Thursday January 26, 2006
PUTRAJAYA: Beware when signing up for a course at private education institutions – from July 1, the National
Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN) will only give out loans for accredited courses.
Only one-quarter of the courses currently approved for loans are accredited, said Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri
Dr Shafie Mohd Salleh.
He added that currently, PTPTN was giving out loans for 2,225 courses offered at private institutions but only 564 of them
had received accreditation from the National Accreditation Board.
He added that private institutions of higher learning had been informed of the new ruling via a June 27 circular last year
and through a dialogue session on June 21 with PTPTN officials.
“However, students who have signed up for newly introduced courses will still
be eligible for the loan while waiting for the courses to be accredited.
“New students who sign up for existing courses which are not accredited will not receive the loans as their colleges
have been given ample notice about this new ruling,” Dr Shafie said before his ministry’s post-Cabinet briefing
here.
He added that the new ruling was introduced because his ministry wanted to ensure that students took only courses that
were recognised by the Public Services Department (JPA).
“Many loan recipients have refused to repay their loans as they say their qualification is worthless as it is not
accredited by JPA even though it was approved by PTPTN. Before this, colleges were only required to get minimum standards
for their courses for students to receive loans,” he said.
Dr Shafie encouraged private institutions to submit their applications for accreditation as soon as possible because approval
would take about six to seven months.
He also said that since PTPTN was set up in 1997, loans had been disbursed to 794,940 students. Of this number, 632,668
or 79.6% were students in public institutions while 162,272 or 20.4% were from private colleges.
Many colleges have complained that the ruling would affect them adversely as the cost of obtaining accreditation is much
higher than minimum standards.
Dr Shafie also confirmed that Universiti Teknologi Malaysia vice-chancellor Prof Datuk Dr Mohd Zulkifli Mohd Ghazali had
been offered a new contract.
- The Star-
