PKR lawmaker Nurul Izzah Anwar took a swipe at Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak for slashing education expenditure in 2016 Budget revision despite knowing those with lower education qualifications suffer from rising living costs.

"What is your rationale as the first thing you do is slash the education (expenditure) in your budget (revision)?" she asked.

Even more disturbing, she said, was that government statistics show 1.4 percent of bottom 40 percent households are degree holders, she said at a press conference at the Parliament lobby.

She was responding to Najib, who earlier told the Dewan Rakyat that Malaysian suffered from living cost as their education level are low, that limit their income.

"I want Najib to fulfil his words, we want more (university and colleges) graduates. We have only 25 to 30 percent tertiary institution graduates, this is not enough.

"We need at least 50 percent (graduates in the tertiary education)," she said.

Nurul, who is a PKR vice-president, said the best way for the government to get the best minds was when the group needs scholarships to further study.

“I think it is better for us to invest (in them) before they leave the country than having to lure them back after they decided to leave the country for good, (as they have better) income,” she said.

“They are the cream of the crop, you want them to enter the best universities and come back to pay taxes,” she said.

“If Najib did not do this, then he is merely paying lip service,” she stressed.

She also slammed the government which decided in its 2016 Budget revision to freeze its Public Services Department (JPA) bursaries plans that impacted 744 applicants.

She suggested that the government stop the ‘empty’ National Service programme and channel the allocation to bursary programmes.

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