During the launch of PerantiSiswa, the Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob announced that the tablets for B40 students will be distributed outright instead of through a loan scheme. He said the decision to provide the tablets directly was made after receiving feedback from the Communications and Multimedia Ministry and student representatives.
During the launch of #perantisiswa PM announced that the tablets for B40 students will be given directly. “No need to loan, no need to return, the government provides the device directly” https://t.co/qeJwFHkdQj pic.twitter.com/tBU8JA5qcX
— SoyaCincau (@Soya_Cincau) September 3, 2022
“No need to loan, no need to return and the government will distribute the tablets directly to recipients of the PerantiSiswa program,” he said.
The PerantiSiswa programme was first announced during the tabling of the Budget 2022 and the original plan was to provide tablets to B40 students studying in institutions of higher learning on a loan basis. The program was given an allocation of RM450 million and was meant to benefit 600,000 eligible students. Early this year, the government has made some changes to the programme particularly reducing the number of tablets from 600,000 to 350,000 in order to provide higher-quality tablets.
After several months of delay, Communications and Multimedia Minister Tan Sri Annuar Musa announced that the Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 with LTE will be the tablet of choice for the PerantiSiswa programme, complete with a keyboard and stylus. Besides the Samsung tablet, eligible students will also receive a Book cover, a Bluetooth smart keyboard and a Stylus, which are also Samsung branded. The PerantiSiswa tablets and accessories appear to be packed in a special PerantiSiswa Keluarga Malaysia box complete with a picture of the Prime Minister.
During a live press conference, Annuar Musa shared that there are over 100,000 applications received under Phase 1 of PerantiSiswa and about 50,000 applications received so far under Phase 2. The Minister clarified that the program has maintained the same budget ceiling and they even managed to get some savings which allow them to extend the program to cover more B40 students including those studying in Form 6 and matriculation. The government aims to distribute a total of 400,000 tablets under the programme.
Annuar said the actual market price for the Samsung tablets is much higher than the government’s procurement and it also includes original accessories instead of OEM. In addition, the tablets come with a two-year warranty instead of the usual one-year manufacturer warranty.
He hopes that students will take good care of the tablets and not to resell them. He also reminded students who have obtained tablets or devices from other various programmes not to apply for PerantiSiswa to ensure that the devices can be distributed to other students in need. Applications for PerantiSiswa Phase 2 are still open and eligible students can apply online.
[ SOURCE 2, IMAGE SOURCE ]
