The administration and classroom block of SK Sungai Buloh, Selangau.
KUCHING: More funds are needed to rebuild Sekolah Kebangsaan (SK) Sungai Buloh in Selangau even though it has been chosen as a recipient of assistance by a Pan Borneo Highway Sarawak (PBHS) project contractor under its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme.
SK Sungai Buloh, built in 1957, is categorised as one of the most dilapidated schools in Sarawak.
SK Sungai Buloh pupils gather for the recent event.
Senior Assistant 1 of the school, Jouny Sebli, who has been teaching at the school for eight years, said they were looking forward to having a new classroom block, including a dining hall and more boarding houses.
“In view of the increasing number of student enrolment every year, we would need new boarding houses for our students. Our boarding house now is not enough to accommodate students.
“We used to have only 70 students seven years ago, out of whom 30 to 40 stayed at the boarding house. Now, we have 137 students, 90 of whom stay in the boarding house in a cramped situation,” he said when asked about the condition in the school, which also accommodates pre-schoolers.
Jouny related this to the media after Works Minister Baru Bian stopped over at the school when he joined a three-day Jelajah FTRoadpedia from Telok Melano to Miri to inspect all the 11 work packages at the beginning of this month.
SK Sungai Buloh, which is 16 km from Selangau town and 90 km from Sibu, has six classrooms and one pre-school.
It has 10 wooden quarters for teachers and obtains water from the gravity feed system and rain water. It relies on a generator set for 24-hour electricity supply.
One of the blocks that serves as the quarters for teachers.
It has one computer lab, one boarding house, a dining hall block, one administrative block, one block of classes and one block of pre-school classes.
Though dilapidated, student enrolment at SK Sungai Buloh has been increasing every year because parents view it as a good school as it has achieved 100 per cent pass in the UPSR exam for the last five years.
“We have drafted one high achievers’ academic programme for the school, and as you can see from the result for the last five to six years, we have scored 100 per cent passes in the UPSR exam.
“All of us including the parent-teacher association (PTA) are happy with these results and we have seen how our teachers really work hard for it. I think the teachers deserve to be given better accommodation as compared to what they get now, at least to motivate them,” he said.
Jouny said the PTA and the school were thankful to Musyati Mudajaya JV, one of the contractors of the Pan Borneo Highway project, for refurbishing the school.
Under the refurbishment project, Musyati Mudajaya JV will construct eight units of teachers quarters, drainage around the school, four public toilets (currently they only have one) as well as the refurbishment of the dining hall and female boarding house which will cost approximately RM1.5 million.
Jouny also hopes that the Sarawak Education Department could assist them with the flood problem, in view that this school is prone to floods.
“We had a bad experience sometime in 2015 when there was a big flood at 2.30am; the water rose very fast. We had to evacuate the children from the boarding house and piggy-backed them to the dining hall.
“Nowadays, if the flood hits our school, and if water rises to waist level, it is a normal thing for us, but the worst hit was in 2015, where the water rose to between 10 feet and 12 feet,” he said, adding he hoped that the Sarawak Education Department would do something before the landas season arrives.
SK Sungai Buloh is the second school to be refurbished by the contractors of PBHS, after Lebuhraya Borneo Utara (LBU) helped to refurbish SK Kampung Buda, the school that collapsed into the crocodile-infested river in 2015.
The refurbishment works at SK Kampung Buda was completed at the end of 2017 using the Industrialised Building System (IBS) at a cost of RM2.8 million.