Needy students must be first to get study awards

EDUCATION loans are meant to help underprivileged students pursue tertiary studies.

I salute organisations who willingly provide loans for students to pay their tuition fees. Students whose parents who are unable to work or cannot afford for various reasons, solely depend on education loans especially medical students like me.

Despite obtaining straight As in SPM, I struggled to get to medical school as I was not able to secure any of the full scholarships that I had applied for.

Also, many naysayers discouraged my brother and I from pursuing medicine since I could not afford it. This statement indirectly implies that a medical degree is only for those whose parents are wealthy enough to pay their tuition fees.

Is it wrong to break the circle of poverty that has been encircling my family?

My hardworking father had tried his very best to provide an education for his children even with his low salary as a labourer in a factory for over 30 years. He retired recently and now works as a security guard just to ensure our education does not come to a sudden halt.

We had been through various hurdles together but being unable to get into the medical faculty in a public university, was the “wake up call” for me.

My brother and I have not been able to earn a place in any one of the country’s public universities although we scored good grades in our SPM.

Even worse, scholarships are in many instances given to those who may have made the grade, but they also come from wealthy families. The reason to this is because only students who come from families who can afford, are capable of excelling in both studies and other co-curricular activities without any burden on their shoulders.

Students like my brother and I were able to excel only in studies and couldn’t think of participating in school activities and events because we could not afford the time or money. What we did was to study hard and achieve what we aimed for.

What we did was to juggle our time between studies and part time jobs after school.

We decided to study medicine at a local private university with the help of our older sister who took the responsibility of paying the initial tuition fees.

We each applied for PTPTN loans and that is also helping us to cover part of our studies.

I believe that the education authorities should be more discerning when they process scholarships. They really ought to be given to deserving students.

However I am still optimistic. The road to success may not always be a smooth ride as there will be obstacles and challenges, but if we set our mind towards a goal, we will achieve whatever we have aimed for. We need to grab what we have and chase our dreams.