After roadblock, students turn to opposition for scholarship help

After hitting a wall with the government, a group of students have turned to the opposition for help with scholarships to further their studies abroad.

Back in May, 18-year-old Edmund Kong led a group of students to seek assistance from Saifuddin Abdullah, now the foreign minister, to lobby the government for financial aid.

Saifuddin, in turn, had held a press conference to announce that the Public Service Department (PSD) had agreed to review the students’ applications for scholarships on a “case by case basis.”

Three months on and with deadlines looming, however, Kong told Malaysiakini that little has transpired.

After fruitless attempts to approach both the JPA and Education Ministry for updates, Kong and his friends have now turned to Umno senator Khairul Azwan Harun for assistance.

“We decided to go and look for opposition members also to help voice out this issue in hopes of garnering bipartisan support for our cause.

“We met Senator Khairul Azwan at his office (last) Thursday and discussed this.

“He was conservative with what he could deliver... but promised to raise the issue in the Senate on Monday, while discussing with other opposition MPs to see what can be done,” Kong said. 

When contacted, Khairul Azwan (photo) confirmed the meeting, and said he will bring up the issue in the Dewan Negara, which sits tomorrow.

Kong and his friends reached out to politicians following the former BN government’s decision in 2016 to slash the number of PSD scholarships to foreign universities, citing budgetary constraints.

At the time, Harapan politicians like Teresa Kok slammed BN for imposing “unfair” and sudden change of scholarship conditions.

Malaysiakini has contacted Saifuddin, the Education Ministry and the PSD for comment.

Needing a response

Kong claimed to represent 63 students in total who received conditional offers from top British, American and Australian universities, some of which begin their school year next month.

“The challenge now is that to even obtain a visa, we will need one to two weeks, which means we have two weeks left (to get confirmation from the government).

“And to secure a visa we need to prove that we can sustain our studies there, so we need financial proof, be it a scholarship letter... or a bank account that has a lot of cash in it,” he explained.

Kong said he hoped the government would soon be able to state its decision – positive or otherwise – on their scholarships.

“What we hope from the government is to just make a decision... because if they don't, in two weeks’ time the decision will be made for them (due to the deadlines).

“While we obviously hope that they can give us a positive response... if the government isn't interested or believes it has better plans, then do tell us honestly.

“We would appreciate that as well,” he said. - Mkini