A bulk of Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) top scorers, who applied for the Public Service Department (PSD) overseas scholarships, will need to let go of their dream of furthering their studies at top universities overseas.
In line with PSD’s new funding regulations, studies in local public and private universities will be given higher priority.
Only the best 20 would be given the opportunity to study in top ranking universities abroad and return to join the civil service. The criteria that will guide the PSD in its selection process is the applicant’s merit, socioeconomic background, grades and co-curricular achievements. This is part of the Government’s long term plan to inject the civil service with quality graduates.
An additional 200 SPM top scorers would be placed under the Special Engineering Programme but restricted to study in Japan, Korea, Germany or France only.
The Government is trying its best to offer as many scholarships as possible from the RM1.65 billion allocated in the Budget 2016 revision in January. There will also be an additional allocation of RM160 million approved under the budget to fund 2016’s batch of students. This amount is meant to support 49,060 students, with 41,324 (84%) of them studying locally, and the remaining 7,736 overseas.
PSD will also focus on applicants categorised in the B40 and M40 groups, with attention on technical and vocational education and training (TVET). A thousand students from B40 families will be offered the Dermasiswa B40 to pursue diplomas in polytechnics and public universities, including Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UniTen) and Multimedia University (MMU).
Seven thousand university students, who are currently pursuing their studies in local public and private institutions, will continue to benefit from the PSD funding.
PSD also announced that there will be no more Bursary Graduate Programme from 2017 onwards. In 2016, only 250 SPM leavers with 9A+ from 2015 have been offered funds through the bursary programme to study locally. Approximately 744 students, who qualified for the bursary programme in 2013 and 2014 and were hoping to study abroad, will now have to do their degrees in local public and private universities. The focus is on funding more people to get into the varsities here.
A special briefing for 2013/2014/2015 Bursary candidates will be held soon. More information can be found at PSD’s official website or by calling 03-88853603/3777/3398.
[Source]
