KUALA LUMPUR, May 30 — National Higher Education Fund Corporation’s (PTPTN) Wan Saiful Wan Jan believes that stakeholders with different priorities concerning the fund’s policies can achieve an agreement despite their varied interests.
Based on their different feedback, the PTPTN chairman today said the organisation would be able to produce a proposal to address policies that would garner the approval of the majority of the people, although he admitted that it would not be an easy challenge.
“I think it’s possible to reach a proposal that would be agreed to by many people. (However) there would always be people who disagree and that’s part of a healthy democracy,” Wan Saiful told reporters during a breaking fast event here.
“So one stakeholder group may say that their priority is to ensure that they are not burned by repayment; another group would say: 'Hey, I have paid, why are you not paying?'; another group would say: 'My children are not borrowing yet but I want to make sure that they are able to borrow (to fund their university studies) next year, in two years time or three years time', so their competing priorities are clear,” he added, pointing out that their different views have created a healthier debate among the people while previous discussions were mainly based on “emotions”.
The PTPTN chairman also urged the people to voice their views via school parent teacher associations (PIBG), local residents associations, village community management councils (MPKK) and official channels like PTPTN's portal, instead of turning to social media.
PTPTN will conduct an analysis based on the information gathered and submit a proposal to the Education Ministry once all parties have had a chance to speak up, he added.
PTPTN's current public consultation initiative which kicked off on May 16 will end on June 13.
“Our consultation session will close on June 13. After that, we will require about two weeks to analyse the data, and I expect to submit a report to the Education Ministry at the end of June or early July,” the chairman said.
When asked if the report would be made public, Wan Saiful said the decision would depend on the ministry and cabinet.
However, he said he will try to ensure that the summary of the report can be presented to the people.
PTPTN has tried to implement various measures to address the ongoing issue of loan defaulters.
Its public relations and management council senior general manager, Abdul Ghaffar Yusof yesterday said that the average amount of loan repayments received from January to March this year was between RM150 million and RM180 million per month, while the actual amount of repayments should be RM300 million monthly.
According to a May 19 report by national news agency Bernama, Wan Saiful was quoted as saying that re-imposing the travel ban on errant borrowers was among the ideas submitted as a result of PTPTN's ongoing public engagement sessions.
