Students caught in a fix

MUAR: At least 2,000 to 3,000 students studying or hoping to study in private technical and vocational education and training (TVET) institutes nationwide are in limbo due apparently to “technical issues” at the Skills Development Fund Corporation (PTPK).

The students have either not been receiving their monthly living allowance or their study loans are not being approved.

To make matters worse, most private TVET institutions nationwide are also unable to register new students to enable them to get their loans since last week, as talk is rife that the funds for students have been exhausted.

Also, one-off payments such as the RM2,500 previously given for the purchase of laptop and RM2,000 for transport fees for new students have also been put on hold with no reason given.

Under the three-year certificate or diploma programme, a TVET student in a private institute is entitled to RM600 monthly cost of living allowance.

However, students who enrolled before July this year have been receiving all their allowances and subsidies.

Deputy Human Resources Minister Mustapha Sakmud, when contacted, acknowledged that there were some issues involving private TVET institutes and that the ministry was doing its best to resolve them.

But he declined to comment further, saying he would need to get more details from his officers.

The issue has also reached Human Resources Minister V. Sivakumar and top ministry officials especially at the Department of Skills Development (JPK).

The problem started when the previous PTPK board of directors’ term, including the chairman, expired in April this year and the new one was only appointed last week with Wangsa Maju MP Zahir Hassan and Bukit Gasing assemblyman R. Rajiv as chairman and deputy chairman, respectively.

When contacted, Zahir said he was aware of some of the issues, but he needed some time to study and address them.

“We were just appointed and we have yet to have the first board meeting,” he said, adding they would be meeting with the Human Resources Minister next week.

He also said that the loans were not grants and students would have to repay them.

“Some are not paying back and we need to find a way to manage and minimise this,” he said, adding that such problems were prevalent in all agencies giving out loans.

There are more than 400 private TVET institutes nationwide.

It is learnt that in the past five months, the licences of many of these institutes had expired but couldn’t be renewed because no PTPK board meetings have been held since April.

Moreover, new funds under the PTPK, which is similar to PTPTN (National Higher Education Fund), can only be approved after a new board is formed and meetings are held.

Federation of JPK Accredited Centres (FeMac) president Azizul Mohd Othman, when contacted, said he has been unable to renew the licence for one of his own institutes in Perak that had expired in July this year.

“This has never happened in the past 20 years since I joined this line,” he said.

“I hope the board will meet soon to iron out the problems because more than a dozen colleges are unable to register their students because their licences expired several months ago.

“The worry is that if the students are not registered, they would be pinched by other institutes.

“Furthermore, the institutions will face cash flow problems as, even without students, they will still need to pay the lecturers, rent and other overheads.”

Each institute had about 30 to 50 students, Azizul added.

When asked to explain why PTPK had stopped the laptop subsidy and transport allowance, he said he was not sure.

“I am not sure if there is a systems issue. Anyway, we hope all this will be sorted out as soon as possible,” he said, adding that FeMac had met with Sivakumar recently to highlight the issues faced by the institutes.

Some private TVET college operators are urging the PTPK board to meet as soon as possible not only to approve fresh funds to be given out as loans to B40 students but also to renew the licences that had expired between April and October this year.

“These licences are issued for a period of three years and are strictly scrutinised by PTPK,” the operators said, adding that without the renewal, the colleges could not enter the new student’s details into the database.

The operators said the paperwork for renewal of the licence was usually done about three months in advance.

Even if the PTPK board meets soon, it would still take some time to complete all the paperwork, they added.

“In the meantime, the students will be affected because they would be unable to join the classes, and even if they managed to start learning, they would not get their RM600 monthly living allowance,” the operators said.

According to the operators, the average fee for a TVET course is between RM60,000 and RM70,000 for a three-year diploma programme.

“This includes the fees, course materials, exam fees and RM600 cost of living. The student needs to apply for each level separately and they will have to repay their loans with an annual interest of 3% over a period of 10 years,” said the operators.

Many of the students are dropouts from rural areas and poor households.

Because of the recent issues, parents have been forking out extra money to support their children, especially those staying in hostels, the operators added.

The operators said a TVET institute usually conducted four intakes a year.

At present, there are more than 2,000 TVET programmes available.