Kedah Pakatan Government should distribute Scholarship

Kedah Pakatan Government should distribute Scholarship

like what the Federal Government does, urged Parti Gerakan Kedah

Press statement by Dr Cheah Soon Hai

Chairman of Gerakan Kedah

5 May 2011

Chairman of Gerakan Kedah, Dr Cheah Soon Hai today urge the Kedah Pakatan Rakyat government to learn from the Barisan Nasional Federal Government by giving out state government scholarships to students who excels academically, this is to reward and encourage excellent students of various races in Kedah to strive for better academic results who will be serving the nation in the future.

Dr Cheah was referring to the cabinet’s decision of lowering the application requirement for JPA’s local and overseas scholarship whereby, students who managed to obtain 8A+ in SPM will be entitled to apply for the JPA scholarship with effect from Year 2011 when he made the statement.

Dr Cheah said, under the new policy, the Federal Government has allocated 1500 local and overseas scholarships for application, this is a new decision by the Prime Minister subsequent to the announcement made last year that students with 9A+ in SPM is eligible to apply for JPA scholarship.  The Prime Minister intends to allow more students to benefit from the policy, therefore he loosens the requirement for application.

Dr Cheah also said, 30 students who excelled in the 2010 SPM were given 2011 National Scholarship presented by the Deputy Prime Minister cum Education Minister.  Out of the 30 students, 15 are Malays, 13 are Chinese whilst the other two are an Indian and a Sarawakian bumi.  It is apparent that the Barisan Nasional Federal Government places great importance on Chinese students based on the fact that 13 out of 30 (44%) scholarships were given to Chinese students.

Dr Cheah is also the state assemblyman for Derga.  He said, this proves that providing higher education and training future talents are one of top priorities of the Barisan Nasional government.  This is because the government knows that investment on education will produce outstanding future leaders for the nation.

 Dr Cheah said, on the other hand, the Kedah Pakatan Rakyat government is doing the contrary by requesting for very high quit rent from the University Utara Malaysia at Sintok, it is inevitable that such action would create a negative impression of the Kedah Pakatan Rakyat Government that the PR government is being very short-sighted and ignoring the importance of education.  Therefore, Dr Cheah would like to urge the DAP and Parti Keadilan Rakyat representative in Kedah to persuade and influence the Kedah Government and the Menteri Besar from PAS to revoke the decision of asking for high quit rent from UUM, and to learn from the Federal Government to openly distribute scholarships to the top academic performers of different races in Kedah.  The scholarships will allow the students to complete their students without the concern of financial constraint and thus performing better academically.  These students who benefited from the scholarship may return to Kedah upon the completion of the studies to serve Kedah.