In a media briefing yesterday, a Public Service Department (PSD) senior spokesman made various announcements with regard to changes to the JPA’s scholarship and bursary programmes.
Among the announcements made was the decision that the Graduate Bursary Progrrame will no longer be offered to SPM 2016 candidates.
Such a decision is myopic and unjustifiable especially when the government has this year only allowed the Bursary recipients to take up their first degree courses at local universities instead of overseas universities. The change will save the government huge funds.
Is the government so poor now that it cannot even continue to offer say 300 bright students with such programme when the recipients will only be doing their degrees in local universities?
If the government can continue with the National Service Training Programme (PLKN), there should be no reason why the government cannot continue with the Graduate Bursary Programme.
In early 2015, when the Prime Minister announced the one year suspension of PLKN in his recalibrated 2015 budget, he said the move would save the government RM 400 million a year.
Why not just abolish the programme and use the funds to continue the JPA scholarships, especially the Bursary programme?
There are limited places at local public universities and tuition fees at local private universities are not cheap. Every year there are bright students who need to depend on government scholarships.
With the abolition of the Bursary Graduate Programme, this will mean many bright students will be denied government’s assistance. Why is the government targeting the nation’s talent?
Bright students are the nation’s assets and they should not be the prioritized target in the government’s fund slashing exercise.
The government must get its priorities right, abolish the National Service Training Programme instead of Bursary Graduate Programme.