By Yasmin Ramlan
SHAH ALAM, Nov 10 — Selangor’s free tuition programme will be expanded to include Form Four students starting next year, with an additional RM3 million budget, Mentri Besar Dato’ Seri Amirudin Shari announced today.
This brings the programme’s total annual allocation to RM10 million, he said when tabling the 2024 Selangor Budget in the State Legislative Assembly.
Currently, the Selangor People’s Tutoring Programme (PTRS) only involves Form Five students sitting for the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM).
Amirudin said the move to expand the programme aligns with the state’s election manifesto ‘Kita Selangor Pledges’, which targets the participation of 200,000 students within the next five years.
“(The inclusion of Form Four students in PTRS) will elevate the total number of participants in the programme to nearly 120,000 students across Selangor (next year),” he said.
Earlier in his speech, Amirudin said the Selangor school aid programme, first introduced in 2009 to assist schools in repairing and upgrading their infrastructure and facilities, will be continued next year with a RM26.5 million allocation.
Of that figure, RM1.5 million will be directed towards the state’s special fund for the rehabilitation and restoration of schools affected by disasters.
He also announced efforts to empower the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) sector by inculcating relevant skills among Selangor’s students, with a RM2 million allocation to organise schools’ educational programmes.
The state government will similarly expand the Selangor Early Childhood Care and Education Caretaker (Impak Selangor) programme next year by introducing a new developmental screening programme to identify children with development issues.
The initiative will be targeted at children aged three to five from B40 families and is aimed at ensuring early intervention can be taken.
“It is also part of the state government’s initiative to shorten the waiting period for appointments with developmental paediatricians at government hospitals, which currently takes between two to three years. Therefore, the state government allocates RM350,000 for this purpose,” Amirudin said.
