The Selangor government is prepared to demonstrate how education budgets can be redrawn to implement free education should the federal government agree to hand over power, said Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim.

NONE Hitting back at Higher Education Minister Khaled Nordin's ( left ) call for the state to waive the tuition fees of state-owned Universiti Selangor (Unisel) to fulfill its free education promise, Khalid said the pledge was made on condition that the opposition captured Putrajaya.

"(What was promised by opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim) was on the basis that we rule Putrajaya and manage the treasury, but not now.

"But if Khaled and the BN government want to give us the power now, we can go Putrajaya and show them how we can do it," he said at a press conference after the state exco meeting today.

 Temporary halt

Malaysiakini had reported that students enrolling at the Selangor government-owned university in April found that they could not apply for the National Higher Education Fund (PTPTN) loans due to a "temporary halt" .

Following this, the higher education minister yesterday tweeted that if students could not pay fees due to absence of the loans, then Unisel should waive the fees and fulfill Pakatan's free education proposal.

When asked to comment on this today, Khalid said the state government will raise the issue to the federal government.

Meanwhile he said parents of some 1000 affected students could work with the state to find a stop-gap measure.

Although it is unclear whether the Higher Education Ministry has issued such a directive for PTPTN to halt applications from Unisel, Khalid said the ministry did not have a right to do so.

He added that it was fundamental for PTPTN to provide loans to everyone as many students of Unisel are not Selangorians.

"By restricting the students from getting loans, the federal government is not carrying out its obligations," said the Ijok assemblyman.

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