Financing Options Open to NSmen for Education Courses

Mr Zainal Sapari asked the Minister for Education (a) for the past two years, how many National Servicemen (NSmen) with "A" level certificates or diplomas have used their NS Incentive Awards that are credited into their Post-Secondary Education Accounts (PSEA) to finance their education courses; (b) how many of them are currently pursuing degree courses at private institutions for non-MOE subsidised courses, excluding SIM and SMU; and (c) what are the financing options open to NSmen who intend to pursue undergraduate programmes at private institutions for non-MOE subsidised courses.

The National Service Recognition Award (NSRA) was implemented in 2011, with a component of this monetary award going into the Post-Secondary Education Accounts (PSEAs) of eligible NSmen. Since then, about 61,000 NSmen have received an NSRA top-up to their PSEA. About 14,000, or 23% of them, have used the account to finance post-secondary education on Government-subsidised courses.

MOE does not capture data on the number of NSmen who are pursuing non-subsidised degree courses at private institutions, for which the PSEA cannot be used. These NSmen can tap on education loans offered by commercial banks or financial assistance schemes offered by the institutions themselves to finance their studies.