Dr Yaacob Ibrahim (middle) at the media briefing after the Yayasan MENDAKI's 20th Annual General Meeting. --PHOTO: BH
STUDENTS will continue to top Malay self-help group Mendaki's priority list as it prepares to spend more on keeping kids in school.
Last year, its expenditure on education and youth was $7 million, up from $6 million the year before, with more getting help with tuition, subsidies and scholarships.
And the cost will go up, with applications for its various education programmes for the first five months of this year already exceeding all of last year's.
The numbers were given out at a media briefing at Mendaki's headquarters in Upper East Coast Road, after its 20th annual general meeting on Saturday.
'We have worked very hard to ensure whatever services we have been offering continue to be offered and expanding some services to ensure no one falls through the cracks,' said Mendaki chairman, Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, and Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs.
That includes giving out close to $600,000 in subsidies to 3,540 pre-school, primary and secondary students last year under its Education Trust Fund scheme, an increase of 12 per cent from the year before.
It also revised the eligibility criteria for fee waivers of its educational programmes, raising the monthly household income limit from $1,000 to $1,800.
Its report card for last year also showed a $1.1 million loss from an investment in a UBS global fund. Earnings from it were chanelled to the Education Trust Fund, which was launched in 2003.
Dr Yaacob said there was an option to hold on to the investment but the fund's custodians decided to cut losses.
Even so, the investment gains made have helped offset the losses, and the capital has been preserved, he said.
