Four schools ordered to hand out cash aid

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Mohd Puad conducting the groundbreaking ceremony with an excavator.

BELURAN: The Education Ministry has ordered four schools to hand out schooling assistance to students, and not to use it as the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) fees, said Deputy Education Minister Dr Mohd Puad Zarkashi.

“We have received some reports regarding the matter and have asked the four identified schools to hand out again in full amount to the students,” he said after the groundbreaking ceremony of a RM5 million school hostel in Paitan yesterday.

The deputy minister said the government wanted the schooling assistance to benefit parents so that they could use the cash aid for their children’s education.

He urged parents and guardians to report to the ministry if they did not receive the full RM100 cash aid from the respective schools.

Mohd Puad also said students from Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan (SMK) Simpangan in Paitan would no longer have to squat at a site at a primary school here when their new school building is completed in April next year.

He said the secondary school building was being built at the cost of RM25.6 million involving an administration block and 12 classrooms that could accommodate 613 students.

“The site of the new school building is not flood-prone. The students will not longer have to squat at Sekolah Kebangsaan Simpangan.

“The government is giving priority to the new school project for it will facilitate students from Paitan to attend secondary school,” he told reporters.

On two more secondary schools in the district that squat on SMK Balaban Jaya and SMK Ulu Sapi, he said the new school projects would be given priority under the third rolling plan of the 10th Malaysia Plan.

Mohd Puad, who is also School Physical Facilities Audit Committee chairman, also said 1,618 schools nationwide, including 545 in Sabah, which were categorised as severely damaged, were being upgraded.

The upgrading works include structural repairs, construction of new buildings and re-wiring, he added.

One of the teachers of SMK Simpangan, Jasing Aying, hoped that the proposed new school building and hostel can be completed on schedule to make it easy on the students.

“We thank the government for providing the new school building that will replace the obsolete wooden school building that we have now.

“I believe the teaching and learning process can now be conducted properly to eventually boost rural students’ spirit to strive for excellence in their studies,” he said.

Beluran Umno chief Datuk James Ratib and Beluran education officer Suji Abu Hassan were at the ceremony.