Minister offers personal consultation to renew PTPTN plan

Malaysia's Ministry of Higher Education is formulating a plan to help borrowers of the National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN) loans to complete their payment.

Its minister, Datuk Seri Idris Jusoh said before helping borrowers, the ministry should assess their situation in order to identify borrowers who are really struggling to make their repayments or who have deliberately refused to do so.

"I will formulate my own version of the repayment plan, so students can come to see me, and we will draft a way to help them (the borrower) repay their PTPTN loans, I am their alternative," he said.

Idris, however, pointed out that at the same time borrowers must also continue to make payments on their loans to PTPTN while the plan is being formulated.

Idris said he has personally received about 30 e-mails from borrowers who face difficulty in repaying their loans.

As of July this year, there were 2.49 million PTPTN borrowers across the country since the body was established in 1997.

It was reported that the Ministry of Higher Education aims to recover a loan payment of RM3 billion by the end of this year following a loan repayment target of RM2 billion projected for this year which has been achieved.