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Thursday, January 19, 2017

Nik Nazmi: Less overseas scholarships, more local varsities



Selangor exco in charge of education Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad believes the government should scale back on providing scholarships for students to study abroad, in favour of local varsities.
He said the policy was relevant in the past but the country has now built up the capacity of local varsities.
“Back in the 1970s, we didn’t have enough higher learning institutions (IPT) in the nation, so we sent many of our students to study abroad.
“Today we have plenty of IPT in the country. Isn’t it better for us to save that money by spending it on local institutions instead?” Nik Nazmi told a forum on free education and Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN) last night.
He did, however, state that it is still acceptable to send masters or PhD students abroad, as they require specialised courses that may not be available in Malaysia.
March last year, Putrajaya announced that it will stop sending students to study abroad under the Public Service Department scholarship, amid a budget shortfall.
It was instead replaced with bursaries for students to pursue their studies at local varsities.
While appearing to share a similar stance, Nik Nazmi said there should also be a focus on making local tertiary education at public institutions free.
"We need to implement free education to increase the number of public varsities, we haven't had a new public varsity in a long time.
"A lot of private institutions have been starting up because of the accessibility of PTPTN," said Nik Nazmi.

He said this would also resolve the repayment issues in PTPTN.
Nik Nazmi said the heavy reliance on PTPTN had led to the proliferation of private institutions while public varsities saw budget cuts.
According to Budget 2017, the operational expenditure for 20 public universities was slashed by RM1.4 billion.
Other speakers at the forum were Malaysian Youth and Student Democratic Movement (Dema) representative CM Chew and Mahasiswa Keadilan Malaysia's Affendy Hasni.- Mkini

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