Kuala Lumpur (VNA) – Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has announced that the country will soon roll out a special financial assistance scheme to help thousands of newly enrolled students at public higher education institutions cover the cost of air tickets.
Under the scheme, the Malaysian Government will provide a one-off domestic airfare subsidy of 500 MYR (around 120 USD) to each eligible new student enrolling in September and October 2026.
Anwar said the policy is expected to benefit 7,095 students who need to travel by air between Peninsular Malaysia and the eastern states and federal territory on the island of Borneo, namely Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan.
Speaking at the 2026 Malaysia Day celebration at the Borneo Convention Centre Kuching on September 16, Anwar said the airfare assistance was part of the federal government’s commitment to easing the financial burden on the people, alongside improvements to the diesel subsidy scheme and the restructuring of special grants for Sarawak.
The Malaysian PM also said the government had decided to allocate a special grant of 1.5 billion MYR to Sarawak. Previously, the government had increased the special grant for Sabah from 600 million MYR to 1.5 billion MYR.
He said the federal government would continue working with the Sabah and Sarawak state governments to develop a sustainable formula for determining the annual special grant rate./.
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