I’m appalled and deeply troubled at the decision by the federal government to suspend Public Services Department (PSD) scholarships for degree courses and the Education Ministry’s bursary for pre-university programmes amid falling national revenue.

Sarawak, which already has been marginalised and only given a mere 7.4 percent of the total awards of PSD scholarship for the past 10 years, will again be on the losing end of this drastic move. In Sarawak, a lot of our students, especially in the rural areas, are not from well-to-do families and getting tertiary education is the only way for them to get out of poverty, improve their quality of life and contribute to society.

Even because of the dropping crude oil price around the world, the interest of the people of the country should always be prioritised and upheld. This clearly shows how our leaders are willing to compromise the needs of its people and make a decision that will directly jeopardise the educational future of our country.

The incompetence of the Barisan Nasional government under PM Najib Abdul Razak who is surrounded by multiple financial scandals, alleged mismanagements, wastage and misappropriation has caused the nationals economy to nose-dive on top of the dropping oil revenues.

It is because of that incompetence, the students who are the future leaders of our nation have to bear the burden and for many of them having their dream of getting a quality education dashed.

There is a snowballing effect to this decision. The students who are still in school might lose motivation to study as there is little incentive to work for and now their parents will also have to bear the strong burdens of educational fees on top of the rising cost and increasing living expenses. Students who then study overseas will then have lesser connections to return and contribute to the nation’s economy and thus further worsening the brain drain of the country.

Our country’s vision of building a strong knowledge-based economy which provides a platform to sustain rapid economic growth and enhance international competitiveness so as to achieve the objectives of Vision 2020 will be heavily affected and will delay the shift from an input-driven economy( natural resources) to a productivity-driven mode.

I suggest maybe the government instead of fully suspending the bursaries and scholarships, instead be more selective in awarding scholarships based on meritocracy and only to the brightest and most deserving students. Scholarships have been misused over the years to benefits students undeserving of it including those with higher connections at the expense of those who really deserve it.

I hope with this, the students will finally see the reason why we have been fighting to empower students and for them to be more involved in the daily democratic process. We all will need to keep our government accountable to public funds and good governance for the betterment of all people and not just for personal gains.

Cutting on education, basically means we are selling our future away.

JULIAN TAN KOK PING is the MP for Stampin.