Government helps self-financing Malaysian students abroad due to ringgit fall

Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh has instructed Education Malaysia offices worldwide to offer assistance to self-financing Malaysian students following the depreciation of the ringgit.

"I understand the impact of the economic situation on the self-financing students and I sympathise with them," he said in a post on his Facebook account.

Idris posted that government-sponsored students would be unaffected because they received their allowances in US dollars or pound sterling.

"The sponsorship the students receive depends on their needs and does not change according to the exchange rate," he said.

Idris said the government was absorbing the rising cost of channelling the sponsorship funds to banks abroad.

"This is the responsibility of the government as the sponsor," he said.

In KUALA NERUS, Terengganu Education, Science, Technology and Special Functions Committee chairman Ghazali Taib said the Terengganu Foundation had provided an additional allocation of RM12.5 million this year for 45 sponsored students abroad.

"This is a 25 per cent increase in the allocation from the foundation that is hoped can assist the 45 students to continue their studies.

"The students receiving the aid are in Jordan, Indonesia and the United Kingdom," he told reporters after officiating at the distribution of aid to overseas students here today.

The foundation annually allocates almost RM50 million for the education of 650 Terengganu students abroad.

Ghazali said the state government would cease the sponsorship of students going to Russia beginning next year and would reduce the number of sponsored students going to several other countries.