“This is a short-sighted policy amendment. It does not take into account the feelings of the students and the long-term effects.”
Loke, who is MP for Seremban, said not only would 744 students under the Bursary Graduate Programme have to study locally, but their full scholarships would now be converted into partial scholarships.
According to JPA’s website, all scholarships this year would be in the form of a loan. It also stated that upon graduation, all JPA scholars were required to return 50 per cent of the loan amount if they chose to work with government-linked companies (GLCs) or the full amount if they worked elsewhere.
“The parents (of the students) were shocked upon receiving this information,” Loke said, adding that an average of 11,000 JPA scholars graduated every year, with only 20 per cent of them absorbed into the civil service due to limitations.
“What if the students can’t pay back and they want to work with the civil service?”
“Is the government going to absorb all 11,000 students into the civil service?” he questioned.
Loke also pointed out that Prime Minister Najib Razak did not announce that the scholarships would be converted into loans when presenting the recalibrated Budget 2016 recently.
“What is shocking is that our cabinet ministers don’t even know about this,” he said, referring to Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Wee Ka Siong, who himself was unaware of the development.
“This is embarrassing for the government. The PM must make a decision to correct the current situation. Any change of policy cannot be done in a rush without any form of public consultation or negotiation.”