS1M is to shift the burden of tertiary education [to the public].

“It washes its hands clean and leave the people high and dry to finance their education,” he said.

Chong said the government was being “most irresponsible”.

“If we compare the BN policy to the policy of Pakatan Rakyat, Pakatan will provide free education right up to tertiary education to all students.

“If Pakatan becomes the government, it will immediately spare the undergraduates and those would- be graduates the agony of [bearing] the financial burden of paying their study loans.

“This I can promise parents and students,” he said.