In the Budget 2022, Finance Minister Tengku Datuk Seri Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz has announced a few measures to provide some form of aid to students to help them return to education.
One of the measures includes providing tablets for B40 tertiary students under the PerantiSiswa Keluarga Malaysia programme to ensure that those who were not able to afford these devices, did not get left behind.
Fast forwarding to April this year, the Communications and Multimedia Minister Tan Sri Annuar Musa has recently revealed about what the said tablets would look like.
K-KOMM sedang berkerja keras menyiapkan portal permohonan on line bagi PerantiSiswa yg di jangka di buka 15hb ini.Urusan perolehan juga sedang di urus oleh K-KOMM dan MOF.(foto hiasan) pic.twitter.com/T51A6vWt3V
— Annuar Musa (@AnnuarMusa) April 3, 2022
Taking the announcement to Twitter, he wrote “The Ministry is working hard to make sure that the portal for online PerantiSiswa applications will be ready by the 15th of this month.”
He also shared several pictures of the tablet along with his tweet but did not reveal the specifications of the device.
However, netizens were not amazed by this and many expressed their disappointment over the cheap-looking tablets in the comment section.
Jgn la bg laptop cap ayam lg yb, make sure contractor supplier tu buat kerja betul bukan ambil 500% margin 😭😭😭
— ummu zein (@shirocut3) April 3, 2022
“Please don’t give an unbranded device again, make sure the contractor in charge of supplying it does it properly and not just to take a 500% margin.” a netizen commented.
Another netizen also pointed out the horrible 1Malaysia laptops which were given in the past. Apart from the subpar quality of the laptops, there aren’t any spare parts on the market.
Datuk kene bljr dari kesilapan laptop 1Malaysia dulu.. Mereka kasi kami laptop sampah (brand Aerogate, Dorumu) yg x kualiti dan xde sparepart di pasaran. Hasilnya rosak kena scrapped, tkleh repair.
— Guruh (@effendi_ec) April 4, 2022
Dengan laptop berkualiti juga, student blh cari duit poket dgn freelancer online.
“So if it becomes faulty, you’d have to scrap it. Can’t repair it. With a quality laptop, a student can also get pocket money by doing freelance work online,” he added.
A netizen said he hoped the picture is only for illustration purposes. He also said that for the specs to be relevant in today’s age, the authorities should get a branded laptop. “If the laptop were to have any issues, at least the student can fix it,” he added.
What do you think about this? Share your thoughts in the comment section below!