Manyin to discuss Gawai holidays left out from timetable

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BAU: Minister of Education, Science and Technological Research Dato’ Sri Michael Manyin will meet his counterpart at federal level to discuss the Gawai holidays ‘missing’ from the school timetable.

He had briefed the state cabinet on Thursday that Sarawak and Sabah did not have any holidays for Gawai and Keamatan as next year’s mid-year school holidays start on June 11.

“I briefed and told the cabinet that if they give me the mandate, I would meet the Minister together with Sabah. If Sabah agrees, then we request that Sabah and Sarawak have different mid-year holidays. It may be one week earlier. That is my proposal.

“So I am going to meet the Minister. If Sabah agrees, we will go together. If they don’t then I may have to go alone,” he told reporters after the launch of the Bau Speak English Every Day (SEED) programme at SK Jagoi here yesterday.

Manyin said the state cabinet had given him the mandate to meet the Minister of Education.

He said he would propose that school mid-year holidays in Sarawak start on May 28 right up to June 9, which will be Gawai time.

“I think people will be happy if we can have school holidays during Gawai. I hope I will be successful in that,” he said.

Gawai Dayak, which has been included in the school holiday timetable for the past 54 years, had been excluded from the 2018 holiday schedule.

On the claim by a former cook of a secondary school in Subis, Miri that he was sacked as he was not a Muslim, as published in The Borneo Post, Manyin said he cannot comment on it because as far as employment was concerned, it was a policy matter.

“Unless the matter is brought to the Education Department and the Education Department asks me to help, I can always bring up this case to the meeting with the Ministry in Kuala Lumpur.