GOING GREEN: Rohani planting a tree to mark her official visit to the school yesterday. — Photo by Jeffery Mostapha
KUCHING: By 2015, all secondary schools, including mission schools must set up their own cooperative.
Deputy Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Minister Datuk Rohani Abdul Karim revealed that based on the record provided by Malaysian Cooperative Commission (SKM) of the 187 secondary schools throughout Sarawak, eight were still without cooperative.
“Most, if not all, of those without cooperative are mission secondary schools. They have yet to form their school cooperatives because their management boards said they were still not ready to set up one.
“So now we are going to give them a push and by 2015, we expect all secondary schools in Sarawak will have cooperatives,” she said.
Speaking to reporters after the launch of Cooperative Day activities at Kolej Datu Patinggi Abang Abdillah in Petra Jaya here yesterday, Rohani said cooperatives would not only help the schools to generate income, it could also enable the students to gain basic business skills.
“In this regard, the Education Ministry had informed all secondary schools, including mission schools to set up cooperatives and we believe that by 2015, no school will be left out,” she added.
She added that the government also encouraged all schools, including those at the primary level, to form their own consumerism club.
“This programme is already very popular in Peninsular Malaysia and now we hope that schools as well as institutions of higher learning in Sarawak will also follow suit,” she said.
She explained that this was necessary because the students must know more about their
rights as consumers.
Earlier in her speech, she disclosed that as of May 30 this year, a total of 803 cooperatives had been registered in the state including 179 established in schools.
According to her, up to December 31 last year, Sarawak tregistered 214,740 school cooperative members with capital share amounting to RM1.33 million and asset value of nearly R20.6 million.
“From the shares and assets the school cooperatives could achieve a turnover of about RM18.3 million and nett profit of RM3.03 million. This shows that school cooperatives have a very strong foundation and should be able to go even further,” she stated.
On the status of the Kolej Datu Patinggi Abang Abdillah cooperative, Rohani said that it was among the top 100 in the country and at the state level it was one of the top 10.
She said for them to achieve such a position was something beyond expectation because usually only cooperatives in the rural areas experienced steady growth but not those in urban centres.
“So to me for the cooperative of Kolej Datu Patinggi Abang Abdillah to make such an achievement is something really tremendous and the students and teachers deserved all the credit,” she said.
Among those present at the occasion yesterday was deputy State SKM director Joseph Teng Mun Koh and Kolej Datu Patinggi Abang Abdillah senior assistant Aishah Ahmad.