Stipend for international students being reviewed

The Minister of Higher Education Dr. Ali Haidar stated today that work has begun to review the loans and stipends given by the government to Maldivian students studying internationally.

While speaking on the "Tharujamaanaa Eku" podcast hosted by the President's Office Chief Spokesperson Heena Waleed, Haidar said that they are receiving complaints regarding a failure of on-time funds to international students.

He said that even though they began work to send the funds more than two months before they were supposed to, certain issues caused an eight week delay, with the money not being sent.

The minister went on to say that the review is being done due to varied stipend amounts being sent to various countries.

"We are in the process of starting the review into stipends. We have been using the same stipend for about seven years now. However, living expenses in every country have been rising. And so, we began a review stage this year," said the minister.

"Once the review is done, students will receive stipends relative to the country they are studying in."

According to statistics in the last four years, most of the students who have been determined to receive the funds have been sent funds, said the minister.

Haidar stated that they work to give funds to students only if all required documents are present as per financial regulations. If the documents are incomplete, the minister said the funds would not be released.