Places go to those who need them most

Household income against what your household needs

Not income on its own. A published zakat needs table sets the minimum monthly sum a household of your exact composition requires, and your income is measured against that figure. It is why a large family on a middling income can be assessed as needing more than a small family on a low one. What the form asks:

• Total gross household income a month, every earner at the family home added together. Both parents if both of them work. Your own allowance is asked separately and does not go in this figure
• How many adults work, and how many do not
• How many are studying at university, including you
• How many are aged 7 to 17, and how many are 6 or under
• How many dependants are registered OKU, and how many have a chronic illness
• Whether the household pays for childcare for anyone aged 12 or under
• Whether the family home is rented or owned

Assistance your household already receives

The figure above is one you declare yourself. This block is the outside confirmation of it, which is why it needs a reference number or a letter rather than a statement. Only the strongest one you hold is counted, not all of them added together.

• Registration on eKasih
• JKM assistance, including Bantuan Anak Pelajar, Bantuan Kanak Kanak and Bantuan OKU
• Zakat education assistance from LZS, MAIWP, PPZ or a state religious council
• A household receiving Sumbangan Tunai Rahmah
• Your household income band, read from the national bands published by DOSM

What you have each month to live on

One number: the money that reaches you every month for living costs. RM170 means something very different to someone holding nothing than to someone holding a full living allowance.

• Allowance from your family
• Your PTPTN disbursement, spread across the months
• A scholarship or sponsorship living allowance
• Zakat or JKM education assistance paid to you

What you earn yourself from part time work is not counted here. Nobody should be penalised for working, and a student with a part time job is usually showing need rather than comfort.

Whether you could commute from home instead

Measured in road distance one way, read off Google Maps from the town your family home is in, not in which state you come from. Distance rather than travel time because we can check it and so can you: same map, same number, both sides. Pahang is why it is distance and not a list of states, since Bentong is 80 km out and Kuantan is 250. The top band is a sea crossing rather than a distance, because from Sabah, Sarawak or Labuan there is no journey home at all short of a flight.

• One way road distance from your family home to UM, in kilometres
• The town your family lives in, which we measure against the distance you declare
• Clinical postings starting at 7am, in Medicine, Dentistry and Nursing

Who is responsible for supporting you

Not the size of your family, which the first block already covers. This one asks whether there is an adult whose job it is to keep you going. Two students from households on the same income can be in completely different positions. Only the strongest line that applies to you is counted.

• Both parents deceased
• Living under a guardian or an institution rather than a parent
• A single mother or father, through death, divorce or desertion
• Both parents living but neither working, and no pension
• A parent unable to work through disability or chronic illness
• You yourself contributing to the household income

Disability, medical need and disaster

Each of these produces a numbered document, which is why they can be assessed at all. Applicants with a disability are also handled on a separate track alongside this.

• You are registered OKU with JKM
• A chronic condition that needs repeated treatment
• The family home damaged or destroyed by flood or fire within the past twelve months

What is never looked at

• Anything not on the rubric. The six criteria published there are the whole instrument. There is no seventh thing weighed quietly
• When you apply. The first form of the morning and the last before closing are read together, afterwards
• Your faculty, your year or your programme, beyond a clinical posting timetable
• Who you know. No committee member can add a point to anyone's application. The score comes out of the numbers

How the decision is made

1. Every form is scored automatically from the numbers and choices you gave. Contradictions between answers raise a flag for a human to look at

2. A shortlist is drawn, larger than the number of beds. Documents are checked line by line against what was declared

3. A short verification call, around ten minutes. Anything you declared that the documents do not support is dropped, and the next applicant moves up

4. Offers go out. Women and men are ranked on two separate lists, because the houses and their beds are physically separate and there are roughly as many of one as the other

The written part of the form is read at the shortlist stage. It can move you within a group of applicants scoring much the same, but it cannot create a score.