Government studying KPT proposal to send home IPT students - Ismail Sabri

The government needs to study in detail the recommendation of the Ministry of Higher Education (KPT) on the best ways to send home students from institutions of higher learning (IPT).

Senior Minister (Security Cluster) Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob explained that it was going to involve a big movement that may undermine the efforts to break the COVID-19 chain currently underway.

"We received a proposal from the KPT. However, we need to look into it further as it involves the movement of large numbers. There are 80,000 students from the IPTA and IPTS nationwide.

"The numbers we have are students on campus, not off-campus. But they may have the same desire to go home.

“Some even want to go back to Sabah and Sarawak, and they will be subjected to mandatory quarantine," he said at a press conference here on Saturday.

As such, he added, the government will seek the advice of the Ministry of Health (MOH) to look into the issue of health not only for the students but also for the population.

"Finally, we asked the MOH to study this matter because the MOH said there has been a slight decline in terms of positive (COVID-19) cases.

"The MoH does not want this to jeopardise their efforts and in the end, the numbers (of positive COVID-19 cases) will go back up.

“This will only frustrate our efforts by staying home, and all of a sudden because we are not careful, we have to stay home longer. We want the MCO to be ended eventually according to MoH planning," he said.