Former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak says he misses student activists as he points out the budget cuts for the Education Ministry.

"The voice of student activists are no longer heard. Even their shadows can't be seen. I miss you all," he wrote on Facebook today.

In the posting, Najib listed a number of reductions under the 2019 education budget, namely no mention of RM250 student subsidies for books, RM10 million cut to preschool food aid, boarding school food aid (RM100 million less), federal scholarship for students (RM28 million less), and scholarships for teachers-in-training (RM6.5 million less).

He also highlighted the fact that the special bonus for civil servants had been cut from RM1,500 to RM500 under Budget 2019.

"Maybe students and teachers are among the 'Malaysians who don't deserve aid and subsidies because they're lazy' according to the Harapan government," Najib wrote.

However, past budgets under the former premier's administration had also seen cuts and complete elimination of allocation for some of these programmes.

In Budget 2017, Najib had completely wiped out the minor federal scholarships (RM100 million in 2016), and scholarships for teachers-in-training (RM50 million in 2016). These were later refinanced under Budget 2018.

Allocations for the preschool food aid programme had also been gradually cut under Najib's watch from RM92.99 million in 2016 to RM90 million in 2018.

Meanwhile, RM5 million was cut from the boarding school food aid programme in 2017 to RM1.07 billion, before the allocation was increased to RM1.1 billion for 2018.

The Education Ministry's budget for 2019 is RM60.23 billion - almost RM380 million higher than the combined RM59.85 billion Najib had allocated to the now merged Education and Higher Education Ministries for 2018.