PARLIAMENT | The government has no plan to stop sending excellent Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) students to further their studies in the United Kingdom (UK).

Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Senator SK Devamany said the programme of sending the students was still being continued despite the current economic downturn.

He said this when replying to a question from Izani Husin (PAS-Pengkalan Chepa) on stopping the sending of Malaysian students to UK in the Dewan Rakyat in Kuala Lumpur today.

Commenting further, Dewamany said the Public Services Department had sponsored 1,651 students to further their studies in UK until Jan 1 this year under the National Sponsorship Programme (PPN).

He said the sponsorships of 20 excellent SPM students each year were to 10 renowned universities in UK including Oxford, Imperial College London and Cambridge University.

“The sponsorships involved eight fields, namely, Computer Science, Information Technology, Material Science, Mathematics, Financial Management, Business Administration, Politics and Pychology.

“The selection of the universities are based on the highest position in the QS World University Ranking 2016 and the choice of fields depends on human resources demand and job opportunities.

In addition, he said, the PSD would help 461 excellent students this year in the 9A+ Sponsorship Programme to further their studies in local universities.

He said PSD would also sponsor excellent SPM students with 7A via the Special Engineering Programme (JKPJ) to Japan, South Korea, France and Germany, while 7,000 students would be be sponsored via the Domestic Degree Programme (PIDN).

He said a specific programme would also be introduced for 1,000 students from families with B40 (bottom 40 percent of households with monthly income RM3,900 and below) income to pursue diplomas in Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET).

- Bernama