Terengganu to use oil royalty to help students pursue higher education abroad

2008/08/24

Terengganu to use oil royalty to help students pursue higher education abroad
BERNAMA

KUALA TERENGGANU, SUN:

The state government will create a special scheme using oil royalty money to help Terengganu students to pursue higher education abroad.

Menteri Besar Datuk Ahmad Said said the allocation would be channelled through the Terengganu Foundation and that the state government was studying the best mechanism to implement the scheme.

The state government expects to receive the royalty in September.

“We will invest part of the oil royalty money into the Terengganu Foundation so that more students will be able to study overseas.

“We don’t want Terengganu students to be left behind in education due to lack of sponsorship. We will announce the scheme when the time comes,” he said when opening a public examination excellence programme here today. Ahmad said at the moment the foundation was allocated with RM50 million a year to sponsor students to pursue higher education.

He said Terengganu hoped to create more professionals and had sent 50 students to study medicine in Indonesia and Egypt and would send another 50 to Russia to take similiar course next year.

He also said that the state government had set the target of increasing the percentage of UPSR students obtaining 5As to 20 per cent this year compared to 17 per cent last year.

He was also confident that with hard work and cooperation from students, parents and teachers, the target to increase the percentage of students scoring A in all subjects would increase by 10 per cent at the PMR level, five per cent at the SPM and 1.5 per cent at the STPM.