KUCHING: Sarawak's free tertiary education scheme aims to meet the state's workforce needs in high-skill sectors towards achieving developed status by 2030, says Datuk Dr Annuar Rapaee.
"One key indicator of the scheme is that it will assist students, especially those from lower-income families, to enter university, resulting in higher enrolment in our state-owned universities.
"This will also reduce our dependence on foreign labour in these important fields," he told Datuk Fazzrudin Abdul Rahman (GPS-Tupong) during question time in the Sarawak Legislative Assembly on Thursday (May 22).
The free tertiary education scheme, to be implemented from 2026, will fully cover tuition fees for eligible Sarawakian students at state-owned higher learning institutions comprising Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak, Curtin University of Malaysia, University Technology of Sarawak and i-CATS University College.
The approved programmes under the scheme include undergraduate degrees in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), Law, Medical, Accounting and Finance.
Dr Annuar said STEM-related and professional courses were offered under the scheme to meet Sarawak's workforce needs.
"If we open up the scheme for every course, it might produce unemployed graduates.
"We need to match the courses offered under the scheme with the demands of the job market," he said.
More importantly, he added, the scheme would ensure that graduates were not in debt upon completing their studies as they would have no student loans to repay.
Besides covering tuition fees, he said the state government would provide a yearly stipend of RM15,000 to students from households with a per capita income of RM1,500 and below.
"This is meant to assist them in terms of accommodation and other living expenses," he said.
To complement the scheme, Dr Annuar also said the state government had allocated RM20mil for the Sarawak educational enhancement programme to provide free tuition to students from Form Three to Form Five.
He said this would help them achieve the necessary qualifications to pursue STEM-related and professional courses at state-owned institutions.
"We believe this programme will help rural students in particular to benefit from the free tertiary education scheme," he said.
