A GROUP of 150 A-Level students is urging the Pakatan Harapan government to revive the Public Service Department’s (PSD) Overseas Degree Programme (PILN) scholarships, which were ended two years ago by the previous Barisan Nasional administration.

Group representative Khoo Qi Xuan said many post-Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) and A-Level students want to apply for PILN.

“The government should bring back the policy. Many SPM school-leavers have been accepted into 50 well-known international universities, but they can only get scholarships to study at local universities,” he said at Bersatu’s office today.

Khoo and his friends earlier presented their petition to PH secretariat chief Saifuddin Abdullah, and representatives from Mara and PSD.

The petition calls on the government to improve PSD’s scholarship programmes, including reviving PILN, to ensure that Malaysia does not get left behind.

Saifuddin said he will pass the message to Education Minister Dr Maszlee Malik tonight, so that the matter can be brought up at the PH government’s first cabinet meeting tomorrow.

“We hope this gets the attention of the cabinet. If we have new policies to send students abroad, the first batch would have to go this September,” he told a press conference after meeting the students.

“We need to have the terms of reference if there is to be a new policy.”

He said the administration must also consider whether PSD is able to set aside funds to send more students overseas.

“We have to determine whether we want to revive this scholarship programme, how many students to send overseas annually, what areas of study the scholarships will cover, and the amount of scholarships.

“All this needs to be considered in the new policy.”

Saifuddin said the scholarships for study at local institutions also need a review, to see if the funds are enough to cover students’ living costs.

PSD previously announced that scholarships will be offered only to SPM top performers taking up critical courses, namely medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, engineering, science and technology, and social sciences.

The department’s records show that PSD received 16,900 applications for PILN, but only 8,857 students were qualified.

In 2011, the government offered 1,500 scholarships under PILN and 2,500 under the Local Degree Programme. Only 300 qualified for the former.

In 2016, PSD only offered special scholarship programmes for study in Japan, South Korea, France and Germany. – May 22, 2018.