Students No Longer Required To Return PerantiSiswa Tablets At The End Of Their Studies

Students that received tablets from the PerantiSiswa Keluarga Malaysia initiative will not be required to return them back. This decision was announced by Prime Minister Ismail Sabri at the programme’s launch event earlier today.

Previously, students must pass the tablets back to the government at the end of their studies. At the moment, we are still not fully clear if there are caveats attached to the new policy especially given that the FAQ section of PerantiSiswa’s official website has yet to reflect the announcement made by the Prime Minister though at the time this article is published.

For example, a Facebook posting by Sabah’s Department of Information said that the students will only get to keep the tablets if they achieve a CGPA of 3.5 or higher. However, no such requirement was specifically mentioned by Ismail during his speech although he did reveal it has been suggested during a meeting between Communications and Multimedia Minister Annuar Musa and student representatives last month that the tablet should be given away for free to outstanding students.

The CGPA requirement was not mentioned by Annuar himself at his post-launch press conference too. However, the minister did point out that Form 6 and matriculation college students who already received their PerantiSiswa devices will not be eligible to apply for another device when they advanced to their degree programme.

Early last month, Annuar revealed that the government has decided to obtain Samsung Galaxy Tab A8 LTE with 4GB of RAM and 64GB for the programme. In a set of photos that were published on his Facebook page yesterday, the tablet is also being accompanied by first-party Samsung accessories including ITFIT Tab A8 Book Cover, ITFIT Stylus Pen and Smart Keyboard Trio 500 as well as a 7.75W charger.

With a budget of RM450 million, the programme aims to benefit 350,000 students across the country. Those who are eligible for it but have yet to register can still do so at PerantiSiswa’s official website and expect to receive the tablet alongside accompanying accessories sometime in October or November.