822 nursing students receive BR1M RM200 vouchers
Posted on February 3, 2012, Friday
GRATEFUL: (From left) Loriena, Nisha, and Halmond show off their vouchers.
KUCHING: Masterskill College of Nursing and Health yesterday presented 822 students with ‘BR1M RM200 vouchers’ for them to purchase books at selected book stores.
Generally, the recipients felt glad to receive the vouchers that would help reduce their parents’ financial burden.
Balit Nyekok, 22, a student taking Diploma in Healthcare said this would ease some of his financial burden and he was thankful to the government for helping the people.
“By giving out these vouchers, the government has shown that it is caring and supportive of our education. I appreciate what the government has given us,” he told The Borneo Post yesterday.
20-year-old Nisha Kaliani, a Diploma Physiotherapy student said she was glad to be given the assistance and hoped the government would continue with its effort in helping the people.
She explained that the vouchers were very useful to those with limited finances.
“I can now make use of this RM200 voucher to purchase useful books related to my studies,” she said.
Another recipient, Halmond Ting mentioned that he would make full used of the voucher to purchase necessary items.
He said this was a good opportunity to save some money so that he would not depend so much on his parents.
He also agreed that the government was concern for the people’s education by giving out the assistance.
“I also hope that the government will continue to give out the vouchers for education purposes for many years to come,” he said.
Many of them felt since medical books were so expensive, it would be better if the government could increase the value of the vouchers.
“Three books already cost more than RM500,” Ting pointed out.
“Medical related books are so expensive. One book can cost about RM200 depending on what course we take,” Nisha added.
Diploma Physiotherapy student Loriena Lo also mentioned that most medical books were very costly and a lot of students felt the pinch when they had to purchase them.
“For example, the book Gray’s Anatomy can cost a few hundred ringgit. The RM200 vouchers can ease some of our financial burden but we also hope the government will consider to increase the value of the voucher to those taking up medical courses,” said Lo.
Earlier, centre manager and head of recruitment Tony Tan said the college had also held a book fair in conjunction with the distribution of the book vouchers.
“Majority of our students come from outstation and for some it will be a tedious process looking for transportation to go to bookstores in the city. This has given us the idea to bring in the bookstore to the campus for the convenience of all our students.
“We have invited My Bookstore and Smart Books Shop to our book fair,” he said.
He said the college was thankful to the government for the initiative in providing some form of financial assistance for undergraduates to purchase academic and reference books.
