KOTA KINABALU: The state education director should not have to refer to the Education Ministry for approval to award tenders for the appointment of canteen operators, supply of security personnel, procurement of school supplies and grass cutting services.
Tuaran Member of Parliament Datuk Wilfred Madius Tangau said he was of the opinion that the state education director should be given the authority to do all this.
Debating the motion of thanks to the Royal Address in the first session of the 13th parliament sitting on Monday, Tangau urged the Federal Government to reinstate the power of the state education director with regard to appointment and to award tenders such as mentioned above.
The Tuaran MP said it is a waste of resources for the government to undertake every single tender process for small jobs from Putrajaya, and added that it is an unnecessary over centralization red tape, inefficient and smacks of distrust on senior education officers in Sabah.
The House was told by the Education Ministry that the government would review the existing policy of centralizing the power to award tenders, to appoint canteen operators, supplying security personnel, grass cutting services and the procurement of school supplies with the view to empower the Sabah education director.
Tangau was visibly happy with the decision and when asked outside the house how he felt about the decision, he said, “the government is merely reinstating the power of the director of Education Sabah. The power has always been with Sabah.”
“Now that the government is intending to reinstate it, we ask that the government look into formulating the most efficient mechanism to ensure quality and productivity,” he stressed.
The Tuaran MP congratulated the government through the Education Ministry for initiating the formulation of the Pelan Induk Pembangunan Pendidikan (PIPP) and hoped that unnecessary red tape in the delivery system would not hamper the implementation of the plan.
Tangau also thanked the government for its commitment to teach the Kadazandusun Language in schools as shown in the recruitment of additional lecturers in the subject at the Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris (UPSI) Tanjung Malim and the increase in the number of Institut Pendidikan Guru (IPG) involved in the teaching of the subject.
It has also been reported that more students are taking the subject including request from parents.
In view of that, Tangau suggested the government increase allocations to finance additional intake of trainee teachers in the three IPG of Kent, Gaya and Keningau as well as at UPSI. For example, at the IPG Kent in Tuaran the intake is only 20 trainee teachers per intake and yet number of trained teachers on the subject is very few.
Parents in Labuan have been requesting for the local Education Department in Labuan to start the teaching of the Kadazandusun Language but it has not been approved because of the lack of teachers with Kadazandusun Language option, he pointed out.
He added that most of the Kadazandusun Language teachers at the moment are voluntary and largely untrained.
Since there was no specific response from the minister on the issue of the teaching of Kadazandusun, the Tuaran MP said that he would bring it up again during the debate on the up-coming Supplementary Bill.