KUALA NERANG, June 20 — The Rural Development Ministry (KPLB) is preparing a working paper on the proposal to raise the living allowance of students sponsored by Majlis Amanah Rakyat (MARA) in the United Kingdom (UK).

Its minister, Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid said the working paper would be submitted to the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob and the Finance Ministry soon for approval.

"I have met with the sponsored students, and many of them have requested that their daily allowance be increased slightly as the cost of living in UK is rising especially utilities such as electricity, water, gas public transport and house rental.

"I will be completing the paper to be forwarded to the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob and the Finance Ministry,” he said when met after opening the 48th Parent-Teacher Association meeting of Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Dato’ Syed Ahmad, here today.

He was asked to comment on his working visit to UK, among others to meet MARA-sponsored students studying there last week.

Meanwhile, Mahdzir said Universiti Kuala Lumpur (UniKL) is forging collaboration with the Institution of Railway Signal Engineers (IRSE), an international licensing body based in UK, relating to railway transport signaling control system.

He said the cooperation was discussed between the ministry and IRSE in his visit aimed at assisting UniKL to offer a related course for its students.

"We have a railway faculty at UniKL in Kuala Lumpur, but we are new so we need to collaborate. We (UniKL) also discussed with a university to cooperate with UniKL in the field of aerospace.

"We are asking the university to collaborate with the Institute of Aviation Technology of UniKL to enable our institute improve the quality of our students,” he said. — Bernama