KUALA LUMPUR: An alarming 97 per cent of National Higher Education Fund Corporation (PTPTN) loan borrowers have failed to make repayments after finishing their studies.
Deputy Higher Education minister Datuk Mary Yap Kain Ching said from 2014 to 2016, 728,935 borrowers had graduated but a substantial number of them had yet to make repayments.
"Out of the figure, 701,895 of them had been listed in the Central Credit Reference Information System (CCRIS)," she said at the Parliament.
Yap who is BN's Tawau MP was responding to a question posed by BN's Lubok Antu MP Datuk William Nyallau Badak who asked for statistics of PTPTN loan borrowers who had graduated in 2014 - 2016 as well as the number of those who were listed in CCRIS.
The system, she said, was not used to punish borrowers but an instrument to track their credit behaviour.
Yap said CCRIS listing was geared towards ensuring that borrowers would come forward to negotiate the loan repayment arrangement with the corporation.
"In other words, CCRIS is aimed at educating borrowers to become more disciplined, responsible and consistently committed in making loan repayments," she said.