Funds for Mendaki's Tertiary Tuition Fee Subsidy Scheme

Mr Muhamad Faisal Bin Abdul Manap asked the Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts and Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs (a) what is the amount of funds that are granted to Mendaki for the Tertiary Tuition Fee Subsidy (TTFS) scheme each year since 2001; (b) what are Mendaki's plans to ensure the financial sustainability of funding for the TTFS for Muslim students; and (c) in the event of a deficit, what are Mendaki's plans to ensure that the welfare of our students are met.

The Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts and Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs (Assoc Prof Dr Yaacob Ibrahim): Sir, I would like, first, to clarify that the TTFS is a scheme for Malay, not Muslim, students, as reflected in the hon Member's question. It is an educational subsidy covering the tuition fees of Malay students at tertiary institutions.

Sir, the Government provides an annual grant for TTFS, which is disbursed by Yayasan Mendaki to eligible students. The grant is calculated based on the total enrolment of Malay students in the Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) and prevailing fees. Therefore, there will be sufficient TTFS funding for eligible Malay students in IHLs. No deserving Malay student will be denied a tertiary education because of financial difficulties.

The amount of TTFS grant provided by the Government has increased from $35 million in 2001 to $47 million in 2012. The amounts are reflected in Mendaki's Annual Reports. Undisbursed funds from TTFS are channelled to Mendaki's Education Development Fund (EDF), which currently has $72.6 million in its reserves. The EDF is used for educational assistance schemes and other educational programmes run by Mendaki.

Sir, the revised eligibility criteria which have taken effect this year will not affect Mendaki's financial provision for TTFS. This is due to how the Government grant is computed each year. In fact, the revised criteria means that more Malay students are now eligible compared to the past. Previously, only Malay students from a family with a monthly household income of $3,000 and below qualify. With the introduction of the per capita income in the new criteria, Malay students in a typical four-member household with a monthly income of $6,000 and below would now qualify. Mendaki expects about 7,000 new and existing students to apply for TTFS this year.

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Mr Muhamad Faisal Bin Abdul Manap (Aljunied): Mr Speaker, Sir, I have one supplementary question. Would the Minister consider extending the TTFS scheme to postgraduate programmes?

Assoc Prof Dr Yaacob Ibrahim: Sir, the TTFS is a Government scheme, not a Mendaki scheme. At the moment, it is restricted only to students doing undergraduate and diploma courses in local institutions. Postgraduate funding – no institutions actually fund this other than scholarships given by the institutes. So, the TTFS is meant only for students studying locally as undergraduates, and at the polytechnics.

Dr Intan Azura Mokhtar (Ang Mo Kio): I thank the Minister for the answers. May I find out how many Malay students have received help from TTFS and, with the revised eligibility guidelines, how many more Malay students will continue to benefit from TTFS? And my second question is: with more funds being given out through TTFS, how will this affect the implementation of other programmes or schemes under Mendaki currently and in the future.

Assoc Prof Dr Yaacob Ibrahim: Sir, for the last four years or so, the number of Malay students eligible for TTFS stands at about 2,200. As I mentioned in my reply, we would expect the number to increase to about 7,000. Sir, let me explain to the House that the scheme is actually quite benign towards being in favour of the students rather than towards the Government or Mendaki. If you are in the scheme, despite changes to your family income, you continue to qualify. If you are out, and there is a change in your family income and you qualify, you will come in. So, the reason as to why the numbers will go up would be simply because of students in the past who were not given the TTFS under the old criteria, would now qualify under the new criteria and they can apply. So, we expect many more students to qualify for TTFS this year. This will have, obviously, an impact on the reserves which I mentioned earlier that goes towards the EDF.

As the number of Malay students has been somewhat constant in the last few years, the reserves that we have been getting, in fact, have been coming down and they will come down significantly this year because of the fact that many more Malay students will qualify. As to whether or not this will impact Mendaki's reserves, this matter is being studied very closely by my staff. We have to wait until the new set of criteria is fully implemented this year. By the end of this year we will have the complete numbers for us to really understand its true impact, but initial calculations show that there may be a chance that we have to dip into our reserves in order to maintain our programmes. This is something in which we have to study very carefully because our commitment to the community is that all the programmes that we are implementing will continue to be implemented because they are important for the community.

Mr Speaker: Mr Muhamad Faisal, last question.

Mr Muhamad Faisal Bin Abdul Manap: Sir, I would like to thank the Minister for his reply. The Minister mentioned that there was this amount of undisbursed fund. May I know the reasons why this fund is not being disbursed? Is it due to low numbers of applications or any other factors?

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Assoc Prof Dr Yaacob Ibrahim: Sir, as I have mentioned in my reply, the reason why we have undisbursed funds is because the way the numbers are computed by the Government. The Government looks at the number of Malay students, looks at the total fees and then computes the total amount, but not all of them will get the subsidy. The reason is very simple – the Government wants to help Mendaki to run more programmes, and the money from the undisbursed TTFS goes into Mendaki's Education Development Fund to run other programmes which are extended to all Muslim students, and not only to Malay students. In that way, Mendaki can run more programmes.