Malaysian Government Has No Plan To Stop Sending Students To UK

KUALA LUMPUR, April 5 (Bernama) -- The Malaysian government has no plan to stop sending excellent Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) students to further their studies in the United Kingdom (UK). Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Senator SK Devamany said the programme of sending the students was still being continued despite the current economic downturn. He said this when replying to a question from Izani Husin on stopping the sending of Malaysian students to UK in Dewan Rakyat (Malaysian Parliament) here Tuesday. Commenting further, Dewamany said the Public Service Department had sponsored 1,651 students to further their studies in UK until January 1 this year under the National Sponsorship Programme (PPN). He said the sponsorships of 20 excellent SPM students each year were to 10 renowned universities in UK including Oxford, Imperial College London and Cambridge University. "The sponsorships involved eight fields, namely, Computer Science, Information Technology, Material Science, Mathematics, Financial Management, Business Administration, Politics and Pychology. "The selection of the universities are based on the highest position in the QS World University Ranking 2016 and the choice of fields depends on human resources demand and job opportunities. In addition, he said, the PSD would help 461 excellent students this year in the 9A+ Sponsorship Programme to further their studies in local universities. He said PSD would also sponsor excellent SPM students with 7A via the Special Engineering Programme (JKPJ) to Japan, South Korea, France and Germany while 7,000 students would be be sponsored via the Domestic Degree Programme (PIDN). He said a specific programme would also be introduced for 1,000 students from families with B40, bottom 40 per cent of households with monthly income RM3,900 (US$1 = RM4.43) and below income to pursue diplomas in Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET). SPM is a national examination taken by all fifth-year secondary school students in Malaysia, equivalent to the O-Level and is the second last public examination at the secondary school level before the entry into a tertiary level education at a university or other higher education institutions. -- BERNAMA