Eleven public varsities face delays in PTPTN disbursement

Students at 11 public universities are facing delays in the disbursement of loans from the National Higher Education Loan Fund Corporation (PTPTN).

PTPTN, in a statement on Facebook, said this was due to the universities being late in their submission of students' data.

"The delay is because PTPTN has yet to receive information on the verification of students' status from the affected public universities," it said.

The affected universities are Universiti Sains Malaysia, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia Space, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Universiti Malaysia Pahang, Universiti Teknikal Melaka and Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia.

PTPTN said it expects to receive the necessary data from the respective universities by the third week of February.

As such, the disbursement of loans will only take place between March 7 to March 10.

Students complain

Based on the original schedule, public universities were supposed to submit the data in the middle of January and the disbursement of loans would be done at the end of January.

Some students have expressed their frustration on PTPTN's Facebook page.

Facebook user Uddin Saini said: "It is still acceptable if the delay is only one week, but this is a month.

"I don't understand PTPTN, they can be so fast when it comes to asking for payment".

However, another Facebook user Dablo Haruki said PTPTN should not be blamed for the mistakes of the public universities.

"The delay in disbursement to students is due to universities being late in updating PTPTN on the status of their students.

"So the weakness in on the part of the universities' management".

-Mkini