A recent Bernama news item says that more than 15,000 people applied to withdraw their Employees Provident Fund (EPF) savings to finance their own or their children’s education. In Q3 of this year, this amounted to RM87.1mil which was a 51.5 percent increase from the RM57.5mil withdrawn in Q2.
EPF attributed this increase to a surge in new intake into institutions of higher learning, as well as the institution’s effort in expanding its education withdrawal to include diploma programmes.
According to EPF CEO Azlan Zainol, the education withdrawal gave members the opportunity to better themselves and earn a better income so that they would be able to save more for their retirement years.
The report also said that withdrawals by EPF members turning 50 and 55 fell slightly in the quarter but housing withdrawals grew by 16.5 percent to RM1,960.2mil, over the previous quarter’s figure of RM1,682.3mil.