KULAI: There are applications from 63,000 students to get the PerantiSiswa tablet PCs for B40 students under Budget 2022, says Communications and Digital Deputy Minister Teo Nie Ching.
“Out of that number, 25,000 applications have been approved while the rest are still being studied under their respective education institutions.
“The approvals come from the respective institutions and on our part in the ministry, we only distribute (the devices) under the initiative.
“These institutions will be looking into whether the students are indeed from the B40 category,” she added.
Teo also said that there haven’t been any new reports of students reselling their PerantiSiswa tablets.
She said that the ministry, previously known as the Communi cations and Multimedia Ministry, had only received reports on about 13 cases as at November last year.
“I hope that there will not be any cases after this as the tablets are meant to help those in the B40 category,” she said when met after handing over some 1,090 PerantiSiswa tablets to students from 13 learning institutions at SMK Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra here yesterday.
Teo reminded students not to sell the tablets and to take into consideration others who are unable to get the devices.
“This is an initiative to help those in the B40 category and it is handed out based on applications from the students.
“For them to apply, it shows that they really needed it, and they should not be selling it to others.
“If they already have tablets at home, then they should not apply and let others get it instead.
“I hope that students can be wise about this and make the right choice,” she said.
She added that the Finance Ministry had allocated some RM450mil under Budget 2022 to provide the tablets to students under the B40 category.
“A total of 301,737 students from various higher learning institutions nationwide have received the tablets.
“There are still about 17% who have yet to receive it and we hope to distribute the tablets to them as soon as possible,” she said.
