KUALA LUMPUR – Skills Development Fund Corporation (PTPK) has rejected claims by private training centres that it repeatedly stopped financing student loans and living allowances, insisting support for trainees remains uninterrupted.
In a statement, PTPK dismissed the allegations raised earlier this week by the Federation of JPK Accredited Centres (FeMAC), calling them “baseless”.
“As of August, PTPK has approved and actively financed RM524 million in loans, involving 52,098 students and 306 training centres,” they noted. “All approved students continue to receive both their loans and living allowances as usual.”
The agency noted that the allowance for trainees had in fact been doubled from RM400 to RM800 per month, underscoring what it described as its commitment to ensuring Malaysian youth have access to relevant and market-ready skills training.
Since its establishment in 2001, PTPK said it has approved RM4.76 billion in loans for more than 306,000 borrowers.
The rebuttal came after FeMAC, representing more than 350 private training institutions nationwide, warned that thousands of students – most from low-income families – were being left without promised financing.
The group said the funding gaps had disrupted classes, prevented some students from advancing from certificate to diploma level, and placed financial strain on training providers.
“Almost 80% of TVET students come from B40 families,” FeMAC’s Exco member Tengku Ahmad Mujahid Tengku Mahmud said in a statement on Tuesday.
“This issue creates immense pressure on students and their families, and risks undermining the country’s need for at least 1.3 million skilled workers by 2030.”
PTPK, however, stressed that no student with approved financing had been cut off, and said future allocations would be guided by new priorities such as high-impact programmes, repayment records, compliance with application terms and post-training job placements.
FeMAC has urged the government to provide an additional RM500 million annually under the 13th Malaysia Plan to ensure stability, alongside immediate payments of outstanding allowances. — September 12, 2025