Cabinet offers extra 86 PSD scholarships

KUALA LUMPUR:  Caving into pressure, the government today announced that the Public Service Department (PSD) scholarships would be awarded to the extra 86 SPM top scorers who failed to receive grants for overseas programmes.

However, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz said the Cabinet decided this morning that the students would not receive financial aid for overseas programmes but be placed in local private colleges

This meant that the students would still have the opportunity to go for overseas courses through twinning programmes offered by local private colleges.

Nazri said the decision was made to be cost effective.

Sending the students for overseas courses would cost the government RM52.1 million. Sending them to local private colleges would only cost RM21.6 million.

“If we keep them here, it’s RM14.8 million. If we send them overseas, the cost will increase to RM52.1million but if we offer them places in local private colleges according to discipline requested it will only cost RM21.6million,” he told a press conference here.

Not a blanket policy

The Cabinet had also approved the appeals of other top students that qualified for PSD scholarships for local matriculation courses to provide them with majoring options while those with 8A+ grades offered grants for local diploma courses will be offered matriculation courses of their choices instead.

“The Cabinet has accepted these requests and the deputy prime minister (Muhyiddin Yassin, who is also the education minister) will order his ministry (to execute the orders),” said Nazri.

Cabinet approval to expand the overseas scholarships quota for the 86 students could set a precedent with wider implications for future distribution of grants which was limited to 1,500 spaces.

The move could be seen as a political strategy as BN geared up for snap polls. It is likely that future qualified students left out from the quota would use this year’s leniency as basis for appeal.

This was indirectly admitted by Nazri yesterday when he said that “expectations” for scholarships this year were high due to the issue being highly politicised.

The minister, however, made it clear that this year’s decision will not be a blanket policy for future PSD scholarship applications.

1MDB funds available

There was also a decision by Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak that Nazri chaired a meeting with Barisan Nasional component party leaders who sit in the Cabinet to identify students outside the 9A+ and 8A+ categories for 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) scholarships.

1MDB is a wholly-owned government sovereign fund introduced by Najib to promote developments and foreign direct investments.

“1MDB is ready to offer them 500 places and they will be sponsored,” said Nazri, adding that the meeting will be chaired on Monday.

The prolonged scholarship row was triggered by Deputy Education Minister Wee Ka Siong’s claims that 363 straight A+ students failed to get scholarships this year despite the promise made by Najib that all students scoring 8A+ and above will receive PSD scholarships.

The promise was made following a similar allegation of unfair scholarship distribution last year.
Wee also claimed that there were “little Napoleans” in the PSD who were directly acting against the Cabinet directive.