'PM cuts education budget, yet says lower-educated suffer most'

PKR lawmaker Nurul Izzah Anwar took a swipe at Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak for slashing education expenditure in 2016 Budget revision despite knowing those with lower education qualifications suffer from rising living costs.

"What is your rationale as the first thing you do is slash the education (expenditure) in your budget (revision)?" she asked.

Even more disturbing, she said, was that government statistics show 1.4 percent of bottom 40 percent households are degree holders, she said at a press conference at the Parliament lobby.

She was responding to Najib, who earlier told the Dewan Rakyat that Malaysian suffered from living cost as their education level are low, that limit their income.

"I want Najib to fulfil his words, we want more (university and colleges) graduates. We have only 25 to 30 percent tertiary institution graduates, this is not enough.

"We need at least 50 percent (graduates in the tertiary education)," she said.

[More to follow]

-Mkini