Parti Gerakan Vice President Dato’ Mah Siew Keong today urged government to set up a committee to process all applications and decide on the PSD scholarship. In addition to PSD officers, government should also appoint experienced individuals from the public and private education sector.

Dato’ Mah Siew Keong said, currently the decision on who gets scholarship lies in the hands of a few PSD government officers. In view of the criticism and allegations received every year on this problem, this cannot be allowed to continue. There must be a clear guideline on processing and full transparency on who gets the scholarship. He said, Gerakan received a lot of complaints on this matter with some students coming in tears.

Dato Mah said, “This is nothing new, the same thing happens every year when the time has come for the PSD scholarship to be distributed. Despite getting similar complaints every year, the PSD scholarship department shows no improvement, there has got to be major flaws in the selection process“.

Dato Mah says that the World Bank has already alarmed us about the severe Brain Drain issue that Malaysia is currently undergoing, and now that students is getting unfair treatment and unnecessary heartaches despite working very hard to get good results. How is the government going to persuade these students to return to serve the government in the future after they graduate?

Dato Mah is very disappointed with the lack of transparency and professionalism in the panel. He urges that immediate action should be taken to correct the issue once and for all. The government should consider setting up a committee comprising Academics and NGO leaders to decide on PSD scholarships.